I.7. Western Monoculture and Indic Pluralism
Part I.7
Western
Monoculture and Indic Pluralism
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The Spread of the Monoculture
Western
civilization, in spite of claims to support diversity, is promoting a worldwide
monoculture�the same basic values, institutions and points of view for everyone�which
it calls �globalization�. Western commercial culture with its pursuit of
markets and commodities eliminates all true culture, which is based on quality,
not quantity. It creates a culture of money that submerges any true culture of
refinement or spirituality, in which everything can be bought and sold,
possessed or capitalized on.
If we visit
shopping malls in America today, for example, it is hard to tell what state in
the country we are located in. The shopping malls in Florida, California, New
York or the Midwest have the same basic stores and sell the same basic
products. The streets look the same, as do the houses, apartment buildings and
office buildings. People eat the same basic types of food and have the same
habits of work, sleep and relaxation. Almost everything is mass-produced and
follows the same economy driven forces.
These same types
of businesses pioneered in America are spreading worldwide, whether it is Coca
Cola, McDonalds, blue jeans or Barbie dolls. One finds the same multinational
corporations operating in nearly every major city of the world, whether Tokyo,
Shanghai, Mumbai or London. While one finds foreign stores like Chinese
restaurants in shopping malls even in America, which have their niche in the
global scene, these operate according to the same commercial approach as
standard western businesses. They do not represent real globalization but a
co-opting of foreign businesses by the western commercial culture.
The world media
is yet more of a monoculture. News services worldwide provide what are
essentially the same stories from the same cultural slant. They are
standardized in a western model and promote a western point of view with
western ideals of free trade, social equality, democracy and affluence. People
all over the world watch Hollywood movies, listen to the pop music of the US
and Europe, and adulate American athletes.
Similarly, in
the universities of the world, it is mainly western civilization that is
taught, even if there is an old and profound civilization. In a country like
India, Shakespeare is a much better known and quoted poet than Kalidas, the
equivalent great Sanskrit poet. The West honors the Japanese for
enthusiastically taking up western culture, music and entertainment. But it
regards as close-minded or communal, cultures that try to hold their own ground
and avoid the consumerist assimilation.
The Danger of Monoculture
This consumerist
monoculture is a great leveler of culture. Wherever it goes it either destroys
or co-opts the local culture. It destroys local culture by ending native
traditions and replacing them with western business, political, religious or
intellectual models. It co-opts them by turning local arts and crafts into
exotic ware for mass marketing, for example, how Native American culture has
been turned into a big business in the US, though the money seldom goes to the
natives! Monoculture results in �deculturalization� in which entire cultures
and civilizations are subverted or eliminated. Modern commercial culture is monopolistic
and seeks hegemony, though it allows a diversity within its ranks so long as it
doesn�t interfere with its expansionist aims.
We can compare
this social monoculture with plant monoculture. Monoculture in farming occurs
when the same crops are planted over and again in the same soil. The result is
that the soil gets exhausted. Monoculture in nature occurs when the diversity
of plant species is destroyed by deforestation and a few species, often of
foreign origin, are planted instead or simply flourish as weeds. Monoculture in
agriculture and forestry result in the loss of both plant and animal species.
Similarly, monoculture in human culture brings about the loss of cultural and
individual diversity. Today we are witnessing, generally silently, an appalling
and rapid disappearance of traditional cultures. Languages, the hallmark of
culture, are passing away in the world at a rapid rate. Monoculture with its
standardization and uniformity is the rule. Franchise is the game in businesses
of all types. Local and home owned stores are disappearing, just as the family
farm has given way to global agribusiness run by large oil companies (like
Exxon owning vast tracts of farmland in California)!
������ We can draw a further analogy between the monoculture and the
use of terminator seeds, which when planted render native seeds sterile. The
real purpose of such seeds is not to increase food production but to make
farmers worldwide dependent on seed banks for further crops that puts them
under control of the global agribusiness. The monoculture tries to control the
rules of debate and the presentation of ideas worldwide, which all goes back to
it for validation. People only gain validity in their field when famous or
recognized by the monoculture and its media. Representatives of other cultural
traditions don�t count for anything. The result is that people go to
monoculture institutions to gain credibility even in their local cultural
disciplines. In the Indian context, Indian scholars seek their credentials not
in their own temples and ashrams of their own country but in western
institutions like Heidelberg, Oxford or Harvard, or in westernized departments
of their own countries like at JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University), the center of
leftist thought in India. Such scholars become opponents of their own cultural
traditions, supplanting native schools of thought with the cultural seeds of
the West, putting an end to their own independent traditions of thought which
they are supposed to represent!
