Is Flat the best shape for the World?

Thomas Friedman's 'World is Flat' was a revelation for me. It helped me truly apprecite globalization and its benefits on mankind. From then on I have always been looking forward to rapid globalization. So I was really irritated when I heard Baba Ramdev riling against globalization at 5.00 Am in the morning on Astha channel. Some people are just so archaic in their ideas and resistant to change.

But then everything else the Baba was saying made sense and all his arguments were based on sound logic. How could the Baba be so blind and prejudiced on this aspect alone? This thought kept running in the back of my mind. So I tried to put some thought to his reasoning. Ideally when examining the motives for someone's actions, the ideal starting point would be the driving purpose in the person's life. So what was Baba Ramdev's driving purpose? To revive ancient Indian traditions, especially in the field of medicine. How could globalization hamper this? Doesn't globalization provide more efficient means for dissemination of ideas, enabling pearls of wisdom from ancient India to reach greater number of people? So we seem to have reached a dead end here.

So I decided to pick a different thread and proceed. Why did the Indian traditions recede to the background in the first place? Even worse, why were the religion, culture and traditions of the Celts, Mayans and many other ancient civilizations totally decimated? We often hear of them having made so many valuable discoveries. Why they all were lost? A study of history would indicate they were not accidentally lost but systematically destroyed. Why did this happen? It is because the group of people who had established superiority in military technology used the superiority used their military victories to impose their ideas in all other sphere of life on the conquered people. So it happened that people in different regions independently developed solutions for problems in different spheres such as society, religion, medicine, culture etc.

Ideally the ideas in each sphere should have competed against the other ideas in the same sphere from other regions. The best idea should have triumphed and drawn in some of the best aspects of the other ideas. Then the different groups would have started from there and again developed parallel ideas. This process carried out iteratively would have lead to the most efficient system for development of ideas. But this is not what happened. Instead the battle of superiority of ideas was fought in a single sphere – the military battle field. So it came about that the ideas of the most brutal people who focused more on military became the standard for the world on all spheres.

Coming to the present times, have we wondered why in ancient times so many parallel technologies, art forms, music forms etc. developed in various parts of the world. But now there seems to be just a single stream of ideas centered on the American region. One cannot but avoid the conclusion that globalization is the reason for that. With the world so integrated, new ideas do not get the time and space to develop to their full potential. Instead they are exposed and evaluated at the nascent stage. So only a single idea gets to develop fully. All other get nipped in the bud. There is also another angle. The people in power are in power due to the current ideas. They would not want their power base to be eroded by emergence of new ideas. So they exercise their power to kill all new ideas. Earlier also the situation was the same. But the reach of these powerful persons were localized and new ideas could always spring up in areas out of their reach. But globalization has brought the entire world within their reach. There is no place one can be safe from the Microsofts, IBMs and Coca Colas of the world. We keep hearing how major pharmaceutical companies are strangling research by leveraging their patents. All major cities of the world are slowly beginning to resemble each other. We find McDonalds and Pizza Huts all over the world. Travel seems to be losing its novelty.

I can keep ranting on. But I guess I have conveyed the general drift of my arguments and I don’t see any more value to be added. So I will conclude with the refrain of a song from German rock band ‘Rammstein’

We're all living in America,

America is wunderbar.

We're all living in America,

Amerika, Amerika.

We're all living in America,

Coca-Cola, Wonderbra,

We're all living in America,

Amerika, Amerika.

This is not a love song,

this is not a love song.

I don't sing my mother tongue,

No, this is not a love song.

We're all living in America,

Amerika is wunderbar.

We're all living in America,

Amerika, Amerika.

We're all living in America,

Coca-Cola, sometimes WAR,

We're all living in America,

Amerika, Amerika.

Gulliver's Travels

Talking about Budha, Swami Vivekanda mentions the irony of Budha, who stood against idol worship all his life, only to be he himself made an idol and worshipped after his death.’ Gulliver’s travels ‘presents a similar irony. A misanthropic work seeking to bring out the failings of human civilization ended up delighting children for centuries. Not that Jonathan Swift did a bad job of it. He rather did a too good job of it. He has put so much attention to details and written so lovingly that people can’t help falling in love with the book, satire though it is.

Most books have a general purpose: to entertain, to put across a point, to educate etc. At the outset, it may seem fantasy would always serve only to entertain. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Fantasy provides much more scope that any other literary genre to explain complex or abstract concepts and to prove a point. For instance an ‘Animal Farm’ can teach you what is communism better than any political science text book. Similarly fantasy is a very good tool to examine the current social conditions form a detached stand point. Aesop’s parables and Panchatantra are classic examples of social messages conveyed through intelligent animal societies. ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ can be counted in their ranks as it tries to illustrate the vanity, frailty and baseness of human spirit in general through fantasy.

