The Dalai Lama's recent visit to Switzerland was incredibly popular. Tens of thousands of people turned up to his public lectures, quite apart from the private visits which were possible for the really rich and distinguished.
I have been reflecting on why India, the country in which Buddhism was founded, eventually rejected Buddhism. Equally, I have been reflecting on why, while the Churches continue to be surprisingly popular in the contemporary West, Jesus himself is so unpopular with the Western elite.
It is worth recollecting that Buddhism was, in essence, a movement to break the hold of the corrupt and corrupting Hindu caste system, which had come into existence some centuries earlier. At one stage, something like half of India was Buddhist - the other half gave its allegiance to the competing reform movement of Jainism, which is now practically unknown outside Indian circles. Buddhism, however, was internationalised as a result of the missionary activities of the Emperor Ashoka who sent out missionaries with diplomatic status to all the surrounding countries. As Buddhism grew in numbers and in countries which were geographically diverse, it absorbed many of the features of these cultures (as happened with what is now the Roman Catholic Church in Europe initially, and has now happened with it worldwide). The result was that a corrupt priestly caste developed in Buddhism too. And, as far as I can discover, that is the main reason that India then rejected Buddhism - if Buddhist priests were going to be as corrupt as the Hindu priests has been earlier, then there was no reason to be Buddhist! This rejection was facilitated by Hindus who incorporated the best aspects of Buddhist thought and learning into our own philosophy and practice (for example, in what came to be called "Advaita" philosophy). For a fuller discussion of the history of the development of Indian religion and philosophy, see my short publication, Indian Spirituality, available for free download on my website.
In any case, the story of the Buddha (the enlightened one) provokes many questions. Here is a young man who suddenly awakens to human suffering, gives up his life of princely comfort, trains himself in the disciplines of yoga and undergoes the physical trauma of other ascetic practices, faces tremendous temptations, eventually awakens to enlightenment, and goes on to teach others how they too can find his way to enlightenment.
It is worth asking:
- Where did this young Prince's intense awareness of suffering come from? And from what source came the compassion he felt? Why do some people feel such compassion more than others? Why do some people apparently never feel such compassion? Why do those who feel it, not always follow its impulses?
- Why in all his seeking and thinking and teaching, did the Buddha neglect or ignore the question of the existence of social and political evil?
- To fight such evil in the world, is it enough to simply focus on the psychological dimension of individual peace as Buddhism does?
- Does the peaceful idividualism of Buddhism actually explain its lack of interest in tackling political and social evil, as is clearly seen (with few exceptions) in countries which have been Buddhist for centuries?
- Might it be the case that we have here also the secret of the popularity of Buddhism in the West as well as the secret of the current unpopularity of Jesus in the West? Is it possible that Westerners are so exhausted by the emotial battering of daily life that they are attracted to the Buddhist offer of personal peace and comfort, and are equally happy with the comforting rituals of Christian Churches, but do not wish to cope with the demands of the teachings of Jesus, who offers us a living relationship with God on condition that we are willing to die to our own interests and spend our lives fighting ignorance, disease, scientific and technological irresponsibility, economic exploitation, environmental degradation, political oppression and social injustice worldwide?
Sphere: Related Content
Friday, September 09, 2005
Amartya Sen on Democracy
Amartya Sen is highly respected both for winning the Nobel Prize in Economics and for his wisdom and humaneness.
His latest book, The Argumentative Indian, among other things documents for how long and how extensively the world has strained after democracy.
However, he fails to answer or even raise some key questions:
- why was it the case that the only cultures able to create, nurture and maintain a democratic culture for more than three generations have been Protestant ones?
- Why do non-Protestant cultures (tribal African Tanzania with "Uhuru", China under Mao, Japan since WWII, Russia under the Marxists, Iran under the Shah) accommodate democratic tendencies only so far as to begin to clean up the usual kleptocracies and initiate "participatory reasoning and public decision-making", but then become static as has Japan for the last two decades or descend into chaos as has Russia since Gorbachev, or return to authoritarianism as has Russia under Putin? Or as Ukraine seems to be doing now? Sphere: Related Content
His latest book, The Argumentative Indian, among other things documents for how long and how extensively the world has strained after democracy.
However, he fails to answer or even raise some key questions:
- why was it the case that the only cultures able to create, nurture and maintain a democratic culture for more than three generations have been Protestant ones?
- Why do non-Protestant cultures (tribal African Tanzania with "Uhuru", China under Mao, Japan since WWII, Russia under the Marxists, Iran under the Shah) accommodate democratic tendencies only so far as to begin to clean up the usual kleptocracies and initiate "participatory reasoning and public decision-making", but then become static as has Japan for the last two decades or descend into chaos as has Russia since Gorbachev, or return to authoritarianism as has Russia under Putin? Or as Ukraine seems to be doing now? Sphere: Related Content
The current situation of Hedge Funds
A few weeks ago there was a news item in the UK's Financial Times: "Hedge funds flat in dodging bullet".
I hope it was hugely reassuring to everyone now playing hedge funds.
However, it did raise some interesting questions:
- are the "sophisticated financial customers", to whom these sorts of funds supposedly sell under UK law, actually as sophisticated as they appear, if they are willing to pay more as fees to hedge fund operators now than was the case when these funds were new, innovative and in scarce supply?
- are these "sophisticated financial customers" perhaps even a little stupid, if they are paying more in fees now, when hedge funds are broadly losing money, than was the case when hedge funds were clearly making a lot of money?
- why is it that a supposedly intelligent marketplace allows hedge fund operators, who take no risk, to cream off 20% or more of the upside, while not sharing in the downside?
- in what other business is it the case that an involved party can share in the upside without sharing in the downside?
- should hedge fund operators be allowed to share in the upside only if they also take on the burden of sharing the downside? Sphere: Related Content
I hope it was hugely reassuring to everyone now playing hedge funds.
However, it did raise some interesting questions:
- are the "sophisticated financial customers", to whom these sorts of funds supposedly sell under UK law, actually as sophisticated as they appear, if they are willing to pay more as fees to hedge fund operators now than was the case when these funds were new, innovative and in scarce supply?
- are these "sophisticated financial customers" perhaps even a little stupid, if they are paying more in fees now, when hedge funds are broadly losing money, than was the case when hedge funds were clearly making a lot of money?
- why is it that a supposedly intelligent marketplace allows hedge fund operators, who take no risk, to cream off 20% or more of the upside, while not sharing in the downside?
- in what other business is it the case that an involved party can share in the upside without sharing in the downside?
- should hedge fund operators be allowed to share in the upside only if they also take on the burden of sharing the downside? Sphere: Related Content
On the Prospects of Democracy in China
Liberal Westerners often express the view, "Sooner or later China will embrace democracy".
However, I have never heard a Chinese national, let alone a Chinese official, express this view.
Have you?
So how much do these liberal Westerners know of China? Are they aware that China has not had democracy for some 5000 years? Are they aware that China has done very well for the last 20 years without democracy - indeed precisely because of a lack of democracy?
Terrified as the Communist Party is of losing power, as well as of domestic chaos, what will ever prompt it to want to loosen the handcuffs?
If the international community is interested in seeing democracy come to China, it has to do more than simply crow a bit.
We have the ridiculous situation of having, as a Member of the UN Security Council, a country that has, systematically and openly, never stopped flouting the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
So, for a start, how about a campaign agains companies that invest in China - unless China implements basic human rights of association and freedom of thought and religion and association, to which it has already signed up? Sphere: Related Content
However, I have never heard a Chinese national, let alone a Chinese official, express this view.
Have you?
So how much do these liberal Westerners know of China? Are they aware that China has not had democracy for some 5000 years? Are they aware that China has done very well for the last 20 years without democracy - indeed precisely because of a lack of democracy?
Terrified as the Communist Party is of losing power, as well as of domestic chaos, what will ever prompt it to want to loosen the handcuffs?
If the international community is interested in seeing democracy come to China, it has to do more than simply crow a bit.
We have the ridiculous situation of having, as a Member of the UN Security Council, a country that has, systematically and openly, never stopped flouting the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
So, for a start, how about a campaign agains companies that invest in China - unless China implements basic human rights of association and freedom of thought and religion and association, to which it has already signed up? Sphere: Related Content
Thursday, September 01, 2005
The difficult question of the rate of immigration
One key issue is the rate at which immigrants can be absorbed.
The question is: absorption into what?
Clearly, there is an economic dimension: "too many" immigrants could certainly lower salaries. However, this dimension is well understood and has historically been paid enough attention (moreover, we have at least some tools with which to examine this issue).
Then there is the emotional dimension. That has been thrust to the forefront recently in the UK when it emerged that the recent London bombers were "homegrown". So the issue is: at what rate can the receiving country ensure that new immigrants *lose* their old allegiances and develop sufficiently strong new ones? A politically incorrect question for some people! And the political incorrectness is intimately related to the following point, which is the most important of the three and the one for which there are the least number of tools.
That is the "values dimension". Immigrants bring their own values with them. If they can make the transition to accepting the values of the receiving country, then genuine integration can happen. Race, religion, educational level are contributing factors, but are neither absolute enablers nor absolute precluders.
The challenge is that receiving countries, at least in the West, often no longer have a clear sense of what their "own" set of values IS....and without such clarity, the task of enabling immigrant groups to immigrate in terms of values is of course much more difficult.
The reason receiving countries have no clear sense of their "own" set of values is that, in the West, it is part of a contested discourse: is Europe a "Christian" continent? Every Muslim and every Hindu understands instinctively that that is so. Not every European, agrees, however (and the ruling establishment in Europe certainly does not agree at present). But even that question cannot be answered without being clear about what exactly is meant by "Christian"? Nor is the job made easier if we simply abandon the word "Christian" and substitute "Humanist": what exactly is meant by that?!
The simplest way of resolving this "values dilemma" is not by trying to clarify definitions of such words as "Christian" or "Humanist" or "European", but developing a sophisticated and detailed contrast between "the way in which things are done" in the receiving country as against that in the sending country.
To the degree that the contrast is in fact sophisticated and detailed, it will be easier to set up ways of nurturing, examining, monitoring and "rewarding" integration at the level of values.
What exactly might be covered if one is to develop a "sophisticated and detailed analysis of the way in which things are done" in the receiving country as against that in the sending country?
Well, here is a starting list, for discussion:
- education (purpose of, pattern of, style of...)
- friendships (how deep? How wide? ...)
- love, sex (public displays?)
- marriage (Arranged?...)
- work (ethic of, remuneration for....)
- politics (how active is one expected to be? What routes are there for ambition? Dissent?....)
- morality (bribery and corruption...)
- private sphere versus public sphere.....
- role of individual versus role of family versus role of community...
- conversational style (polite? Confrontational? Explicit? Wordy? Gestures? ....)
- attitudes to hierarchy....
- attitudes to history....
- attitudes to time....
- attitudes to language...
- attitudes to dress.....
The difficulty is that, in the US, discussion of such issues has been banned to the private sphere since the 1930s (in Europe, since even earlier, probably the 1880s).
So the earlier ban needs to be reversed and we need to re-commence, now, a discussion of the values of receiving countries, with the intention of becoming clear at least about the actual culture of the receiving countries.
ENDS Sphere: Related Content
The question is: absorption into what?
Clearly, there is an economic dimension: "too many" immigrants could certainly lower salaries. However, this dimension is well understood and has historically been paid enough attention (moreover, we have at least some tools with which to examine this issue).
Then there is the emotional dimension. That has been thrust to the forefront recently in the UK when it emerged that the recent London bombers were "homegrown". So the issue is: at what rate can the receiving country ensure that new immigrants *lose* their old allegiances and develop sufficiently strong new ones? A politically incorrect question for some people! And the political incorrectness is intimately related to the following point, which is the most important of the three and the one for which there are the least number of tools.
That is the "values dimension". Immigrants bring their own values with them. If they can make the transition to accepting the values of the receiving country, then genuine integration can happen. Race, religion, educational level are contributing factors, but are neither absolute enablers nor absolute precluders.