The destruction of
cultural diversity, like that of biodiversity, is devastating to living
systems. The loss of cultural diversity does to human beings what the
destruction of biodiversity does to the world of nature. Just as we are
destroying our outer landscape of forests and wilderness, so we are destroying
our inner landscape of art and spirituality. Our minds are as polluted as our
rivers.
Monoculture
and the Quality of Life
������ Monoculture claims to
improve life by raising �living standards�. People all over the world make what
is on paper a much higher income than that of their parents. With this income
they can buy computers, televisions, stereos, or whatever the latest
technological equipment happens to be. They can afford to go to restaurants,
watch movies or travel and stay in expensive hotels. However, this increased
�paper wealth� is deceptive. Their houses, which on paper are worth
phenomenally more than those of their parents, are usually smaller and much
more expensive to maintain. In fact, housing shortages are everywhere. The
beautiful scenery of nature that used to surround human habitats is replaced by
a bleak urban environment of cement, glass and steel, in which the garden is
but a few potted plants on a terrace overlooking the street!
The quality of air
and water has been greatly reduced all over the world. Our cities have air that
is unhealthy to breathe. Most of our water is unfit to drink. Even fish cannot
live in most of our streams. The quality of food is significantly less in spite
of advances in corporate farming. Fast food and over-spiced restaurant food
replace the home grown or freshly cooked food of previous generations. Good
quality fresh fruit and vegetables, which used to be commonly available, are
now only rarely found in special natural food stores in the West at a special
price.
The monoculture
person has less real leisure time than previous generations. We are busy all
week long working, using our spare time for shopping or other chores. There are
few local cultural events of music, plays, festivals and dance and even these
have been commercialized and are spectator events, not the participatory events
of earlier times. They have no aura of the sacred that the rituals of previous
generations often had. The real victim of monoculture, therefore, is the
individual who is deprived of any direct contact with nature, the universe, a
community, himself or herself.
The movement
toward monoculture arose through the industrial revolution and the printing
press that could standardize information. It mushroomed in the twentieth
century with global industrialization. Now with the computer and media age it
is far advanced, moving forward at times almost like a blind steamroller
crushing everything in its path.
Monoculture and Monotheism
The roots of
monoculture in western civilization can be traced to monotheism, particularly
of a missionary type�the effort to impose a belief in only One God of a certain
type on all people, ignoring all other spiritual paths, however old or rich in
ideas and experiences. This One God appears as a tyrannical, if not militant
being who has a severe set of rewards and punishments�which necessitates a
single savior, bible and church for the entire world. Whether this was the
original intent of the prophets or a deviation, it has come to represent the
dominant trend in western religious thinking and the orientation of western
culture both religious and secular.
Under early
Christianity, monotheism allied itself with Roman imperialism and an allegiance
to the state�which was a political monoculture�turning a religious rigidity
into a military weapon. In the colonial era, western monoculture became a cult
of church and empire as a means of conquering the world, to make everyone
western and Christian in civilization. Monoculture extends from an expansionist
monotheism, which is monoculture in religion and destroys religious diversity
and individual spiritual experience that is only possible apart from any church
and its dogma. It leads to other forms of monoculture politically,
economically, socially and intellectually.
Western
monotheism is essentially an authoritarian tradition and monotheistic
institutions like the Vatican are authoritarian hierarchies to the present day,
with orders being imposed upon the masses from on above. The dogma of the book,
prophet or savior and One God cannot be questioned. Anti-blasphemy laws remain
in effect in so-called Islamic �republics�, making it a crime, if not a capital
offense, to even question the book or the prophet. Anti-apostasy laws are also
there, making it a crime for a Muslim to convert to another religion (but
allowing members of other religions to convert to Islam). Such laws were
present in medieval Christianity where they were used to oppress science and
stop any freethinking.
Today, however,
Christians have put a new spin on their monotheism. They would equate
monotheism, if not Christianity itself, with unity, equality and democracy�One
God and one humanity. However, this is done without changing the exclusive and
monopolistic nature of Christian beliefs or institutions, making one doubt its
sincerity. The current pope, for example, though really a conservative figure,
has used this form of propaganda to justify Catholic conversion efforts in the
world. He would have us believe that promoting an authoritarian church and its
antiquated dogma was somehow liberal and would advance political freedom,
particularly in non-Christian countries, where the church would come in to save
people from anti-democratic governments and social inequalities! He speaks out
against the lack of freedom and democracy in various countries without
introducing these into his own church first!
Monotheism and
Christianity are being equated in the West with democracy and human rights, though
this was certainly no part of their colonial rule. We should look at Central
and South America, where an alliance of the church with dictators and military
rulers has been long standing, and which continue to have a great inequality
between the rich and the poor, those of European blood and the native Indians.