Through the lands of Lilliput and Brobdingnag, Swift tries to bring out how all the self effacing actions of the so called high and mighty would seem trivial and mean to someone viewing from a point of higher vantage. Gulliver find the actions of the little Lilliput so mean and vicious only to later find the huge Brobdingnag King viewing human society in similar light. If one were to set aside the allegorical aspect and the philosophical discussions, reading about Gulliver’s adventures would be like seeing the movie ‘Honey I shrunk those kids’. From an imagination perspective however, the lands of Laputa, Balnibari, Luggnag and Glubbdubdrib take the cake, each of which can be subject of an entire book in their own right. Each of these lands has a fascinating society with its own fascinating customs and traditions. In one of the lands, you need to pay respect to the king by licking the dust on the floor. Another king does not interest himself in anything that is not mathematics or music. Then there is this land of scientists and their comical inventions. Consider for instance this particular invention in Jonathan Swift’s own words

"A Device of plowing the Ground with Hogs, to save the Charges of Plows, Cattle, and Labour. The Method in this: In an Acre of Ground you bury at six Inches Distance, and eight deep, a Quantity of Acorns, Dates, Chestnuts, and other Maste or Vegetables whereof these Animals are fondest; then you drive six Hundred or more of them into the Field, where in a few Days they will root up the whole ground in search of their Food, and make it fit for sowing, at the same time manuring it with their Dung."

In the final episode in the land of Houyhnhnms, we encounter Jonathan Swift’s ideal world, a world as fascinating as Thomas Moore’s Eutopia or Plato’s republic. However instead of detailing it more rigorously, he prefers to use print space to vent his ire on the human race by bringing in the humanoid race called Yahoos that represent all the worst characteristics of humans. This is where one can markedly see Swift’s misanthropic tendencies.

The aspect that is glaring by its absence throughout the book is characterization. Gulliver is the only prominent character running through the book. And Swift really makes no attempt to develop Gulliver’s character either. The various lands provide different experiences many of which show humanity in bad light.They could have been used effectively to gradually develop Gulliver’s misanthropic tendencies. However one sees no evidence of any such attempt by the author. Instead it comes on suddenly towards the end of the book, making it seem rather contrived just to deny the reader a happy ending.

Overall this book is what the reader wants to make of it. If one wants, one can ignore the satire and just enjoy the fantastic lands. One the other hand one can chose to marvel at the allegories and derive intellectual satisfaction. For yet another it may lead to deep soul searching regarding the direction mankind is heading towards.

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Alice in wonderland

“I just did what I do best. I took your little plan and I turned it on itself. Look what I did to this city with a few drums of gas and a couple of bullets. Hmmm? You know… You know what I’ve noticed? Nobody panics when things go “according to plan.” Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it’s all “part of the plan.” But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds! “

The above words from Joker in the movie ‘Dark Knight’ best summarize the effect Alice in Wonderland had on me when I read it the first time at the age of 12.

I was stressed out from studying for my annual exams and was looking for a light children’s fantasy to de-stress. Having seen bits and pieces of Alice in Wonderland on TV and from the cover illustrations, it seemed exactly what I was looking for. But it turned out to be an experience akin to that of the beggar shivering in cold who was delighted to see a blanket floating in the water. The beggar jumped into the water gleefully. But before he can grab the blanket, the blanket grabs him for it turns out to be not a blanket but a big bad bear. The book threw me into depression for 3 whole days. None of the elements in the story by themselves are scary. But all put together creates a surreal horror of living through a nightmare. Everything is so unpredictable and illogical that one gets a feeling of not only living among lunatics in a mental asylum but of oneself being one too.

The story has no plot, no plan, no direction. Things just keep happening. The characters are all shallow, self centered and dehumanized. Most of the fantasy elements have an element of unpleasantness packed into them- the pool of tears for instance. Alice is nothing like the typical sweet and innocent female protagonist of most children’s novels. She is more like a feminine and younger version of Holden Caulfield in J D Salinger’s Catcher in the rye – of a dry and sarcastic temperament. One can find humor in the ridiculousness of the whole thing but the humor is definitely of the darker kind. Not something one would typically look for in a children’s’ fantasy.

Going by what has been said so far, one might wonder why at all have the books been popular and that too over time. Of course the easiest explanation would be that this kind of darker fiction has its own following. But the aspect that really sets it apart and makes it appealing to all kinds of readers is the clever, quirky and though provoking conversations and quotes. The conversation between Alice and the Cheshire cat is a classic example.

'Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'
'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.
‘I don’t much care where –’ said Alice.
'Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,' said the Cat.
‘–so long as I get somewhere,’ Alice added as an explanation.

There are many such gems sprinkled generously all over the book.

The Alice series – consisting of ‘Alice in Wonderland’and ‘Through the Looking Glass’ is not definitely not a ‘feel good’ fiction and not at all recommended for children and the faint hearted. However the elements of satire and allegories can provide a simulating intellectual experience for an adult reader if the expectations are set correctly right at the beginning.

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