The Modernity Conspiracy

In contrast, the USA—has decided to become an iron curtain country where everything from information to people is controlled, filtered and managed.


huh? Is this satire? sarcasm? or do you really believe this? It`s like a guy who gets pulled over for going 110 in a 55mph zone complaining about another guy not being pulled over although he`s doing 56mph..



Once you are in US, it is impossible to leave. And if you are outside, it is difficult to enter. The Green card has become the Red card.


You have the option..feel free to exercise the option..

A Reversal of the Tide in India
Tech Workers Flow Home to More Success

It is likely that for the First World to remain First World, the Third World must remain Third World.


The third world is where it`s at because of it`s own stupidity..But things change..For years, Indians came to the US and it was one-way traffic..Now Indians, the successful ones, are going back to India to get even more out of life..What changed? The Indians who came to the US? Nope..The US? Nope..It was India that made the right choice and changed for the better..

Take a look at how many IIM grads refuse foreign offers because they want to do their thing in India...something that would be met with derision less than 15 years ago..



Despite the science parks, children watch more TV in North America than anywhere else in the world.


The system provides the opportunity to watch TV or spend time in a library...It`s up to the parents to take the opportunities presented and make the right choice for their kids..

This sounds like something comrade masadi would write(just add the koran rocks!! part and the writing will be indistinguishable from what he writes)

These MBA types who have `experienced` the corporate culture and confused the `experience` with high societal discourse need to be schooled about writing a thesis statements and working off a draft.

Saima Shah has consistently hid her airhead behind the hijab of high faluting angst but this time it shows. The airhead that is..

Saima, please sum up your essay thus..

Thesis.

One piece of evidence.

How it relates to the thesis.

Personal angst and ramblings.

Public declaration thanking kaka.

“Increasingly this dependency is not just for resources but also for man power and mind power. What are the ramifications for the increased dependency of the First World on labor from the poorer/non-modern countries?. Perhaps a whimsical question: Could this mean that post-modern culture is unsustainable?”

Post-modern culture is unsustainable because of resources from the third world. How is that so? Read up the history of colonialism, the first world got to the post-modern by using resources from the third world. Where we are today is just an extension of the colonialism.

Before the 2nd ww, the first world used to forcibly take over the third world countries, use up the resources and the manpower to either semi-manufacture products or develop raw material to use in the first world. The 2ndww slightly altered that method. The first world started inviting the “manpower” and little “mind power” to come to the first world as guest workers and at some places those guest workers were given permanent residency. (Kashmiris in the UK, Algerians in France and Mexicans in the US are good examples of manpower import from the third world)

Study the civil Rights movement in the US; it was encouraged by the US administration. MLK Jr. became MLK Jr. because he had strong support in the US admin. The results of the civil war movement opened up the floodgates of immigration in the US. The civil Rights movement was used to create laws that would make the US attractive for the third world “mind power” workers to come to the US. The elimination of the 2nd class citizen category for the colored people helped people from Asia and Africa to immigrate to the US.

The new trend is to send the job overseas to keep the production costs down and stay competitive. It is no more cost effective to bring people to the first world. It is rather easy to send the jobs there. Technology has done that for the first world. This is just another phase of colonialism. The third world would continue to be exploited and the first world would move in to post-post modern era.

The US education in post graduation work has no peer as that is where the top tier of workers is created. It costs too much to teach all American to be in the top tier. So the most of the production lines are manned by the American workers but the engineering jobs would go to people who have not spent a whole lot on education in the third world countries and thus can be under paid. The whole system is geared to keep the production cost down. The cost is the prime mover in production and competition.

“When immigration could not solve the labor issue the capitalists just upped and moved to cheaper producing countries making the first world even more dependent on the third.”

It makes sense. In the first world higher standard of livings necessitate high cost of production. Even the migrant workers have to be paid more for them to afford cars to get to work. If you move jobs to the third world, you eliminate the higher price paid to the worker and you also remove other allied costs such as complying with the employment laws, the health care costs and the social security. But really the first world is not more dependent on the third world. It is actually the other way around. You raise the standard of living for a section of population in a third world country and that section would ensure that their country stays hooked up with the first world.

More on this later.

Saima ji, why behind this facade of analysis and deep study of socio-economic conspiracies one senses smoke of hurt burning, angst at everything American and simmering hatred of your surroundings is so visible?

``Once you are in US, it is impossible to leave.``

please tell, how is it impossible to leave? people leave this place all the time...do oyu mean comfort of life is so prisoning that one can`t escape it once one experiences it? it is liek that fat husband who blames his wife for cooking so good that he has become fat eating too much.

`` And if you are outside, it is difficult to enter. The Green card has become the Red card. ``

which country allows free flow of people? or which country worth its salt allows free flow of people?

Saima,

Modernity is not about technology or capitalism. It is about a state of mind. A modern person can lead a simple life but is open to new ideas and new concepts. The Arabs have money and can buy technology and have flashy roads/buildings. But at heart, the arabs are NOT modern. They will keep their women trapped at home, be intolerant of other religions and behave miserably towards South Asians. On the contrary, if you go to India, you may find poor people but they will tolerate different points of view and different religions. So who is more modern? That Arab or the poor Indian?

Saima, I have trouble understanding a lot of what you write. Part of it is me, but your writing style does not help. You meander a lot and jump from point to point rather randomly and you take for granted that the reader is with you. You also mix established theory with opinions quite liberally.