The challenge is that receiving countries, at least in the West, often no longer have a clear sense of what their "own" set of values IS....and without such clarity, the task of enabling immigrant groups to immigrate in terms of values is of course much more difficult.
The reason receiving countries have no clear sense of their "own" set of values is that, in the West, it is part of a contested discourse: is Europe a "Christian" continent? Every Muslim and every Hindu understands instinctively that that is so. Not every European, agrees, however (and the ruling establishment in Europe certainly does not agree at present). But even that question cannot be answered without being clear about what exactly is meant by "Christian"? Nor is the job made easier if we simply abandon the word "Christian" and substitute "Humanist": what exactly is meant by that?!
The simplest way of resolving this "values dilemma" is not by trying to clarify definitions of such words as "Christian" or "Humanist" or "European", but developing a sophisticated and detailed contrast between "the way in which things are done" in the receiving country as against that in the sending country.
To the degree that the contrast is in fact sophisticated and detailed, it will be easier to set up ways of nurturing, examining, monitoring and "rewarding" integration at the level of values.
What exactly might be covered if one is to develop a "sophisticated and detailed analysis of the way in which things are done" in the receiving country as against that in the sending country?
Well, here is a starting list, for discussion:
- education (purpose of, pattern of, style of...)
- friendships (how deep? How wide? ...)
- love, sex (public displays?)
- marriage (Arranged?...)
- work (ethic of, remuneration for....)
- politics (how active is one expected to be? What routes are there for ambition? Dissent?....)
- morality (bribery and corruption...)
- private sphere versus public sphere.....
- role of individual versus role of family versus role of community...
- conversational style (polite? Confrontational? Explicit? Wordy? Gestures? ....)
- attitudes to hierarchy....
- attitudes to history....
- attitudes to time....
- attitudes to language...
- attitudes to dress.....
The difficulty is that, in the US, discussion of such issues has been banned to the private sphere since the 1930s (in Europe, since even earlier, probably the 1880s).
So the earlier ban needs to be reversed and we need to re-commence, now, a discussion of the values of receiving countries, with the intention of becoming clear at least about the actual culture of the receiving countries.
ENDS Sphere: Related Content
Sunday, August 14, 2005
The work of the Contemporary Indian Painter, Ramesh Darji
DRAFT FOR PROFESSOR PRABHU GUPTARA'S REMARKS AT THE PRIVATE VIEWIING OF THE WORK OF RAMESH DARJI AT KING'S KURRY RESTAURANT, ZURICH, ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF INDIA'S INDEPENDENCE DAY, 15 AUGUST 2005
(not to be quoted or published without permission)
Dear Ambassador, Dear dignitaries and Invited guests,
it is an honour to be asked to place Ramesh Darji's work in the context of 5000 years of Indian painting - though I have only a few minutes in which to do it! And I will do so by means of seven key observations.
Let me start by saying that I was immediately struck by Ramesh's work the very first time I saw it. It has become totally unexpected to have contemporary paintings with no melancholy in them, no abstractions of colour which express and embody the painter's negative feelings, no rage - human beings not distorted or chopped up. Instead, here is elegant, inspiring, uplifiting, cheering work combining what Ramesh sees with what he feels. In Western painting, either the emotion finds non-figurative expression, or what is there (landscapes, still life) becomes a substitute for emotion. And in conceptual art, the concept is sometimes so strong compared to the depiction, that you wonder whether it is really art. Which naturally raises the question "What is art?"
Well, with Darji, there is no doubt that this is art. This is rare work where what is SEEN works not only with what is FELT but also with what is THOUGHT, to produce works of BEAUTY. Of course not all that is beautiful is artistic and art is not always "beautiful". But Darji's art is beautiful because it flows out of a genuinely beautiful human being. And he is a genuinely beautiful human being because his thoughts and his feelings, his heart and his eye and his outstandingly skilled painterly hand, have all been refined and purified emotionally and spiritually since his transforming encounter with Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the Lord, whom he met when he was a young student and with whom he has walked these many years. Ramesh's work is therefore the response of a transformed Indian sensibility to - or we may say, a conversation between a transformed Indian sensibility - and landscapes and people, and indeed art itself, whether Indian or European.
You will have seen that Ramesh's work has developed in three distinct phases. He was born and brought up and trained in India, where he won the Gold Medal at the Art Academy in Mumbai in 1970. His first solo exhibition was in 1982 where his expansive "black and white" works, the Touch of Class series, were a huge success and his entire output till then was sold out in four days! Fortunately for us, he has continued working in that style, and we have some of that represented here. His men and women are not beautiful in a conventional sense but his simplification of form has much of the purity and balance which Gupta period sculptors brought to the dreaming Buddhas of the Indo-Greek school of painting.
His second style, which we might call his Dutch style, developed after he moved to Holland in 1987 with his wife Paula, who we are honoured to have with us today, as well as their delightful children, Nunita and Faresha. If you see some cubism in his work or motifs such as tulips or jazz and blues and western classical music, that is where they originate, though cubism and indeed impressionism immediately influenced Indian art because India was so well linked to international trends, thanks to the British Empire.
The third phase in his work began when Ramesh moved with his family to England some six years ago, and landscapes as well as what may be called his "Fusion" paintings start here.
Naturally, the dialogue with European landscapes and life and art, you are much better placed to comment on than I am. However, I now come to my seven key observations about Ramesh's work in the context of Indian painting.
First, Ramesh's Touch of Class series departs from the tradition of Indian folk & tribal art, which manifests itself in scrolls and souvenirs and village patas - "primitive" paintings on clay surfaces. An important development of that indigenous folk art school was Kalighat painting. Apart from their glowing colors - red, yellow, blue, green, black - the strongest point of the "flat" Kalighat painting, with its judiciously borrowed shadings sparingly used, was its lines. The Kalighat style has influenced the whole folk genre in contemporary Indian art; starting with Jamini Roy, but including Ramananda Bandopadhyaya, Manjit Bawa, Madhavi Parekh, and Sakti Burman. If Jamini Roy was seeking to:
- capture the essence of simplicity embodied in the life of the folk people;
- to make art accessible to a wider section of people; and
- to give Indian art its own identity,
you can see that Ramesh's A Touch of Class series seeks to do that too but by using very different materials and techniques.
Second, much of Indian painting is obviously religious in theme, starting with the cave paintings of Ajanta and Ellora, around 200 B.C. While Ramesh's work is NOT obviously religious in its themes and motifs at all, his work is highly spiritual, as you will see from the titles of many of his paintings as well as from the few hints that he places here and there, such as the doves or other birds that are a hallmark of his work.
Third, some of his work has been if not quite on the same scale as the cave paintings, certainly on a massive scale which captures some of the qualities peculiar to fresco (sadly we have none of the massively large-scale paintings here today).
Fourth, India has a tradition of illuminated manuscripts and book illustrations from medieval times. I think you can all see that Ramesh has taken that genre and done something unique with it. Here is the kind of art that MIGHT be in a book, but is not…he has taken the genre quite outside itself, in a way similar to what Amrita Sher-Gil did in bringing the influence of Pahari miniatures to large scale using different techniques of course in canvasses such as "The Story Teller".
Fifth, though we Indians had sophisticated means of rendering the human figure and specifically the human face, this achieved its most marked development in the court paintings and portraits of the Indo-Persian school from the 15th century onward, and with the patronage of the Moghuls from the sixteenth century, when the royal atelier produced highly innovative bird and animal studies as well as landscapes. You find that Ramesh's work is a conversation with that traidition, and a challenge to that tradition, and a development of that tradition, specifically in the context of his European experience.
Sixth, you may be aware of the Ragamalas of Rajasthan, of Kangra and of the Pahari school in the Himalayan foothills. At times not only the musical modes (ragamala) were represented pictorially, but also seasons and moods - all in fine detail though typically in a miniature format. I don't recollect seeing Ramesh do anything quite like that, but he has done their equivalent in his larger scale capturing of Jazz and Blues and classical music in his Dutch style.
Seventh, you can see that Ramesh's latest, Fusion works, use montage and takes off from the Bengal school which emphasized handicrafts and which was, in its own way a fusion with Japanese art Ramesh's Fusion series also takes off from K. G. Subramanyan's juxtaposition ofcontemporary art with popular culture, and folk art with urban trends. However, Ramesh's Fusion work is in complete contrast to his most famous contemporaries Francis Newton Souza and Maqbool Fida Husain, whose work is so infuenced by Expressionism and Surrealism, by Emil Nolde and Oskar Kokoschka. However, you do have in Ramesh's work something of Natvar Bhavsar's throbbing and breathing colour, and of Nasreen Mohamedi's minimalist ink drawings, as well as Krishna Reddy's multiple printmaking techniques.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I have no doubt gone on too long, and I could still go on, comparing Ramesh to other contemporary Indian painters in terms of style and form and materials and substance and point of view. However, I want to conclude by saying that Ramesh's work flows out of and develops the art tradition of India in wholly unique and unusual manner, but in a manner entirely worthy of the great but unkown artists of India's dim but beloved past.
Coming to the present, you will have noticed that this is not a gallery, so we have no professional display or lighting here, but as this is only the second private viewing of his work in Switzerland, we hope that it will be a sort of introduction to his work, which is in individual and corporate collections mostly in India, the USA, the Netherlands and the UK. Perhaps some of you know galleries in which his work ought to be exhibited, so that next time we will have his work properly displayed - this is merely the attempt of a few of his enthusiastic admirers, having failed so far to interest the more obvioius places in his work over the last few years, to introduce his work in Switzerland, specially as Indian art is underpriced by world standards but is now rising in popularity as well as price the world over.
Thank you. Sphere: Related Content
(not to be quoted or published without permission)
Dear Ambassador, Dear dignitaries and Invited guests,
it is an honour to be asked to place Ramesh Darji's work in the context of 5000 years of Indian painting - though I have only a few minutes in which to do it! And I will do so by means of seven key observations.
Let me start by saying that I was immediately struck by Ramesh's work the very first time I saw it. It has become totally unexpected to have contemporary paintings with no melancholy in them, no abstractions of colour which express and embody the painter's negative feelings, no rage - human beings not distorted or chopped up. Instead, here is elegant, inspiring, uplifiting, cheering work combining what Ramesh sees with what he feels. In Western painting, either the emotion finds non-figurative expression, or what is there (landscapes, still life) becomes a substitute for emotion. And in conceptual art, the concept is sometimes so strong compared to the depiction, that you wonder whether it is really art. Which naturally raises the question "What is art?"
Well, with Darji, there is no doubt that this is art. This is rare work where what is SEEN works not only with what is FELT but also with what is THOUGHT, to produce works of BEAUTY. Of course not all that is beautiful is artistic and art is not always "beautiful". But Darji's art is beautiful because it flows out of a genuinely beautiful human being. And he is a genuinely beautiful human being because his thoughts and his feelings, his heart and his eye and his outstandingly skilled painterly hand, have all been refined and purified emotionally and spiritually since his transforming encounter with Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the Lord, whom he met when he was a young student and with whom he has walked these many years. Ramesh's work is therefore the response of a transformed Indian sensibility to - or we may say, a conversation between a transformed Indian sensibility - and landscapes and people, and indeed art itself, whether Indian or European.
You will have seen that Ramesh's work has developed in three distinct phases. He was born and brought up and trained in India, where he won the Gold Medal at the Art Academy in Mumbai in 1970. His first solo exhibition was in 1982 where his expansive "black and white" works, the Touch of Class series, were a huge success and his entire output till then was sold out in four days! Fortunately for us, he has continued working in that style, and we have some of that represented here. His men and women are not beautiful in a conventional sense but his simplification of form has much of the purity and balance which Gupta period sculptors brought to the dreaming Buddhas of the Indo-Greek school of painting.
His second style, which we might call his Dutch style, developed after he moved to Holland in 1987 with his wife Paula, who we are honoured to have with us today, as well as their delightful children, Nunita and Faresha. If you see some cubism in his work or motifs such as tulips or jazz and blues and western classical music, that is where they originate, though cubism and indeed impressionism immediately influenced Indian art because India was so well linked to international trends, thanks to the British Empire.
