Question #3

01May08

Ron Pompei is the next man in line to ask us kaospilots a question concerning our outpost.

Here’s his question: Will India be able to learn from the West regarding ecology, economy and education?
Will they recognize earlier in their economic and social development that material resources are finite yet human resources (such as creativity, innovation and expression) are infinite?
Will India achieve true global consciousness that recognizes the unique contribution of all cultures?

These are a lot of questions that tangents a lot of different fields of study and something that is hard to sum up briefly in a blog post however. Still waiting to come down and join my team-mates in the exciting chaos that seems to be Mumbai on Monday.

Will india be able to learn from the west regarding ecology, economy and education?

First of all they have already learnt a lot through the British occupation for good or bad. Education has been based on british standards for a long time should be just as good as anything we learn over here. In fact Indias huge population of extremely well-educated workforce might soon make our western workforce redundant on the global labourmarket together with china. Their biomedical and computerscience student are for example just as qualified as any of us only they can be hired for a tenth of what we would require to live decent. Reality check!

Will they recognize earlier in their economic and social development that material resources are finite yet human resources (such as creativity, innovation and expression) are infinite?

As India traces through the social and societal development process a lot faster than the west have done I’m sure we will se inspiring and unexpected bursts of creativity shaped by a very foreign and different cultural, philosophical and enivronment than ours. Isn’t it time for us to learn from them instead?! Already now the bollywood industry, the bangalore silicon valley and other parts of India are creating a lot of synergy effects, and as soon as everything is in place I’m sure we will see an enormous rise in creativity. However the things that are up against it are the enormous class and economic chasms in the country between rich and poor. It is possible this has to be settled before creativity really can really rise to the forefront as one of the major transforming economic factors for INdia , or maybe creativity will be one of the keys to resolve todays problems. Who can tell for sure, but the future looks very interesting
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Will India achieve true global consciousness that recognizes the unique contribution of all cultures?

I think India already know of the importance and benifit of this. With a history of facing endless invaders from the north, the Indian subcontinent have again and again been under the influence of a lot of different cultures, merging, influencing eachother and eventually leaving different cultures and religions living side by side in peace and happiness. I believe the syncretism of India is a good thing. WIth Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Bahai living side by side and interacting people tend to be more humble and not think that their reality-tunnel or viewpoint is the only valid one. I’m aware that this has not been the case for the last period of Indias history, but still the clues and traces for how to live in harmony is still there.

So these are my non-empirical opinions right now. It will be interesting to see if they modify or change after spending a month over there.

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