We must remember that the fascist dictators of Europe and America, including
Mussolini, were good Catholics that the church did not seriously oppose. Yet
those who oppose the missionaries today in the third world are called fascists
or communalists, not the missionaries, completely ignoring the facts of
history!
Monoculture, in
turn, has no real problem with monotheism, though western monotheism is largely
authoritarian and anti-democratic. There is no one person, one vote idea in
these religions but only fiats and fatwas from on high. Monoculture treats the
monotheistic church with the same dignity of any country or corporation that
has economic or political clout. This is because western monotheism has adopted
the corporate model and used its numbers and resources to gain political
influence and favors. It has created a global multinational religious business
using the media and the Internet for proselytizing, spreading a religious
message like an advertising campaign. The world media does not challenge such
religious aggression, any more than it does the aggression of the fast food
industry.
Nineteenth
century colonial rulers, like the British in India, found missionaries to be
useful, even though Europe at the time had many free thinkers questioning the
church and the Bible. So too, the modern monoculture finds missionaries to be a
helpful tool�even though they represent a more conservative form of
Christianity than practiced by most people in the West. Such backward religious
beliefs appeal to the poor and uneducated, which is why the most devout
Christian countries like those in South America are among the most backward in
the world. This means that Christianity can be provide a first stage in the
westernization of poorer cultures, particularly those like India that have deep
religious roots.
Monoculture and Democracy
Monoculture has
made a home with democracy. This may be surprising at first because democracy
appears as the ultimate form of pluralism, with each individual a free and
equal member of society. After all, democracy allows each person, even the
poor, weak or elderly, the same one vote. However, current democracies only
have the appearance of pluralism. If we look deeper, only an educated democracy
can be truly pluralistic. An uneducated democracy can create its own form of
totalitarianism or mob rule. The masses are easy to manipulate by money, the
media or an appeal to prejudices and vote banks. Getting elected for a
politician in a modern democracy is not a matter of encouraging pluralism but
of manipulating public opinion with slogans and promises that are seldom kept.
Charismatic movie stars can easily defeat seasoned diplomats. The modern
politician resembles more a Roman emperor controlling the masses through bread
and circuses than any true representative of the people or of an enlightened
culture.
In addition,
promoting democracy worldwide is a good tool to destroy political diversity. No
other political systems are allowed today in the world but democracy of a
western-style nature�which means the rule of business, the media and the
monoculture, along with the promotion of western civilization. Groups agitating
for a western style democracy systematically undermine other governments as if
anything else were immoral, just as monotheistic religions cannot tolerate
other religious views. Modern democracy does not allow for pluralism in
governmental systems but requires that it is the only acceptable form, just as
monotheism claims all morality for itself and equates other forms of
spirituality with the devil.
Modern
democracies give the vote to the isolated individual, who is easy to
manipulate. Other power centers of a local kind get marginalized, just as
multinational corporations and their franchises put an end to local businesses
and native crafts under the guise of free trade. Modern democracies are largely
state run governments and have little place for the local rule found in
traditional societies, where the village, tribe or community had the rights of
self-determination over the most important issues of life, health and work. The
state, like the churches previously, doles out its favors and makes the
individuals dependent upon it for their livelihood. Leaders pretend to be doing
the will of the people when they are only making the people subservient and
keeping them ignorant.
Democracy has
created an atomization of society, the reduction of all social groups to the
isolated individual, who removed from more intimate social support becomes
exposed and easy to influence. Without the social support of family and
community, for example, the elderly end up as wards of the state, on Medicare.
Such state care, though deemed compassionate, is impersonal, often cruel and
masks a fundamental destruction of natural social orders. The social isolation
created by modern democracy is resulting in an epidemic of depression in the
West that is striking all age groups but particularly those in middle age. The
prescription drug industry has become the compassionate savior of modern
society, but is really getting an entire culture addicted to drugs as the
solution to their mounting physical and psychological problems! Governments
debate on how much money to spend on prescription drugs for the elderly, but
they never ask why an entire generation is dependent upon drugs for its
well-being.
Monoculture
and Free Trade
Monoculture does
quite well with free trade and the spread of global consumerism, which is
monoculture economics. Other economic systems are not allowed and are
systematically undermined. The economic might of the monoculture levels any
economic diversity, moving towards a single financial standard or currency
worldwide. A uniform world economy destroys local economies and their rich
diversity of expression and interactions based on an organic dependency. The
rule of multinational businesses takes the place of local economies. Global
corporate solutions are applied to local management issues, often with
disastrous results.