The third phase in his work began when Ramesh moved with his family to England some six years ago, and landscapes as well as what may be called his "Fusion" paintings start here.
Naturally, the dialogue with European landscapes and life and art, you are much better placed to comment on than I am. However, I now come to my seven key observations about Ramesh's work in the context of Indian painting.
First, Ramesh's Touch of Class series departs from the tradition of Indian folk & tribal art, which manifests itself in scrolls and souvenirs and village patas - "primitive" paintings on clay surfaces. An important development of that indigenous folk art school was Kalighat painting. Apart from their glowing colors - red, yellow, blue, green, black - the strongest point of the "flat" Kalighat painting, with its judiciously borrowed shadings sparingly used, was its lines. The Kalighat style has influenced the whole folk genre in contemporary Indian art; starting with Jamini Roy, but including Ramananda Bandopadhyaya, Manjit Bawa, Madhavi Parekh, and Sakti Burman. If Jamini Roy was seeking to:
- capture the essence of simplicity embodied in the life of the folk people;
- to make art accessible to a wider section of people; and
- to give Indian art its own identity,
you can see that Ramesh's A Touch of Class series seeks to do that too but by using very different materials and techniques.
Second, much of Indian painting is obviously religious in theme, starting with the cave paintings of Ajanta and Ellora, around 200 B.C. While Ramesh's work is NOT obviously religious in its themes and motifs at all, his work is highly spiritual, as you will see from the titles of many of his paintings as well as from the few hints that he places here and there, such as the doves or other birds that are a hallmark of his work.
Third, some of his work has been if not quite on the same scale as the cave paintings, certainly on a massive scale which captures some of the qualities peculiar to fresco (sadly we have none of the massively large-scale paintings here today).
Fourth, India has a tradition of illuminated manuscripts and book illustrations from medieval times. I think you can all see that Ramesh has taken that genre and done something unique with it. Here is the kind of art that MIGHT be in a book, but is not…he has taken the genre quite outside itself, in a way similar to what Amrita Sher-Gil did in bringing the influence of Pahari miniatures to large scale using different techniques of course in canvasses such as "The Story Teller".
Fifth, though we Indians had sophisticated means of rendering the human figure and specifically the human face, this achieved its most marked development in the court paintings and portraits of the Indo-Persian school from the 15th century onward, and with the patronage of the Moghuls from the sixteenth century, when the royal atelier produced highly innovative bird and animal studies as well as landscapes. You find that Ramesh's work is a conversation with that traidition, and a challenge to that tradition, and a development of that tradition, specifically in the context of his European experience.
Sixth, you may be aware of the Ragamalas of Rajasthan, of Kangra and of the Pahari school in the Himalayan foothills. At times not only the musical modes (ragamala) were represented pictorially, but also seasons and moods - all in fine detail though typically in a miniature format. I don't recollect seeing Ramesh do anything quite like that, but he has done their equivalent in his larger scale capturing of Jazz and Blues and classical music in his Dutch style.
Seventh, you can see that Ramesh's latest, Fusion works, use montage and takes off from the Bengal school which emphasized handicrafts and which was, in its own way a fusion with Japanese art Ramesh's Fusion series also takes off from K. G. Subramanyan's juxtaposition ofcontemporary art with popular culture, and folk art with urban trends. However, Ramesh's Fusion work is in complete contrast to his most famous contemporaries Francis Newton Souza and Maqbool Fida Husain, whose work is so infuenced by Expressionism and Surrealism, by Emil Nolde and Oskar Kokoschka. However, you do have in Ramesh's work something of Natvar Bhavsar's throbbing and breathing colour, and of Nasreen Mohamedi's minimalist ink drawings, as well as Krishna Reddy's multiple printmaking techniques.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I have no doubt gone on too long, and I could still go on, comparing Ramesh to other contemporary Indian painters in terms of style and form and materials and substance and point of view. However, I want to conclude by saying that Ramesh's work flows out of and develops the art tradition of India in wholly unique and unusual manner, but in a manner entirely worthy of the great but unkown artists of India's dim but beloved past.
Coming to the present, you will have noticed that this is not a gallery, so we have no professional display or lighting here, but as this is only the second private viewing of his work in Switzerland, we hope that it will be a sort of introduction to his work, which is in individual and corporate collections mostly in India, the USA, the Netherlands and the UK. Perhaps some of you know galleries in which his work ought to be exhibited, so that next time we will have his work properly displayed - this is merely the attempt of a few of his enthusiastic admirers, having failed so far to interest the more obvioius places in his work over the last few years, to introduce his work in Switzerland, specially as Indian art is underpriced by world standards but is now rising in popularity as well as price the world over.
Thank you. Sphere: Related Content
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Why did European economies suddely outperform Asian economies?
A fascinating book has recently been published on this subject, edited by Peter Bernholz and Roland Vaubel: POLITICAL COMPETITION, INNOVATION AND GROWTH IN THE HISTORY OF ASIAN CIVILIZATIONS (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. 2004. xii + 225 pp. $100 (cloth), ISBN: 1-84376-919-0).
The question explored by the book is: was political fragmentation in Europe the key reason why post-Reformation Europe grew at historically unprecedented speeds, outdoing Asian growth? The idea is that just as competition between firms improves economic performance within a country, so economic competition between countries might also improve the performance of that bloc of countries.
The question was originally raised by David Hume and Immanuel Kant in the eighteenth century. Recent expositions of the thesis are Jean Baechler's THE ORIGINS OF CAPITALISM and Eric Jones's _THE EUROPEAN MIRACLE.
The papers in this volume resulted from a conference held in Heidelberg in September 2002. Contributors include historians, sociologists, economists and a socio-psychologist. The thesis is tested by examining the four major Asian "empires" -- China, Japan, India, and the Middle East.
The book has three general essays on creativity and fragmentation, and four Asian case studies.
The introductory essay by the editors provides some background to the general arguments and the case studies in the book, arguing for the importance of geographic mobility, religious diversity, political stability, peace, and "institutional pluralism within the political units."
The social psychologist, D.K. Simonton, uses earlier estimates of Asian creativity, to argue for the importance of political fragmentation and of cultural homogeneity. Jean Baechler discusses the debate on the hypothesis claiming that it "is not a yardstick to be applied rigidly and mechanically ... but a hypothesis and a method of inquiry" (whatever that means!).
Deepak Lal's account of India and Timur Kuran's discussion of the Islamic Middle East agree that growth in these two societies was stunted by their monolithic nature. (I conclude that different belief-systems can be equally "monolithic" in relation to their effect on economic growth).
On the other hand, Pak Hung Mo's study of China argues the drawbacks of centralized control, and Günther Distelrath's study of Japan describes the difficulties confronted by Japan at times of "total decentralization."
So: political fragmentation helps to explain bursts of creativity in some cases, but not in others!
Thinking through this book raises some rather simple questions:
1. Is there an optimum degree of fragmentation?
2. How come Reformed Europe hit upon precisely this degree of fragmentation?
3. In a global context, there was plenty of "political competition" between Northern Europe and Southern Europe, but also between Europe and the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire itself was in political competition with Africa to the South, and with other Islamic kingdoms to the East and the North. A similar picture can be painted of East Asia, with the struggle between India and China for hegemony there (as a result of which the area came to be divided into "Indian Asia" and "Chinese Asia").
4. If the hypothesis is correct, why was it that the transition in South America from a unified empire to separate countries in the early nineteenth century did not facilitate substantially speedier growth?
5. Finally, if political fragmentation encourages cultural and economic growth only under certain conditions, what exactly are these conditions? (No prizes for guessing my hypothesis: it has to do precisely with the cultural revolution that was the Reformation).
We know that the Reformation was not bloodless because the Unreformed parts of Europe not only resisted being reformed themselves, but also had a vested interested in trying to prevent any part of their previously relatively united "continent" from being reformed.
Northern Europe succeeded in being reformed only because thousands of common people were prepared to die for their beliefs.
This was bottom-up Reformation.
By contrast, top-down reformation (such as we see in China today, and we saw in recent history in Japan and Singapore, and in various African countries in the Sixties - and saw earlier for example in Marxist-Leninist Russia) does succeed for a time but usually only for one or two or a maximum of three generations (which I posit as being roughly 70 years). Why? Because an elite can "control" liberalisation for a certain length of time, so that the population benefits but the elite benefits even more…but there eventually comes a point where the country has to decide between the elite and the population. At that point, the country collapses into chaos (Africa), stasis (Japan) or dictatorship (Iran).
Only a genuine revolution in the hearts and minds of ordinary people ensures a bottom-up Reformation which transforms equally and simultaneously the social, educational, political, and economic structures. That is the only thing that has historically ever led to sustained growth.
Modern global elites insist on ignoring this simple fact. That is why the World Bank and related organisations have consistently failed in their attempts to encourage growth in so-called "developing societies": a focus on structures and mechanics is no substitute for the organic growth represented by changed beliefs and behaviours. Jesus of Nazareth compared this change to the way that yeast grows and the way a tree grows.
Those who refuse to understand these rather simple truths will never gain insight into what creates genuine growth as distinct from the artificially-engineered or manipulatory bubbles that fill out the globalised economy today.
ENDS Sphere: Related Content
The question explored by the book is: was political fragmentation in Europe the key reason why post-Reformation Europe grew at historically unprecedented speeds, outdoing Asian growth? The idea is that just as competition between firms improves economic performance within a country, so economic competition between countries might also improve the performance of that bloc of countries.
The question was originally raised by David Hume and Immanuel Kant in the eighteenth century. Recent expositions of the thesis are Jean Baechler's THE ORIGINS OF CAPITALISM and Eric Jones's _THE EUROPEAN MIRACLE.
The papers in this volume resulted from a conference held in Heidelberg in September 2002. Contributors include historians, sociologists, economists and a socio-psychologist. The thesis is tested by examining the four major Asian "empires" -- China, Japan, India, and the Middle East.
The book has three general essays on creativity and fragmentation, and four Asian case studies.
The introductory essay by the editors provides some background to the general arguments and the case studies in the book, arguing for the importance of geographic mobility, religious diversity, political stability, peace, and "institutional pluralism within the political units."
The social psychologist, D.K. Simonton, uses earlier estimates of Asian creativity, to argue for the importance of political fragmentation and of cultural homogeneity. Jean Baechler discusses the debate on the hypothesis claiming that it "is not a yardstick to be applied rigidly and mechanically ... but a hypothesis and a method of inquiry" (whatever that means!).
Deepak Lal's account of India and Timur Kuran's discussion of the Islamic Middle East agree that growth in these two societies was stunted by their monolithic nature. (I conclude that different belief-systems can be equally "monolithic" in relation to their effect on economic growth).
On the other hand, Pak Hung Mo's study of China argues the drawbacks of centralized control, and Günther Distelrath's study of Japan describes the difficulties confronted by Japan at times of "total decentralization."
So: political fragmentation helps to explain bursts of creativity in some cases, but not in others!
Thinking through this book raises some rather simple questions:
1. Is there an optimum degree of fragmentation?
2. How come Reformed Europe hit upon precisely this degree of fragmentation?
3. In a global context, there was plenty of "political competition" between Northern Europe and Southern Europe, but also between Europe and the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire itself was in political competition with Africa to the South, and with other Islamic kingdoms to the East and the North. A similar picture can be painted of East Asia, with the struggle between India and China for hegemony there (as a result of which the area came to be divided into "Indian Asia" and "Chinese Asia").
4. If the hypothesis is correct, why was it that the transition in South America from a unified empire to separate countries in the early nineteenth century did not facilitate substantially speedier growth?
5. Finally, if political fragmentation encourages cultural and economic growth only under certain conditions, what exactly are these conditions? (No prizes for guessing my hypothesis: it has to do precisely with the cultural revolution that was the Reformation).
