Disappearing Languages

One of the many homogenizing effects of globalization and the spread of Western culture is the steady disappearance of local languages in many areas of the world. A few languages are becoming global in nature while the rest are slowly withering away. Even the fortunate few languages are changing and adapting new vocabulary and forms. This ofcourse is a natural progression in the evolution of languages. A truly static language is a dead language.

The question is does this phenomenon matter? Does it matter if some languages disappear? After all no language is pre-ordained to exist forever. Languages evolve under a particular set of social, historic and geographic circumstances. They represent a particular outlook and a particular way of thinking. In this respect, they preserve a diversity of though processes and opinion at a global level. Therefore when a particular language disappears, a particular way of thinking goes with it. We end up with a sameness in thought processes. The reason this happens is that a particular languages imposes certain constraints on its speakers. It also emphasizes some elements and relationships. For example, in Urdu, there is a separate word for maternal grandmother, maternal grandfather, paternal grandmother, paternal grandfather, father's elder brother, father's younger brother and so on whereas in English, such fine familial distinctions are not made.

Again the question can be asked: despite all of the above, does it matter? I think it does. All societies constantly face new challenges and new sets of circumstances. People speaking different languages approach these problems and circumstances from different perspectives. If languages disappear so that only a few remain, then we will end up with a sameness in outlook. Lack of diversity can mean the difference between successfully forging a path into the future or getting stuck and remaining stagnant and slowly becoming more and more irrelevant.

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The Forgetting Pill

It seems that it is now possible to selectively erase memory. The discovery is being touted as a treatment for erasing painful memories. While the discovery is in the laboratory phase, it is only a matter of time before the treatment is offered to the general public. No one likes painful or traumatic memories. So a treatment like this one would almost certainly be taken up by a large number of people.

Should a treatment like this be used? This questions is related to another one: what makes a personality? All of us undergo many different experiences in our lifetime. Some of these are pleasant, many more are unpleasant and a few are downright traumatic. Generally speaking, we also do not retain all the memories of all our experiences. However, every experience, pleasant or unpleasant, helps to develop our personality. These experiences help us to become a unique individual. Over time, they help us to grow and mature mentally. Why is a person in their 40s generally considered more mature than someone in their 20s? The answer lies in the greater number and variety of experiences that the older person has gone through.

So the question becomes, what will happen to our personality if we start to selectively erase memories? What is the criteria for erasure? If experiences help us to mature, then surely erasing the memory of those experiences will cause us to regress. Will that not make us less than what we are? How will anyone grow or learn if unpleasant experiences can be easily and selectively erased? It is said that we learn from our mistakes. How can we learn if we choose to forget about them? I feel that this is an alarming development. Unfortunately I fear that all too many people will choose to erase memories that they consider painful. This will not enhance us as human beings. It will instead degrade us to become little better than animals living in a rosy haze.

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The Liberal Arts Major - Valuable or Parasite?

Do Philosophy or History or Literature majors have any role to play in society? Are these essentially luxury goods whose consumption is detracting from other, more "serious" majors like Physics or Mathematics? There is an increasing push to tailor education for commercial purposes. University after university has dropped or slashed liberal arts majors because they are not thought to be marketable. At the same time, the economy has become increasingly technical with a correspondingly higher demand for technically trained people.

This is not simply an academic debate. This is a debate for the heart and soul of a society. Economic growth depends on increasing technological skills. Thus universities which prepare future workers should concentrate on technical subjects. The problem lies in the increasing technological skills part. As the overall knowledge base in any field increases, it becomes more and more difficult for an individual to have an overall command of the subject. So perforce, individuals have to go for specialization. Even in this narrower area, developments are so rapid that there is a constant struggle to remain up to date.

Along with this rapid pace of technological change, a convergence of different technologies is simultaneously occurring. All of this is lauded as being unquestionably positive. However, these technologies are also having a major impact in the way in which we interact with each other. For example, social media has made possible connections with people whom an individual would not otherwise meet. There is greater and easier access to different types of information. It is possible to link up with friends using apps. Romances have blossomed and marriages have occurred because the protagonists met through Facebook or Twitter or email.