Corporate
agriculture, the new agricultural monoculture, for example, is advertising its
ability to feed the world and end world hunger, portraying itself in the
benefic aspect of the church or a socialist government selflessly aiding the
poor. What it is really doing is undermining the most basic of human rights,
the right to feed oneself and to control one�s food sources. What the global
agribusiness envisions is control of the world food market, so that it can
force entire countries to bow down before it, who cannot even eat without its
favor. Among its tools are genetically engineered crops, including terminator
seeds that destroy local plant varieties, fertilizers that weaken the soils and
breed dependency, and patents on plants that afford corporate ownership to
nature�s bounty. Meanwhile, those who oppose the global food business are
deemed backwards, causing hunger and starvation in the world, as if apart from
the agribusiness no one could feed themselves!
������ Should any group oppose the monoculture, the religious,
political, intellectual and economic forces of monoculture will attack it,
often mercilessly. Monoculture ideas of monotheism, democracy, social equality
and free trade are used as the moral torch to consume all other cultural views.
They are deemed �universal�, meaning that no one can question them or look to
what is really working behind them. Such �universalism� is simply a new mask of
intolerance. The very forces that try to resist monoculture are denigrated as
communal, undemocratic and unprogressive, even if they are pluralistic in their
approach or reflect a deep spiritual wisdom or love of nature.
������ For example, the Hindu effort to resist missionaries in India
is portrayed in the media as a form of religious fundamentalism, while the Christian
missionary aggression and intolerance of Hindu pluralism is deemed progressive.
Similarly, when Hindu economic activists used the slogan of �computer chips
yes, potato chips no�, resisting the American fast food industry, the western
media deems the response to be backward and confused.
The Indic Model of Pluralism
The Indic model
of culture is not one of monoculture but of cultural diversity, like India�s
landscape of many wide rivers and towering mountains. Indic civilization is
based upon a pluralistic model and a synthetic approach to life�s problems. It
acknowledges that different points of view may be valid for different
individuals and communities and encourages these to develop unhindered by any
overriding church, state or business concerns. Its sense of unity arises
through interdependence. We see this in Indic religions that offer many sages,
yogis, teachings, a diversity of Gods and Goddesses, and a recognition of both
the One and the many.
������ Western civilization as it has developed over the past
centuries, on the other hand, is monolithic and singularistic. It imposes a
single point of view on everyone. Its sense of unity arises from uniformity. We
see this in western religions that require a single God, book, savior, prophet
or church for everyone. The one God of western monotheism reflects this need
for control, uniformity, power, retribution and revenge.
������ In the colonial era, western powers sought to impose their
religion on Asia using force, intimidation and incentives and denigrating Indic
religions as primitive, promoting conversion as a necessity for civilized
growth. In the post-colonial era, western religions use the guise of democracy
and human rights to continue the same proselytizing efforts. When Indic
religions oppose them, they are labeled communal, intolerant or
anti-democratic.
������ Democracy itself has become the instrument of a consumerist
totalitarianism. The masses are easily manipulated by the ability to promote
and fulfill their material desires, their needs for greater entertainment or
new conveniences. The Asian view is not one of democratic uniformity but of an
organic order that recognizes different individual, class and cultural needs.
We must look at society like the human body in which there is a unity of being
but a diversity of functions. For true freedom in the world, there must be both
material and spiritual freedom, which requires freedom from any cultural
domination whether economically, politically or religiously.
������ However, certain aspects of Hindu thought and culture can
become popular, trendy or commercially viable in the monoculture today. This is
most obvious in the Yoga movement that is already being mass marketed and
turned into franchises. Yet whether this serves to spiritualize western culture
to corrupt the spiritual traditions of the East remains to be seen.
������ This rising interest in spirituality has occurred because the
materialist monoculture leaves people inwardly empty. Material affluence has
resulted in spiritual poverty and psychological malaise. It is also because
western religions are rather bland affairs compared to exotic Hinduism and all
of its gurus, deities and Yoga practices. Those who have gone through the
monoculture and seen its limitations are more likely to be attracted to the dharmic
traditions of the East.
������ The question then arises whether Hindu culture is rich and
diverse enough overcome the monoculture or assimilate it over time. No doubt it
can do so eventually. The issue is how much time and effort and obstructions
along the way will be required to change the monoculture. But for this to
occur, Hindu thought and its pluralistic sense of the Divine must become part
of the new paradigm. Over time, the natural human urge for diversity will also
arise to counter monoculture that must lead to sterility, like monoculture in
agriculture.
The movement toward global uniformity must be abandoned, not only materially but also spiritually. True globalism is not that of monoculture consumerism but based on a respect for local environments, which also means honoring local cultures. True culture is not a commercial commodity but is priceless. It is rooted in a consciousness, a state of mind, and harmony with the natural world. Keeping up with the latest trends in the market place will never take us there. To discover it we must turn our machines off and look within.
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