We know that the Reformation was not bloodless because the Unreformed parts of Europe not only resisted being reformed themselves, but also had a vested interested in trying to prevent any part of their previously relatively united "continent" from being reformed.
Northern Europe succeeded in being reformed only because thousands of common people were prepared to die for their beliefs.
This was bottom-up Reformation.
By contrast, top-down reformation (such as we see in China today, and we saw in recent history in Japan and Singapore, and in various African countries in the Sixties - and saw earlier for example in Marxist-Leninist Russia) does succeed for a time but usually only for one or two or a maximum of three generations (which I posit as being roughly 70 years). Why? Because an elite can "control" liberalisation for a certain length of time, so that the population benefits but the elite benefits even more…but there eventually comes a point where the country has to decide between the elite and the population. At that point, the country collapses into chaos (Africa), stasis (Japan) or dictatorship (Iran).
Only a genuine revolution in the hearts and minds of ordinary people ensures a bottom-up Reformation which transforms equally and simultaneously the social, educational, political, and economic structures. That is the only thing that has historically ever led to sustained growth.
Modern global elites insist on ignoring this simple fact. That is why the World Bank and related organisations have consistently failed in their attempts to encourage growth in so-called "developing societies": a focus on structures and mechanics is no substitute for the organic growth represented by changed beliefs and behaviours. Jesus of Nazareth compared this change to the way that yeast grows and the way a tree grows.
Those who refuse to understand these rather simple truths will never gain insight into what creates genuine growth as distinct from the artificially-engineered or manipulatory bubbles that fill out the globalised economy today.
ENDS Sphere: Related Content
The Disputed Connection between Terrorism and Islam
Probably the sanest and most balanced short discussion of the subject I have seen so far is the article: THE MYTH OF MODERATE ISLAM by Patrick Sookhdeo
"The funeral of British suicide bomber Shehzad Tanweer was held in absentia in his family’s ancestral village, near Lahore, Pakistan. Thousands of people attended, as they did again the following day when a qul ceremony was held for Tanweer. During qul, the Koran is recited to speed the deceased’s journey to paradise, though in Tanweer’s case this was hardly necessary. Being a shahid (martyr), he is deemed to have gone straight to paradise. The 22-year-old from Leeds, whose bomb at Aldgate station killed seven people, was hailed by the crowd as ‘a hero of Islam’. "
To access the full article, please go to: http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php?id=6421
Do note that free registration is required (if you are not already registered) but it IS quick and easy.
And the publication gives you the possibility of voting on the article, so that you can express your agreement or disagreement with the author.
ENDS Sphere: Related Content
"The funeral of British suicide bomber Shehzad Tanweer was held in absentia in his family’s ancestral village, near Lahore, Pakistan. Thousands of people attended, as they did again the following day when a qul ceremony was held for Tanweer. During qul, the Koran is recited to speed the deceased’s journey to paradise, though in Tanweer’s case this was hardly necessary. Being a shahid (martyr), he is deemed to have gone straight to paradise. The 22-year-old from Leeds, whose bomb at Aldgate station killed seven people, was hailed by the crowd as ‘a hero of Islam’. "
To access the full article, please go to: http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php?id=6421
Do note that free registration is required (if you are not already registered) but it IS quick and easy.
And the publication gives you the possibility of voting on the article, so that you can express your agreement or disagreement with the author.
ENDS Sphere: Related Content
On Short-Termism, Corporate Culture, CSR and Tax Regimes
A friend draws my attention to the following article (http://www.ethicalcorp.com/content.asp?ContentID=3721) and asks, "Do you think his assessment of short-termism (and suggestion on tax regimes) has value, and any prospect of happening?".
I provide my answer below, as it may be of wider interest, but please note that the acronym "CSR" stands for "Corporate Social Responsibility":
Dear Jonathan
Thanks for drawing my attention to this
If rhetoric is part of a systematic attempt to create a corporate culture that is focused on values, then it can work, but only then
Very few companies have anything like a systematic and comprehensive approach to creating the right corporate culture
He is right in noting that, before the 1980s, corporations had a social purpose - though this was not because of what we would today call CSR, it was because both owners and workers were better integrated into communities. As a result of the impact of the theory of evolution combined with the impact of technology, we live very fragmented lives today, and rarely have what might be called a genuine community (by which I mean a community consisting of varied political persuasions, economic status, and family background) - usually, we live in stratified ghettoes of gated communities (if we are seriously rich), or in middle-class suburbs, or in working class areas, or in the inner city and so on (though gentrification complicates the picture a bit if one is speaking spatially, the principle holds in terms of the actual lived experience of the people concerned)
Many other things changed in the 80s (e.g. legislation worldwide removed the remaining restrictions on charging interest and took the situation back to what it was before Christians abolished usury in the West)
Short-termism: he is entirely right in observing that " the causes of corporate malfeasance lie in managers' roles as short-term "profit maximisers". The role of maximising short-term profit is another of the things that accelerated in the 80s - earlier, most people kept their money in savings accounts. The 80s saw the beginning of the mass move to shares (and bonds) and loans-against-mortgages....and, as capital flowed into corporations, the pressure on them grew to "perform" short-term
Though some of this short-termism has begun to be countered at some level by the rhetoric of CSR, mostly CSR remains merely rhetoric, with some marginal things being done here and there as a sop to the conscience and to CSR.
Basically, we have a worldwide culture of individual greed and its corporate equivalent: corporate short-termism.
His three key recommendations are that:
* Boards of directors should be elected for a reasonably long-
term: shareholders should be permitted to vote only every five years, rather than annually.
* Taxes should be applied on short-term share trading and tax-
forgiveness encouraged with regard to long-term investing. Corporate tax regimes should be designed to meet financial needs of particular industries.
* Companies should treat investments in staff as corporate assets rather than expenses. He said this would disincentivise lay-offs as a means of boosting profits")
These would go a long way towards ameliorating the situation.
However, the chances of these and other such recommendations being implemented depend on the vigour with which the global public understands the urgency of the issues and presses for such changes. At present, I would put such chances at no more than 50-50 over the next 5 years, though you never know how quickly the climate changes one way or the other
ENDS Sphere: Related Content
I provide my answer below, as it may be of wider interest, but please note that the acronym "CSR" stands for "Corporate Social Responsibility":
Dear Jonathan
Thanks for drawing my attention to this
If rhetoric is part of a systematic attempt to create a corporate culture that is focused on values, then it can work, but only then
Very few companies have anything like a systematic and comprehensive approach to creating the right corporate culture
He is right in noting that, before the 1980s, corporations had a social purpose - though this was not because of what we would today call CSR, it was because both owners and workers were better integrated into communities. As a result of the impact of the theory of evolution combined with the impact of technology, we live very fragmented lives today, and rarely have what might be called a genuine community (by which I mean a community consisting of varied political persuasions, economic status, and family background) - usually, we live in stratified ghettoes of gated communities (if we are seriously rich), or in middle-class suburbs, or in working class areas, or in the inner city and so on (though gentrification complicates the picture a bit if one is speaking spatially, the principle holds in terms of the actual lived experience of the people concerned)
Many other things changed in the 80s (e.g. legislation worldwide removed the remaining restrictions on charging interest and took the situation back to what it was before Christians abolished usury in the West)
Short-termism: he is entirely right in observing that " the causes of corporate malfeasance lie in managers' roles as short-term "profit maximisers". The role of maximising short-term profit is another of the things that accelerated in the 80s - earlier, most people kept their money in savings accounts. The 80s saw the beginning of the mass move to shares (and bonds) and loans-against-mortgages....and, as capital flowed into corporations, the pressure on them grew to "perform" short-term
Though some of this short-termism has begun to be countered at some level by the rhetoric of CSR, mostly CSR remains merely rhetoric, with some marginal things being done here and there as a sop to the conscience and to CSR.
Basically, we have a worldwide culture of individual greed and its corporate equivalent: corporate short-termism.
His three key recommendations are that:
* Boards of directors should be elected for a reasonably long-
term: shareholders should be permitted to vote only every five years, rather than annually.
* Taxes should be applied on short-term share trading and tax-
forgiveness encouraged with regard to long-term investing. Corporate tax regimes should be designed to meet financial needs of particular industries.
* Companies should treat investments in staff as corporate assets rather than expenses. He said this would disincentivise lay-offs as a means of boosting profits")
These would go a long way towards ameliorating the situation.
However, the chances of these and other such recommendations being implemented depend on the vigour with which the global public understands the urgency of the issues and presses for such changes. At present, I would put such chances at no more than 50-50 over the next 5 years, though you never know how quickly the climate changes one way or the other
ENDS Sphere: Related Content
Sunday, July 03, 2005
Spirituality, Atheism and Business
A publication in India wants to do an interview with me on this subject, and asked the following questions. I provide my answers as they may be of interest to a wider group:
Q. Many of us fail to distinguish between religion and spirituality. Is there a difference between the two? What according to you is the difference between religion and spirituality?
Answer: It is fashionable nowadays to try and make a distinction between "religion" as consisting in Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and so on (that is, established and formal religions) and "spirituality" as consisting in attempts to relate to the Divine outside the established formalities of such religions.
In India, we have had a long tradition (since the first century before Christ) of a split between religion (as in temples) and spirituality (as in meditation, and so on).
However, in fact, there is no real distinction between "religion" and "spirituality" - or, if there is a distinction, it is a purely academic and theoretical one.
In actuality, all devotees of any religion are seeking to experience God and to be guided by Him. And everyone who is
"spiritual" is seeking exactly the same.
Q: What are the challenges faced by the world of business today? Can spirituality play a role in overcoming these challenges?
Answer: The main challenges faced by business are:
A. How to survive in a hyper-competitive world, and
B. How to deal with the increasing demands of regulation, corporate governance, ethics, corporate social responsibility, and so on.
Spirituality/ religion can indeed play a key part in this, in terms of motivation, fair play, and providing a means of understanding and relating not only to the world in general but also specifically to financial, economic, environmental, health and other challenges. This is too wide and complex a subject to go into in this brief space, but a Google search for my somewhat unusual name will indicate at least some materials with which to begin an exploration of some of these matters.
Q: Companies like ServiceMaster in the US states one of its company objectives as "To honor God in all we do", while Kyocera from Japan has its corporate motto as "Respect the Divine and Love People." Even leaders from Indian companies are speaking about application of spirituality in business. What is the reason behind this increasing interest in spirituality? Is it a fad?
Answer: It is a fad, but what is wrong with that? Fads can be good and useful as well as useless and even horrible! But at least some of the reasons for the fad are negative ones, in that the impact of evolution in the West tore many people away from their spiritual roots in Christianity and the Bible. Now the children and grandchildren of these people are discovering that atheism may be fine as a means of protest against hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty, but atheism provides no answers regarding how to live as an individual or family or how to conduct business or political life - so spirituality is coming back…..
Q. Are concepts like 'spirituality at workplace', 'organisation renewal' etc meant only for mature organisations which have financial and human resources to support such activities? What about start-ups/ small scale industries etc?
Answer: In my experience, it does not matter whether companies are mature or start-ups: some of both sorts of companies welcome and nurture spiritual interests. By contrast, other companies (mature or start-ups) are hostile or negligent of spirituality.
Q. Are there experiments/studies to show that tapping spirituality at work has resulted in a positive impact on business? Can you cite examples of companies boldly engaging in spiritual dialogues inside and outside the organisation? Any specific examples you would like to share...?
Answer: The evidence is solid. Read books such as Jesus C.E.O. or Moses on Leadership (if you would like a more extensive reading list, please contact me and I will happily send it to you).
Moreover, the evidence is growing greater and spreading wider each week. Read publications such as Faith in Business Quarterly or Sojourners magazine or Business Ethics.
Companies: you mention ServiceMaster above - a fine example. Others include, in the USA, Herman Miller, PepsiCola, FedEx, and so on. In the UK, companies such as Barclays Bank and Shell have had "christian fellowship" groups for decades.