And you are rather pessimistic. Try to cheer up a little before you get down to writing, and I have a feeling it will improve dramatically. (Drink some Rooh Afjaa or some such drink perhaps (but stay off any of hamidm`s prescriptions))

You also don`t seem to like the capitalistic system - but is there anything else? I think all other systems are also capitalistic except the rest are distorted artificially.

But on the positive side, you do have an original style!

I don`t think you should put words in Shakespeare`s mouth.

However, since you did - let me do the same from the other side.

If Karl Marx were alive today, he would say the following:

``Boy, what a chump I was!``

Notes

[Raising children in the West is darn difficult. Not only is a child a financial calculation but also an impossible problem since there is no in-built community support for rearing children.]

I said this on another board: ``I have always had this private theory that the reason the Indian subcontinent has such a high population growth rate is because there is too much help available through extended family members. If Indian parents had to raise kids by themselves - as in the west - the country would not have an overpopulation problem.``

what makes you think that modernity is intertwined with giving up god? US is much more religious than Europe and is decades ahead in terms of technological prowess. Japan is a religious and tradition based society and is decades ahead of Europe.

The growth in R&D spend in Asia is going to eclipse Europe soon. SO god is not the driver here...

Maybe you should delve deeper into this religious thing and try to see which religions, as they are today, shackle modernity and preservation of wealth. I woudl look at the birthplace of islam as a starter. One would have thought that with oil prices as they stand today the p[er capita income would rival lichtenstein. But institutional failure decade over decade keeps them with one foot in the 7th century.

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hamzaad:
take it more as an internal-monologue and then check out how much `raw info` this piece has got... :-) like desi version of Penelope...

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A low subliminal buzz yes a sort of ‘numbing’ yes yes a pressure to produce yes and consume yes a tremendous feeling yes of uselessness yes and a continuous discontent yes yes

Who or what is still tingling? yes

The Third World yes

#3 by HP <<< Where we are today is just an extension of the colonialism. >>>

yes that captures the reality of the current world situation well. The only difference is that this new colonialism has developed intricate mechanisms that perpetuate it and extend its reach to the entire globe, unlike the old colonialism that was crude and tedious.

HP : <<< Study the civil Rights movement in the US; it was encouraged by the US administration. MLK Jr. became MLK Jr. because he had strong support in the US admin >>>

True again. Reforms that could be institutionalized within the current social system were preferred as damage control by the US elite rather than changing the entire institutional setup. Thus groups like the black panthers and the Muslims and Malcolm X were deliberately marginalized and MLK made into a hero inorder to protect the status quo.

HP: <<>>

I would disagree with this, rather if even a small percent of what is spent by the US admn on the military is diverted to education most people in the US could get a decent education. However the top tier shortage, that commands huge handouts is largely artificially created.

HP: <<>>

True, but again this dependency is created through neo-colonial mechanisms. If the ``third world`` were to break free of this domination by the first world, then indeed the first world would reveal just how ``dependent`` it has been on the third, both for profits and for resources. We see this indirectly in their reactions to every country that tries to show independance and use its resources for its own benefit. We get many ``fatwas`` coming from the US elite regarding all such countries and leaders. In fact these are the only countries and leaders that become famous in the US, the ones against whom the US elite passes fatwas.

HP: <<< You raise the standard of living for a section of population in a third world country and that section would ensure that their country stays hooked up with the first world. >>>

Yes the elites in the ``Third World`` are the ones through whom the ``First world`` dominates and controls the masses there.

The term `post modern` though it is seldom realized was first coined by C. W. Mills in his 1959 book, The Sociological Imagination. He coined the word to show the rise of bureaucracies, transforming the entire social system in a rationalized structure that as a result restricts freedom and stifles reason.

The author writes <<< A low subliminal buzz, a sort of ‘numbing’, a pressure to produce and consume, a tremendous feeling of uselessness and a continuous discontent.

Who or what is still tingling?

The Third World >>>

True. Simmel discussed that regarding the blase` attitude that develops in modern metropolitan societies, Tonnies` discussed that in his difference between community (gemeinschaft) and society (gesellschaft). However instead of the Third World transforming the first to be more ``human``, the opposite is going on with the first dominating the traditions and culture of the third, and rapidly standardizing it in its predetermined position within the global pecking order.

Good topic and discussion. We need more articles like these on Chowk.

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Dear Saima Shah

As a young student I read Dostoyevsky and it was many moons ago. The idealist inside me did not like when I read, “Some people have to be killed and made to suffer to keep others fresh and alive”. I thought of it as a tyrannical remark as if he was justifying brutality and suffering. And I did not like it …. But how true was he, I think of it often now!

Except for shifting focus too quickly at some places your article is right on the mark. You feel the societal pulse so well.

There is a two tear system in every system; one for privileged and the other for disadvantaged. The same hold true at the level of nations and countries also. Privilege exists at the expense of someone else - unprivileged. The data is somewhat old but it may still be valid that the US consumed 27% of world resources and created 30% of world garbage much out of proportion its due share on the percentage basis for population. Of course the struggle is how to maintain these percentages.

The point you make about Turkey and its identity crisis is so true. I think the problem is bigger and more diverse. Lots of countries are trying to put great efforts into defining themselves in the era of identity-diffusion thank to our post-modernism. But I am not sure what Ottoman Empire contributed in her late part as compared with last 50 years that you referred to in your article.

You have covered so many points in your article that it would take another article to review it fully. But I feel must I say ….. Bravo!

Tahir Qazi

Here come the First Worldians from the Third World:-

How the Ambani plans stack up?