It is not just technological change that is occurring. There is rapid and massive societal change also occurring due to this technological change but which is also simultaneously feeding the latter. Social mores and values are being affected. The question is how do we determine whether these changes are positive or negative? Infact what do we mean by a positive or negative social change is a question that needs to be debated. So who is going to do that? The technically trained major? This person is taught a narrow subject. He/she is largely unaware of developments outside their area of expertise. However, this is an area where the "soft skill" majors do well. Liberal arts tends to train individuals to think, question, analyse and recommend. So the question actually should be can we as a society afford not to have liberal arts majors?

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Government Deception

Governments deceive and hide information and activities from their populace. This is a given. They do so for a lot of reasons - some of them legitimate and others less so. National security is typically invoked for the governmental deception. Once an issue has been labelled like this, it becomes difficult if not impossible to debate it in any rational manner. Nationalistic emotions and fervour is quickly whipped up to stifle debate and discussion.

Every form of deception has costs associated with it. For individuals, these are to a large extent non-monetary but they are borne by the individual alone or by a relatively small number of individuals many of them unwittingly. Unlike individuals, the costs of government deception are borne by the entire society. Thus the US was sucked into the quagmire of Iraq on the basis of lies and fabrication. The trillions that have been spent and the billions that continue to be spent come from US citizens. Similarly, the entire Vietnam war was triggered on false pretences and accusations at the cost of a large number of deaths, traumatized survivors, large amounts of money and severe setbacks in US global standing. Infact the US continues to incur Vietnam related costs as it struggles to re-integrate traumatized survivors into the general society. More recently, the full extent of the banking bailout was hidden from the US population. Much more money has been spent in a so far futile attempt to shore up the banks than was publicly revealed. Again the cost of this is being borne by US citizens in both financial (in the form of enormous indebtedness) and non-financial (in the form of dilapidated infrastructure, lack of jobs, general rise in lawlessness etc.) terms.

The story is very similar elsewhere. In China, pollution data that affects the health of millions has been concealed. In India massive corruption takes place under the table. Large government contracts in developing countries are routinely signed not on the basis of national interests but because of corruption that is then hidden from the population. The effects of government deception are the same everywhere. A suspicious citizenry that no longer trusts its government, greater and to a considerable extent unnecessary impoverishment as resources are sucked into individual and corporate coffers, gradually rising tide of lawlessness and over time, a weakening of the state as important and necessary institutions are (often deliberately) hollowed out.

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The Modern Entertaintment Complex

The power of the modern entertainment complex, specially its audio/visual component is enormous. It is like a siren song: very hard to resist and equally hard to pull away. The modern entertainment system is both communal and atomic. A movie experience in the cinema is a shared one. However at the same time, since it is also passive, it is atomic: each individual is wrapped in their individual cocoon. Unlike say a theatre experience, there is no engagement with the audience. Similarly, a hit TV series will have millions of people tuning into the show at the appointed time. In that sense, the experience is a shared one. But at the same time, it is atomized since each person in sitting in their home watching the show. Music and sports are partial exceptions. A live concert or a live game is a participative experience. Everyone who attends a concert (or the game) has an individual experience. At the same there is a group dynamic at work which lends an added dimension and greatly enhances the experience. However, the vast majority who watch the "live" show or game on TV miss out on this particular element thereby reducing them to passive spectators.

People are inherently social. Of that there can be no doubt. The culture of each area is built through shared experiences. The very concept of a nation is built on shared experiences. These shared experiences at different levels help to build our individual personalities. We are not solitary creatures leading atomic lives. Why is solitary confinement such an effective punishment in prisons? If we are deprived of some level of social interactions, we wither. Yet the modern entertainment complex is geared towards an atomized individual largely denying the existence of the social component.

Today's entertainment complex is the modern equivalent of the bread and circus of the Roman era. The effect is identical: lull the mass of people into a stupor which prevents them from thinking too hard about the way the modern world is structured and run. Ever noticed how characters in dramas, serials and movies almost never watch TV or go to a movie? Invariably, they lead exciting, fulfilling lives without the need to sit down in front of a box and mindlessly stare at it. In real life of course, the big studios invest heavily into getting people to sit down in front of the TV or go into the cinema or tune into the "live" game. The time that is spent in this fashion, our minds effectively shut down. The soul shrivels a little bit. At the end of the day, there is a feeling of wasted time and wasted opportunity.

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