Q. Your messages to a business leader who would like to tap spirituality at her/his workplace?
Answer: First, go yourself personally to a relatively "neutral" or "non-threatening" or "safe" meeting, such as those sponsored by The Trinity Forum in Europe. Then explore the subject in some minimum depth yourself, in order to understand the most common pitfalls and mistakes made in this field, so that you can steer around these. Spirituality is powerful - even Hitler was highly religious! So don't mess around naively. Study the subject, and decide the best way forward before moving in public on it.
Q. Any other thoughts you would like to share?
Spirituality is not only for our private or individual lives. Spirituality has also historically shaped things that we take for granted today, such as democracy and literacy and science and technology and economic progress and company law and monetary practice and banking and women's rights and children's rights and animal rights and environmental concern.
Spirituality also shapes families, communities, businesses, economics and politics.
Atheistic views have slaughtered more people in the twentieth century alone than all the religious wars throughout history. Moreover, atheists have contributed little of positive value to any area of life.
ENDS Sphere: Related Content
Q. Many of us fail to distinguish between religion and spirituality. Is there a difference between the two? What according to you is the difference between religion and spirituality?
Answer: It is fashionable nowadays to try and make a distinction between "religion" as consisting in Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and so on (that is, established and formal religions) and "spirituality" as consisting in attempts to relate to the Divine outside the established formalities of such religions.
In India, we have had a long tradition (since the first century before Christ) of a split between religion (as in temples) and spirituality (as in meditation, and so on).
However, in fact, there is no real distinction between "religion" and "spirituality" - or, if there is a distinction, it is a purely academic and theoretical one.
In actuality, all devotees of any religion are seeking to experience God and to be guided by Him. And everyone who is
"spiritual" is seeking exactly the same.
Q: What are the challenges faced by the world of business today? Can spirituality play a role in overcoming these challenges?
Answer: The main challenges faced by business are:
A. How to survive in a hyper-competitive world, and
B. How to deal with the increasing demands of regulation, corporate governance, ethics, corporate social responsibility, and so on.
Spirituality/ religion can indeed play a key part in this, in terms of motivation, fair play, and providing a means of understanding and relating not only to the world in general but also specifically to financial, economic, environmental, health and other challenges. This is too wide and complex a subject to go into in this brief space, but a Google search for my somewhat unusual name will indicate at least some materials with which to begin an exploration of some of these matters.
Q: Companies like ServiceMaster in the US states one of its company objectives as "To honor God in all we do", while Kyocera from Japan has its corporate motto as "Respect the Divine and Love People." Even leaders from Indian companies are speaking about application of spirituality in business. What is the reason behind this increasing interest in spirituality? Is it a fad?
Answer: It is a fad, but what is wrong with that? Fads can be good and useful as well as useless and even horrible! But at least some of the reasons for the fad are negative ones, in that the impact of evolution in the West tore many people away from their spiritual roots in Christianity and the Bible. Now the children and grandchildren of these people are discovering that atheism may be fine as a means of protest against hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty, but atheism provides no answers regarding how to live as an individual or family or how to conduct business or political life - so spirituality is coming back…..
Q. Are concepts like 'spirituality at workplace', 'organisation renewal' etc meant only for mature organisations which have financial and human resources to support such activities? What about start-ups/ small scale industries etc?
Answer: In my experience, it does not matter whether companies are mature or start-ups: some of both sorts of companies welcome and nurture spiritual interests. By contrast, other companies (mature or start-ups) are hostile or negligent of spirituality.
Q. Are there experiments/studies to show that tapping spirituality at work has resulted in a positive impact on business? Can you cite examples of companies boldly engaging in spiritual dialogues inside and outside the organisation? Any specific examples you would like to share...?
Answer: The evidence is solid. Read books such as Jesus C.E.O. or Moses on Leadership (if you would like a more extensive reading list, please contact me and I will happily send it to you).
Moreover, the evidence is growing greater and spreading wider each week. Read publications such as Faith in Business Quarterly or Sojourners magazine or Business Ethics.
Companies: you mention ServiceMaster above - a fine example. Others include, in the USA, Herman Miller, PepsiCola, FedEx, and so on. In the UK, companies such as Barclays Bank and Shell have had "christian fellowship" groups for decades.
Q. Your messages to a business leader who would like to tap spirituality at her/his workplace?
Answer: First, go yourself personally to a relatively "neutral" or "non-threatening" or "safe" meeting, such as those sponsored by The Trinity Forum in Europe. Then explore the subject in some minimum depth yourself, in order to understand the most common pitfalls and mistakes made in this field, so that you can steer around these. Spirituality is powerful - even Hitler was highly religious! So don't mess around naively. Study the subject, and decide the best way forward before moving in public on it.
Q. Any other thoughts you would like to share?
Spirituality is not only for our private or individual lives. Spirituality has also historically shaped things that we take for granted today, such as democracy and literacy and science and technology and economic progress and company law and monetary practice and banking and women's rights and children's rights and animal rights and environmental concern.
Spirituality also shapes families, communities, businesses, economics and politics.
Atheistic views have slaughtered more people in the twentieth century alone than all the religious wars throughout history. Moreover, atheists have contributed little of positive value to any area of life.
ENDS Sphere: Related Content
A Vision for our Century
I was asked to contribute my "personal vision" for one of the conferences in which I am participating. Here is what I have sent in:
Ever since the sixteenth century, when the Protestant Reformers sowed, for the first time in history, the seeds of education, political freedom, science, technology and economic progress, these seeds have sprouted and their flowers have spread far and wide, increasingly bringing blessings everywhere around the globe.
Officially, we may be Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, and so on but, in practice, we are all culturally Protestant now, since we are committed to education, political freedom and all the other cultural fruits of the Reformation.
However, the Darwinist Revolution (which started in the 1860s and became powerful in Europe from the 1880s onwards, and in the USA from the 1930s onwards) has also spread worldwide, resulting in the spread of purposelessness, anomie, individualism, social fragmentation, sensationalism, overwork, over-exploitation of natural resources, and the maximisation of profits for the few who own productive assets worldwide.
The reason that Darwinism became (and remains) popular have nothing to do with science and everything to do with humankind's desire to evade accountability. We would rather like to be free to live our own lives, make our own decisions and go our own way without having to consider the consequences for ourselves, for others, for humanity, and for nature.
With the rise of the latest technologies (now known macabrely as GRIN - Genetics, Robotics, Information and Nanotech), the necessity and identity of humankind is at stake. These technologies form as potent a threat to humankind as nuclear bombs did in the Sixties.
My vision is that we will together be able to find ways to harness these technologies, so that they are instruments for good rather than means of evil. But that will only happen if we are willing to look into our own hearts to locate the sources of greed, lust, power-hunger, fear and other such negative emotions - *and* if we are willing to look clear-headedly at the institutions we have created which embody these negative emotions and amplify their effect - institutions such as the limited company, fiat money, and usury.
Naturally, we also need to find the solution to these negative emotions, and the motivation to work for the continued reformation of society. As a Hindu, I have found both the solution and the motivation in my relationship with Jesus of Nazareth, the Guru and the Lord, who forgives me, cleans me, and energises me.
Regardless of beliefs (or lack of them), I welcome everyone who wishes to join me on the journey to the core of the heart, which is also a quest for the fulfilment of the vision of a humane future.
ENDS Sphere: Related Content
Ever since the sixteenth century, when the Protestant Reformers sowed, for the first time in history, the seeds of education, political freedom, science, technology and economic progress, these seeds have sprouted and their flowers have spread far and wide, increasingly bringing blessings everywhere around the globe.
Officially, we may be Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, and so on but, in practice, we are all culturally Protestant now, since we are committed to education, political freedom and all the other cultural fruits of the Reformation.
However, the Darwinist Revolution (which started in the 1860s and became powerful in Europe from the 1880s onwards, and in the USA from the 1930s onwards) has also spread worldwide, resulting in the spread of purposelessness, anomie, individualism, social fragmentation, sensationalism, overwork, over-exploitation of natural resources, and the maximisation of profits for the few who own productive assets worldwide.
The reason that Darwinism became (and remains) popular have nothing to do with science and everything to do with humankind's desire to evade accountability. We would rather like to be free to live our own lives, make our own decisions and go our own way without having to consider the consequences for ourselves, for others, for humanity, and for nature.
With the rise of the latest technologies (now known macabrely as GRIN - Genetics, Robotics, Information and Nanotech), the necessity and identity of humankind is at stake. These technologies form as potent a threat to humankind as nuclear bombs did in the Sixties.
My vision is that we will together be able to find ways to harness these technologies, so that they are instruments for good rather than means of evil. But that will only happen if we are willing to look into our own hearts to locate the sources of greed, lust, power-hunger, fear and other such negative emotions - *and* if we are willing to look clear-headedly at the institutions we have created which embody these negative emotions and amplify their effect - institutions such as the limited company, fiat money, and usury.
Naturally, we also need to find the solution to these negative emotions, and the motivation to work for the continued reformation of society. As a Hindu, I have found both the solution and the motivation in my relationship with Jesus of Nazareth, the Guru and the Lord, who forgives me, cleans me, and energises me.
Regardless of beliefs (or lack of them), I welcome everyone who wishes to join me on the journey to the core of the heart, which is also a quest for the fulfilment of the vision of a humane future.
ENDS Sphere: Related Content
India versus China in the World Economy
A friend has just sent me a copy of the paper, "China and India in the World Economy", which will be presented on 7 July 2005 to the International Conference of Commercial Bank Economists in Bahia, Brazil, by the Chief Economist of ANZ Bank in Australia, Saul Eslake.
Quite simply the best and most comprehensive paper on the subject that I have seen so far, it makes for uncomfortable reading by Indians. For example, Eslake points out that "growth rates (in China and India) are rapid by historical standards, but they are by no means unprecedented for economies at China’s and India’s stage of economic development….Despite … impressive growth, China and India are still relatively poor countries. China’s per capita GDP (in US$ at PPP) in 2005 of $5,642 places it in 95th position among the IMF’s sample, while India with $3,029 ranks 120th".
Even in 2015, when (assuming that the long-term consensus projections compiled by Consensus Economics earlier this year are vindicated), China will have just overtaken the United States as the world’s largest economy, and India will have moved past Japan into third place, "China and India will still be relatively poor countries in 2015, despite their size….China’s per capita GDP will be barely more than one-fifth that of the US (cf. about one-seventh in 2004) and slightly less than one-third of Japan’s (cf. a little over one-sixth in 2004); while India’s per capita GDP would be about one-tenth that of the US (cf. about one-thirteenth in 2004) and about oneseventh of Japan’s (cf. about one-tenth in 2004)".
Eslake seems to be more sanguine about China than about India: " While India does enjoy an advantage over China in regard to its relatively large number of English speakers, in other respects it seems difficult to argue that India is better placed than China to compete internationally in this field. China spends 5.3% of its GDP on IT, compared with India’s 3.7%; China has 27.6 personal computers per 1000 people, as against India’s 7.2; and China has 63 internet users per 1000 people, compared with 17 in India. More generally, China has 633 R&D researchers per million people, more than five times as many as India’s 120 per million, publishes almost twice as many scientific and technical journal articles per million people, and spends half as much again of its GDP on R&D (1.2% against 0.8%)".
He seems to me to underrate or ignore some key factors and questions
1. However clever the rulers of China may be, they can only make decisions on the basis of the information that reaches them - and systems (both in politics and in business) have a way of ensuring that unlikeable information is not sent as a matter of preference to people in power. In addition, people (whether or not in power) themselves do not like to look at information that is disagreeable to them or confronts their prejudices. The result is that systems tend to brainwash themselves in line with their own prejudices. Sometimes, this is called "tunnel vision".
An open culture is the only safeguard against this kind of "boxed-in thinking".
That is why the open system of democracy and a free press, though in the short- and medium-term slower and more unsatisfactory than a benign dictatorship, is so much better in the long run. Everyone in a democracy can see the problems, issues and challenges quite clearly, can check the facts, propose solutions, put pressure on those in power, and so on. Let's take a simple point: how much of Pudong is let at all? How much is let on commercially viable rates? Who knows? Who can find out?
2. One-pary rule makes sense if it is entirely meritocratic (Singapore's system went a long way towards this under Lee Kuan Yew), but such a system is also open to abuse (as we have started seeing alread in Singapore).
One-party rule also makes some sort of sense where it is driven by an ideology (as in Maoist China and Mullah-run Iran). What sense does it make in a China which has decided to integrate into the world economy? The "Party" now consists only of those who have a vested interest in controlling the system - to their own advantage of course (even a preliminary investigation of the purchases and investments made by Party members outside China is very revealing).
3. If bank loans amount to 160% of GDP, as in China (according to Eslake, the highest in the world), can that really be considered a stable economy? In a closed polity, where these loans are still made on the basis of political considerations, how much of the economy consists of bad loans? Who knows? Who can check?
4. Eslake acknowledges that the money supply is controlled by the People's Bank of China, but he does not tell us whether and to what degree the money supply is manipulated by the Bank in such a way that the outside world can have confidence in its ability to handle downturns in the world economy. In other words, how much of a bubble is the Chinese economy?
For Indians, the most interesting question raised by Eslake's paper is: If India was really the world's largest economy till the 14th or 15th century AD, what caused it to begin to lose that position? Eslake suggests (in line with Jared Diamond) that the Chinese were more technologically innovative than Indians. And if that is so, does that say something about the Chinese character as against the Indian one? Or is it possible that the rise of Vedantic philosophy and specifically Tantra made us more gradually more and more unworldly than the Chinese, allowing us first to be increasingly plundered by foreigners and then to be ruled more and more by foreigners - which, in turn, increased the corruption and venality of our ruling classes in line with the increasing rigidity of the caste system?
India's problem was, and remains, principally that of a corrupt political elite that wants to continue political and economic controls primarily because that is to its own benefit. The people want change but the rulers don't.
China, by contrast, has a political elite determined to build the country even, where necessary at the cost of its own advantage.
The challenge for China is that its elite has credibility but little legitimacy. The challenge for India is that its elite has legitimacy but little credibility. Both countries need to move to more open markets as well as a properly open polity.
The final question Eslake raises, in terms of possible power struggles between China and the rest of the world is a worrying one. However, he mindlessly echoes Lee Kuan
Yew's view that , “in 20 years time the centre of gravity of the world will shift from the Atlantic to the Pacific and Indian Oceans”. Yew, and Eslake, ignore the essential question of who owns and who will own these economies (assuming they undertake sufficient political reform to stay stable in the meanwhile). We live in an increasingly interdependent world, in which Europe, China, India and other developing countries own an increasing part of the United States economy, at the same time as Americans (including Chinese and Indians resident in the US) own increasing proportions of China's and India's economies. That is the best guarantee of peace, even though it does not guarantee that the political elite in China will move sufficiently quickly to prevent internal chaos or collapse, much to the discomfort of the world economy.
ENDS Sphere: Related Content
Quite simply the best and most comprehensive paper on the subject that I have seen so far, it makes for uncomfortable reading by Indians. For example, Eslake points out that "growth rates (in China and India) are rapid by historical standards, but they are by no means unprecedented for economies at China’s and India’s stage of economic development….Despite … impressive growth, China and India are still relatively poor countries. China’s per capita GDP (in US$ at PPP) in 2005 of $5,642 places it in 95th position among the IMF’s sample, while India with $3,029 ranks 120th".
Even in 2015, when (assuming that the long-term consensus projections compiled by Consensus Economics earlier this year are vindicated), China will have just overtaken the United States as the world’s largest economy, and India will have moved past Japan into third place, "China and India will still be relatively poor countries in 2015, despite their size….China’s per capita GDP will be barely more than one-fifth that of the US (cf. about one-seventh in 2004) and slightly less than one-third of Japan’s (cf. a little over one-sixth in 2004); while India’s per capita GDP would be about one-tenth that of the US (cf. about one-thirteenth in 2004) and about oneseventh of Japan’s (cf. about one-tenth in 2004)".
Eslake seems to be more sanguine about China than about India: " While India does enjoy an advantage over China in regard to its relatively large number of English speakers, in other respects it seems difficult to argue that India is better placed than China to compete internationally in this field. China spends 5.3% of its GDP on IT, compared with India’s 3.7%; China has 27.6 personal computers per 1000 people, as against India’s 7.2; and China has 63 internet users per 1000 people, compared with 17 in India. More generally, China has 633 R&D researchers per million people, more than five times as many as India’s 120 per million, publishes almost twice as many scientific and technical journal articles per million people, and spends half as much again of its GDP on R&D (1.2% against 0.8%)".
He seems to me to underrate or ignore some key factors and questions
1. However clever the rulers of China may be, they can only make decisions on the basis of the information that reaches them - and systems (both in politics and in business) have a way of ensuring that unlikeable information is not sent as a matter of preference to people in power. In addition, people (whether or not in power) themselves do not like to look at information that is disagreeable to them or confronts their prejudices. The result is that systems tend to brainwash themselves in line with their own prejudices. Sometimes, this is called "tunnel vision".
An open culture is the only safeguard against this kind of "boxed-in thinking".
That is why the open system of democracy and a free press, though in the short- and medium-term slower and more unsatisfactory than a benign dictatorship, is so much better in the long run. Everyone in a democracy can see the problems, issues and challenges quite clearly, can check the facts, propose solutions, put pressure on those in power, and so on. Let's take a simple point: how much of Pudong is let at all? How much is let on commercially viable rates? Who knows? Who can find out?
2. One-pary rule makes sense if it is entirely meritocratic (Singapore's system went a long way towards this under Lee Kuan Yew), but such a system is also open to abuse (as we have started seeing alread in Singapore).
One-party rule also makes some sort of sense where it is driven by an ideology (as in Maoist China and Mullah-run Iran). What sense does it make in a China which has decided to integrate into the world economy? The "Party" now consists only of those who have a vested interest in controlling the system - to their own advantage of course (even a preliminary investigation of the purchases and investments made by Party members outside China is very revealing).
3. If bank loans amount to 160% of GDP, as in China (according to Eslake, the highest in the world), can that really be considered a stable economy? In a closed polity, where these loans are still made on the basis of political considerations, how much of the economy consists of bad loans? Who knows? Who can check?
4. Eslake acknowledges that the money supply is controlled by the People's Bank of China, but he does not tell us whether and to what degree the money supply is manipulated by the Bank in such a way that the outside world can have confidence in its ability to handle downturns in the world economy. In other words, how much of a bubble is the Chinese economy?
For Indians, the most interesting question raised by Eslake's paper is: If India was really the world's largest economy till the 14th or 15th century AD, what caused it to begin to lose that position? Eslake suggests (in line with Jared Diamond) that the Chinese were more technologically innovative than Indians. And if that is so, does that say something about the Chinese character as against the Indian one? Or is it possible that the rise of Vedantic philosophy and specifically Tantra made us more gradually more and more unworldly than the Chinese, allowing us first to be increasingly plundered by foreigners and then to be ruled more and more by foreigners - which, in turn, increased the corruption and venality of our ruling classes in line with the increasing rigidity of the caste system?
India's problem was, and remains, principally that of a corrupt political elite that wants to continue political and economic controls primarily because that is to its own benefit. The people want change but the rulers don't.
China, by contrast, has a political elite determined to build the country even, where necessary at the cost of its own advantage.
The challenge for China is that its elite has credibility but little legitimacy. The challenge for India is that its elite has legitimacy but little credibility. Both countries need to move to more open markets as well as a properly open polity.
The final question Eslake raises, in terms of possible power struggles between China and the rest of the world is a worrying one. However, he mindlessly echoes Lee Kuan
Yew's view that , “in 20 years time the centre of gravity of the world will shift from the Atlantic to the Pacific and Indian Oceans”. Yew, and Eslake, ignore the essential question of who owns and who will own these economies (assuming they undertake sufficient political reform to stay stable in the meanwhile). We live in an increasingly interdependent world, in which Europe, China, India and other developing countries own an increasing part of the United States economy, at the same time as Americans (including Chinese and Indians resident in the US) own increasing proportions of China's and India's economies. That is the best guarantee of peace, even though it does not guarantee that the political elite in China will move sufficiently quickly to prevent internal chaos or collapse, much to the discomfort of the world economy.
ENDS Sphere: Related Content
Saturday, July 02, 2005
About skeptics and Sceptics: Theism as scepticism regarding Atheism
Today, a correspondent draws my attention to the following site:
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/
I am posting my response as it may interest others:
Dear XXX
I do know the site AND much of the material....
Atheism is fine as a negative - as a sort of intellectual and emotional cocoon - as long as things are going well with us physically and financially....
However, apart from the question of truth and Truth (which is always interesting to debate), the issue with not acknowledging a higer being than ourselves is that such lack of acknowledgement:
- tells us nothing about how we should live
- shows us nothing about how or with what values to bring up our children
- gives us nothing with which to cope with sickness or bereavement or indeed our own mortality
- does not tell us how to rebuild our nation - or why we should or how we can work to improve our world...
So it is not surprising that I am sceptical about atheism.
A reading of Alister McGrath's THE TWILIGHT OF ATHEISM: THE RISE AND FALL OF DISBELIEF IN THE MODERN WORLD (published in 2004 by Doubleday) is recommended.
ENDS Sphere: Related Content
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/
I am posting my response as it may interest others:
Dear XXX
I do know the site AND much of the material....
Atheism is fine as a negative - as a sort of intellectual and emotional cocoon - as long as things are going well with us physically and financially....
However, apart from the question of truth and Truth (which is always interesting to debate), the issue with not acknowledging a higer being than ourselves is that such lack of acknowledgement:
- tells us nothing about how we should live
- shows us nothing about how or with what values to bring up our children
- gives us nothing with which to cope with sickness or bereavement or indeed our own mortality
- does not tell us how to rebuild our nation - or why we should or how we can work to improve our world...
So it is not surprising that I am sceptical about atheism.
A reading of Alister McGrath's THE TWILIGHT OF ATHEISM: THE RISE AND FALL OF DISBELIEF IN THE MODERN WORLD (published in 2004 by Doubleday) is recommended.
ENDS Sphere: Related Content
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
The Robots at Aichi and the Future of Humanity
Recently, I was able to visit the World Expo in Aichi which is about a two and a half hour journey from Tokyo - one needs to take a Shinkansen (“bullet”) train to Nagoya, and then the Shuttle Bus (more expensive) or local trains/linimo (cheaper).
The Expo will close in September and is extremely popular They were originally hoping to have 15 million visitors, but they have already sold 10 million tickets…and there were very looooooooooooooong queues everywhere (usually took up to an hour just to get INTO the Expo, and then up to an hour at each of the most-popular pavilions, though you could walk into the less popular pavilions, which is most of them). Fortunately, I was an official guest, so was able to bypass most of the queues.
I did look around the British, French. German, Indian and Swiss pavilions, but my main interest was Robotics, as Japan is the world’s leading nation in this field. The robot highlights (in my experience) are at the Robot Station, the Morizo & Kiccoro Messe, the Toyota Pavilion, and the NEDO Pavilion.
What I saw was both exciting/amazing and frightening.
Exciting/amazing because of what these robots can do now, from playing music in an opera, to acting as guards (able to fire 20 paint balls a minute at an intruder, check for fires – 360* vision! – can even spot a human on the other side of a (thin) wall, multiply the physical strength of an old or sick or weak person manifold, clean surfaces (including vertical windows in high-rise buildings), play baseball (bowling as well as batting), assist surgery…there were therapeutic robots, child-care robots (able to talk and play with children and even give them quizzes etc to do), dog robots, snake robots, amphibious robots, self-reshaping robots, bomb-disposal robots, robots that communicate with each other, robots that tell you “I am hungry” when they start running out of electricity and then take themselves off for recharging, robots for Reception work in Hotels or Offices (already able to speak in 4 languages – very good voice recognition, though a bit slow), robots that have “legs” so that they can then walk along or go up stairs BUT can also able to transfer their own weight to wheels in order to speed along a paved surface (tolerance of irregularities in the surface only 10 cm at present, and able to go up/down inclines of only 10% at present, moreover their speed is only 6km at present but in principle there is no reason why they can’t in future go at the same speed as a car or aeroplane), robots that will take you around obstacles (living and non-living) to a predetermined destination without you having to “drive” them, an “artist” robot that creates caricatures of the people in front of it, using crayons on huge rice crackers (you could take the caricature of yourself home, but the queue was too long so I did not bother to have mine done).
There was also a “dance” robot but, so far as I could make out, the poor male dancer was actually pushing and shoving the “female dance robot” around – the robot was not dancing by itself …
OK, so these are all prototypes and there remain many glitches to be sorted out and the “active life” of these prototypes seems rather short (there were an enormous number of them out of commission, being repaired, that I did not see in action – presumably I would have been even more impressed if they had also been in commission!), but what will happen when these glitches have been sorted out and such robots can be mass-manufactured?
The whole drive at the Expo was to soothe and reassure the public that these robots were intended to assist particularly an ageing society in Japan, and the propaganda was in full swing, using music, multimedia and interpersonal interaction by the scientists and technologists involved with developing robots.
But if the main problem is ageing, it is much easier (and it would contribute to sorting out many more world problems) if an appropriate number of poor unemployed young people from round the world were to be imported into Japan and taught Japanese language and culture - the spoken language one can begin to cope with in about 2 months, the written language I understand is an entirely different matter, and the the culture is rather more difficult - but presumably robots will not be able to cope with nuances of culture in the foreseeable future?
In any case, the propaganda did not address the question: if we have robots that can do all these things, what “jobs” will be left for humans to do? (So far as I can make out, only the creative ones of *creating* art, music, literature, cuisine and so on, the “scientific” ones of discovering new knowledge and systematising it (including, for example, history and so on), and the technological ones of *conceiving, designing, prototyping, manufacturing and maintaining* robots)…Not a small number of jobs but nowhere near the half a billion or so "jobs" that exist today...
The jobs that would be left to do in a robot-driven world are not jobs that the mass of human beings can do and, if we could do them, the oversupply would be so great as to render the resulting “products” (under the current economic system) nearly worthless….
Anyway, I conclude that the real question for the future of the globe is not sustainability (true, the impact of our non-sustainable policies has started effecting us and will gradually worsen, but it is not going to be catastrophic for humanity for probably the next 50 or so years, as far as I can make out), the real question is how we will as a human society adjust to a world with such sophisticated robots (which the Japanese guess will start making an impact within 7-15 years)
More precisely, the question is: who will own the robots - and will the owners be humanitarians or despots?
If despots, they could use all these robots to keep the rest of the world population in virtual slavery - finally bringing about the world of "1984", and demonstrating that Orwell was only about 30 years out in his estimates (though of course he had in mind a different kind of fascism).
No doubt, my concerns will be dismissed by many as mere doom-mongering.
However, I am convinced that the question facing the world by 2015 (or 2020 at the latest) is how to build a global system, using the unparalleled prosperity and freedom from drudgery which will be possible due to robot-driven agricultural and industrial production, to enable every human being to live a more dignified and worthwhile human life.
An eminently political (that is, ultimately, a spiritual) question.
The frightening thing is that the most able people in the world are largely focused on (a) making more money for themselves or (b) wrestling with the enormous challenges already facing humanity today.
I don’t duck the making of money (I do work for one of the world’s largest banks!). Nor do I duck the challenge of the present (e.g. corruption in India, or the challenge of social justice and sustainability worldwide).
However, no one seems to be working on the challenge of robots – and this challenge will very quickly dwarf all the other challenges facing humanity at present.
So who wants to join me in addressing the key challenge posed by robots to the future of humanity?
ENDS Sphere: Related Content
The Expo will close in September and is extremely popular They were originally hoping to have 15 million visitors, but they have already sold 10 million tickets…and there were very looooooooooooooong queues everywhere (usually took up to an hour just to get INTO the Expo, and then up to an hour at each of the most-popular pavilions, though you could walk into the less popular pavilions, which is most of them). Fortunately, I was an official guest, so was able to bypass most of the queues.
I did look around the British, French. German, Indian and Swiss pavilions, but my main interest was Robotics, as Japan is the world’s leading nation in this field. The robot highlights (in my experience) are at the Robot Station, the Morizo & Kiccoro Messe, the Toyota Pavilion, and the NEDO Pavilion.
What I saw was both exciting/amazing and frightening.
Exciting/amazing because of what these robots can do now, from playing music in an opera, to acting as guards (able to fire 20 paint balls a minute at an intruder, check for fires – 360* vision! – can even spot a human on the other side of a (thin) wall, multiply the physical strength of an old or sick or weak person manifold, clean surfaces (including vertical windows in high-rise buildings), play baseball (bowling as well as batting), assist surgery…there were therapeutic robots, child-care robots (able to talk and play with children and even give them quizzes etc to do), dog robots, snake robots, amphibious robots, self-reshaping robots, bomb-disposal robots, robots that communicate with each other, robots that tell you “I am hungry” when they start running out of electricity and then take themselves off for recharging, robots for Reception work in Hotels or Offices (already able to speak in 4 languages – very good voice recognition, though a bit slow), robots that have “legs” so that they can then walk along or go up stairs BUT can also able to transfer their own weight to wheels in order to speed along a paved surface (tolerance of irregularities in the surface only 10 cm at present, and able to go up/down inclines of only 10% at present, moreover their speed is only 6km at present but in principle there is no reason why they can’t in future go at the same speed as a car or aeroplane), robots that will take you around obstacles (living and non-living) to a predetermined destination without you having to “drive” them, an “artist” robot that creates caricatures of the people in front of it, using crayons on huge rice crackers (you could take the caricature of yourself home, but the queue was too long so I did not bother to have mine done).
There was also a “dance” robot but, so far as I could make out, the poor male dancer was actually pushing and shoving the “female dance robot” around – the robot was not dancing by itself …
OK, so these are all prototypes and there remain many glitches to be sorted out and the “active life” of these prototypes seems rather short (there were an enormous number of them out of commission, being repaired, that I did not see in action – presumably I would have been even more impressed if they had also been in commission!), but what will happen when these glitches have been sorted out and such robots can be mass-manufactured?
The whole drive at the Expo was to soothe and reassure the public that these robots were intended to assist particularly an ageing society in Japan, and the propaganda was in full swing, using music, multimedia and interpersonal interaction by the scientists and technologists involved with developing robots.
But if the main problem is ageing, it is much easier (and it would contribute to sorting out many more world problems) if an appropriate number of poor unemployed young people from round the world were to be imported into Japan and taught Japanese language and culture - the spoken language one can begin to cope with in about 2 months, the written language I understand is an entirely different matter, and the the culture is rather more difficult - but presumably robots will not be able to cope with nuances of culture in the foreseeable future?
In any case, the propaganda did not address the question: if we have robots that can do all these things, what “jobs” will be left for humans to do? (So far as I can make out, only the creative ones of *creating* art, music, literature, cuisine and so on, the “scientific” ones of discovering new knowledge and systematising it (including, for example, history and so on), and the technological ones of *conceiving, designing, prototyping, manufacturing and maintaining* robots)…Not a small number of jobs but nowhere near the half a billion or so "jobs" that exist today...
The jobs that would be left to do in a robot-driven world are not jobs that the mass of human beings can do and, if we could do them, the oversupply would be so great as to render the resulting “products” (under the current economic system) nearly worthless….
Anyway, I conclude that the real question for the future of the globe is not sustainability (true, the impact of our non-sustainable policies has started effecting us and will gradually worsen, but it is not going to be catastrophic for humanity for probably the next 50 or so years, as far as I can make out), the real question is how we will as a human society adjust to a world with such sophisticated robots (which the Japanese guess will start making an impact within 7-15 years)
More precisely, the question is: who will own the robots - and will the owners be humanitarians or despots?
If despots, they could use all these robots to keep the rest of the world population in virtual slavery - finally bringing about the world of "1984", and demonstrating that Orwell was only about 30 years out in his estimates (though of course he had in mind a different kind of fascism).
No doubt, my concerns will be dismissed by many as mere doom-mongering.
However, I am convinced that the question facing the world by 2015 (or 2020 at the latest) is how to build a global system, using the unparalleled prosperity and freedom from drudgery which will be possible due to robot-driven agricultural and industrial production, to enable every human being to live a more dignified and worthwhile human life.
An eminently political (that is, ultimately, a spiritual) question.
The frightening thing is that the most able people in the world are largely focused on (a) making more money for themselves or (b) wrestling with the enormous challenges already facing humanity today.
I don’t duck the making of money (I do work for one of the world’s largest banks!). Nor do I duck the challenge of the present (e.g. corruption in India, or the challenge of social justice and sustainability worldwide).
However, no one seems to be working on the challenge of robots – and this challenge will very quickly dwarf all the other challenges facing humanity at present.
So who wants to join me in addressing the key challenge posed by robots to the future of humanity?
ENDS Sphere: Related Content
On Nick Robins's article regarding The East India Company
Nick Robins's article "The world's first multinational" (below) is a a good and thought-provoking piece in the current context, but it takes too negative a view of the East India Company.
Moreover, it fails to distinguish between the three phases of the Company's involvement with India:
1. from 1600 to 1827 or so, when it was a simple matter of looting India as much as possible, as Robins notes (leading to the Nabobs in Britain)
2. from 1827 or so till 1880 or so, when the Co was forced to develop and implement what we would today call "Corporate Social Responsibility", as a result of the work of the Clapham Group (sometimes called the "Clapham Sect") - that work is an entirely untold story, because of the impact of the Darwinists who have obliterated their story as well as many other such stories from history - Robins seems to be unaware of this
3. from 1880 or so till the independence of India in 1947, when (as a result of the impact of Darwinism) the Raj became a sort of "hangover" of the past with no purpose to it (in the first phase, it was loot; in the second phase, it was stewardship; in the third phase, after the impact of the Darwinists, naturally all purpose was lost, not only to the Raj, but also to humanity and indeed to all life and to the universe itself) - again, something of which Robins seems to be unaware.
Given, additionally, the lack of men in Britain following the two World Wars, it was only a matter of time before the Raj came to end - surprising, really, that it lasted 70 years or so after Phase 2 (comes back, possibly, to my point about generations?)
"The world's first multinational"
by Nick Robins's
Published in New Statesman, 9 December 2004
NS Essay 1- Corporate greed, the ruination of traditional ways of life, share-price bubbles, western imperialism: all these modern complaints were made against the British East India Company in the 18th century. Nick Robins draws the lessons:
In The Discovery of India, the final and perhaps most profound part of his "prison trilogy", written in 1944 from Ahmednagar Fort, Jawaharlal Nehru described the effect of the East India Company on the country he would shortly rule. "The corruption, venality, nepotism, violence and greed of money of these early generations of British rule in India," he wrote, "is something which passes comprehension." It was, he added, "significant that one of the Hindustani words which has become part of the English language is 'loot'".
FOR THE REST OF THE ARTICLE, PLEASE GO TO:
http://www.newstatesman.com/200412130016
ENDS Sphere: Related Content
Moreover, it fails to distinguish between the three phases of the Company's involvement with India:
1. from 1600 to 1827 or so, when it was a simple matter of looting India as much as possible, as Robins notes (leading to the Nabobs in Britain)
2. from 1827 or so till 1880 or so, when the Co was forced to develop and implement what we would today call "Corporate Social Responsibility", as a result of the work of the Clapham Group (sometimes called the "Clapham Sect") - that work is an entirely untold story, because of the impact of the Darwinists who have obliterated their story as well as many other such stories from history - Robins seems to be unaware of this
3. from 1880 or so till the independence of India in 1947, when (as a result of the impact of Darwinism) the Raj became a sort of "hangover" of the past with no purpose to it (in the first phase, it was loot; in the second phase, it was stewardship; in the third phase, after the impact of the Darwinists, naturally all purpose was lost, not only to the Raj, but also to humanity and indeed to all life and to the universe itself) - again, something of which Robins seems to be unaware.
Given, additionally, the lack of men in Britain following the two World Wars, it was only a matter of time before the Raj came to end - surprising, really, that it lasted 70 years or so after Phase 2 (comes back, possibly, to my point about generations?)
"The world's first multinational"
by Nick Robins's
Published in New Statesman, 9 December 2004
NS Essay 1- Corporate greed, the ruination of traditional ways of life, share-price bubbles, western imperialism: all these modern complaints were made against the British East India Company in the 18th century. Nick Robins draws the lessons:
In The Discovery of India, the final and perhaps most profound part of his "prison trilogy", written in 1944 from Ahmednagar Fort, Jawaharlal Nehru described the effect of the East India Company on the country he would shortly rule. "The corruption, venality, nepotism, violence and greed of money of these early generations of British rule in India," he wrote, "is something which passes comprehension." It was, he added, "significant that one of the Hindustani words which has become part of the English language is 'loot'".
FOR THE REST OF THE ARTICLE, PLEASE GO TO:
http://www.newstatesman.com/200412130016
ENDS Sphere: Related Content
CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) in India
20 May 2005
The following answer to a question from a PhD student in Germany may be of wider interest, so I am posting it as a blog:
Her letter read as follows:
Dear Professor Guptara,
I am currently pursuing my PhD in the field of corporate sustainability reporting. My research compares the information sought by employees in different countries and cultures as well as their references to the concept of sustainability in order to make suggestions for adequate sustainability related communication in different countries. Focusing on a comparison between India and Germany, I also analyse cross-cultural principles of effective knowledge transfer in a trans-national organization. I am on scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation (Germany's largest sponsor of intellectually outstanding students).
It was with great interest that I read your article entitled "The Limits of Corporate Social Responsibility in India" (published by the EU-India CSR Network, Brussels, Belgium). Therein you assert that "In India, responsibility was traditionally limited to 'insiders' - you looked after members of your own immediate and perhaps your extended family, you might even extend some minimum care to members of your clan, or at most to members of your caste. Other 'outsiders' had no relationship to you, so their welfare was not your responsibility." This is a point of view that I have often encountered in literature as well as in discussions with interviewees in India.
However, what astonishes me is that, just as frequently, I come across the contention that, while Corporate Social Responsibility might be a new term in India, it is certainly not a new concept. Commonly given reasons for the prior existence of this notion are the Vedic tradition, Gandhis concept of trusteeship and the spread of philanthropy in India.
In the article to which I refer, you write that Indian "mythology has saintly or noble figures who cared for "complete outsiders", but their behaviour remained a remote ideal rather than everyday reality." and that in "a society bound by notions of caste and fate, the idea of responsibility for the whole of society constituted a cultural revolution caused by foreign influences. [...] Influenced by such foreign ideas, Indian reformers, such as Guru Nanak, Swaminarayana, Rammohan Roy, and Mahatma Gandhi in turn then launched reform movements which slowly began to change our values."
In considering these various claims, I wondered how to reconcile the notion of "traditional limitation of responsibility" with the contention that CSR is not a new concept.
I would be very grateful for any thoughts or insights you could share with me. I look forward to hearing from you.
Best regards,
JH
I ANSWERED AS FOLLOWS, AND SHE HAS KINDLY PERMITTED ME TO SHARE MY ANSWER AS A BLOG:
Dear Ms H
Your questions are most interesting and reveal a depth of acquaintance with the literature about India, as well as depth of thought about my country.
1. The reason why one hears such astonishingly untrue statements as "CSR is not new in India" is because we Indians are a very proud people and don't like to admit that anything new has really come to India from abroad. According to us, everything was already known in the Vedas. In addition, we lack a historical sense. There are no explanations for quite simple questions to do with our history. The most elementary facts of our own history are not known to us, and we care for our history even less. For example, the Taj Mahal was being used as a stables when the British rescued it from that use. The reason for this lack of a historical sense may perhaps become clear to you if you read my short booklet on Indian Spirituality (attached), at least those pages which are on the history of the development of Indian spirituality (pages 5-15 in the attached version).
2. The fact is that the Vedas, however they may be interpreted today (and not many will interpret them to indicate any great social responsibility) were historically interpreted through the lens of caste as well as the practice of untouchability towards those of lower castes. Because of the always huge numbers involved, responsibility was always restricted to those with whom one had (and even today, has) the closest contacts and these are always members of your own family (and a limited close circle around that).
3. It is entirely true that, under reformers such as Mahatma Gandhi, a wider movement for national responsibility started in India. However, we must remember that these reformers were themselves influenced by Christian ideas of service and sacrifice (still referred to in India as the "missionary spirit") - for a full study of this, see Dr Vishal Mangalwadi's book, INDIA: THE GRAND EXPERIMENT, or M M Thomas's THE ACKNOWLEDGED CHRIST OF THE INDIAN RENAISSANCE. Those who practice philanthropy outside their own caste are, in technical terms, "un-Hindu" because they are breaking caste. Traditionally, we upper-caste Hindus would have had to go and bathe in the Ganges or perform other ritual ablutions if even the shadow of a lower-caste person fell on us (this was true throughout the country and with only a few exceptions till my generation, though this is now less and less true, particularly in the cities - read the novel, UNTOUCHABLE by Mulk Raj Anand, published in the 1930s, which perfectly captures the plight of the lower castes - which is still what exists in most villages specially in Central India. I hope to put related material on my website when my son gets around to completing it after his exams in a few weeks. As India has put traditional Hinduism behind it, it has progressed, just as China has progressed to the extent that it has put traditional Confucianism behind it, and Roman Catholic countries have progressed to the extent that they have put traditional Roman Catholicism behind them.
4. However, even at the time of struggle for independence from Britain, the number of people who followed Gandhiji were relatively small, and certainly the number of companies that backed Gandhiji were tiny - notably the Birlas and the Tatas (and we must remember that the Tatas are Parsis, not caste-oriented Hindus). Both the Birlas and the Tatas were rewarded, for their involvement in the the independence struggle, by means of lucrative licences and contracts, by post-independence Indian governments who created an oligopoly in a restricted market, which held back India's progress till the partial-reforms that are now helping the country to forge ahead. Fortunately for India, as well as for the Birlas and Tatas, businesspeople are adept are adjusting to new circumstances, and the business houses continue to flourish today.
5. Historically, it was the duty of my caste to make money and we were authorised (and in reality did) charge unlimited interest (or, to be more precise, as much interest as the market would bear), reducing tens of millions of people from other castes to bondage (virtual slavery) - something that, shamefully, still exists in parts of India.
6. Consider also that India is still one of the most corrupt countries in the world - and this corruption exists not only in politics but specifically in business. The Indian Stock Market is, regretfully, one of the least transparent and reliable in the world, and there are frequent scandals which are widely reported in the press, as well as other scandals which are not reported in the press but are public knowledge. Even though Indian shares are doing very well at present, I would not invest in most of the companies that are on the Exchange without inside knowledge of the individual company concerned (which is technically, in Western terms, illegal as well as immoral). However, portfolio investing in such companies is of course a different matter and can be less risky as well as more profitable. And I should say that there are a few individual companies whose accounts and statements I trust (including Infosys, Wipro, Tata Group, et al) - but these are a handful of islands in a sea of corruption. The relationship of this corruption to our spirituality is essential to understand. Our traditional spirituality related only to caste (dharma) and did not - and does not - have anything to do with morality in the Western sense. In fact, when an Indian becomes a "saint" he (usually "he") is considered to be beyond earthly things like morality. So he can indulge in the most immoral behaviour and still be accepted as a "holy man" - perhaps now you will understand why "gurus", such as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and Osho, were and are able to retain their status as "gurus" in spite of doing what would be regarded as totally unethical things if done by normal, ordinary or average people, let alone by "saints". Christian priests and evangelists immediately lose credibility if they indulge in any immoral behaviour because the behaviour contradicts their beliefs, but immoral behaviour does not traditionally undo the reputation of Hindu "gurus" because their beliefs imply no earthly morality.
Does all this perhaps help to place in context why I said what I did in my article on CSR?
yours sincerely
pg Sphere: Related Content
The following answer to a question from a PhD student in Germany may be of wider interest, so I am posting it as a blog:
Her letter read as follows:
Dear Professor Guptara,
I am currently pursuing my PhD in the field of corporate sustainability reporting. My research compares the information sought by employees in different countries and cultures as well as their references to the concept of sustainability in order to make suggestions for adequate sustainability related communication in different countries. Focusing on a comparison between India and Germany, I also analyse cross-cultural principles of effective knowledge transfer in a trans-national organization. I am on scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation (Germany's largest sponsor of intellectually outstanding students).
It was with great interest that I read your article entitled "The Limits of Corporate Social Responsibility in India" (published by the EU-India CSR Network, Brussels, Belgium). Therein you assert that "In India, responsibility was traditionally limited to 'insiders' - you looked after members of your own immediate and perhaps your extended family, you might even extend some minimum care to members of your clan, or at most to members of your caste. Other 'outsiders' had no relationship to you, so their welfare was not your responsibility." This is a point of view that I have often encountered in literature as well as in discussions with interviewees in India.
However, what astonishes me is that, just as frequently, I come across the contention that, while Corporate Social Responsibility might be a new term in India, it is certainly not a new concept. Commonly given reasons for the prior existence of this notion are the Vedic tradition, Gandhis concept of trusteeship and the spread of philanthropy in India.
In the article to which I refer, you write that Indian "mythology has saintly or noble figures who cared for "complete outsiders", but their behaviour remained a remote ideal rather than everyday reality." and that in "a society bound by notions of caste and fate, the idea of responsibility for the whole of society constituted a cultural revolution caused by foreign influences. [...] Influenced by such foreign ideas, Indian reformers, such as Guru Nanak, Swaminarayana, Rammohan Roy, and Mahatma Gandhi in turn then launched reform movements which slowly began to change our values."
In considering these various claims, I wondered how to reconcile the notion of "traditional limitation of responsibility" with the contention that CSR is not a new concept.
I would be very grateful for any thoughts or insights you could share with me. I look forward to hearing from you.
Best regards,
JH
I ANSWERED AS FOLLOWS, AND SHE HAS KINDLY PERMITTED ME TO SHARE MY ANSWER AS A BLOG:
Dear Ms H
Your questions are most interesting and reveal a depth of acquaintance with the literature about India, as well as depth of thought about my country.
1. The reason why one hears such astonishingly untrue statements as "CSR is not new in India" is because we Indians are a very proud people and don't like to admit that anything new has really come to India from abroad. According to us, everything was already known in the Vedas. In addition, we lack a historical sense. There are no explanations for quite simple questions to do with our history. The most elementary facts of our own history are not known to us, and we care for our history even less. For example, the Taj Mahal was being used as a stables when the British rescued it from that use. The reason for this lack of a historical sense may perhaps become clear to you if you read my short booklet on Indian Spirituality (attached), at least those pages which are on the history of the development of Indian spirituality (pages 5-15 in the attached version).
2. The fact is that the Vedas, however they may be interpreted today (and not many will interpret them to indicate any great social responsibility) were historically interpreted through the lens of caste as well as the practice of untouchability towards those of lower castes. Because of the always huge numbers involved, responsibility was always restricted to those with whom one had (and even today, has) the closest contacts and these are always members of your own family (and a limited close circle around that).
3. It is entirely true that, under reformers such as Mahatma Gandhi, a wider movement for national responsibility started in India. However, we must remember that these reformers were themselves influenced by Christian ideas of service and sacrifice (still referred to in India as the "missionary spirit") - for a full study of this, see Dr Vishal Mangalwadi's book, INDIA: THE GRAND EXPERIMENT, or M M Thomas's THE ACKNOWLEDGED CHRIST OF THE INDIAN RENAISSANCE. Those who practice philanthropy outside their own caste are, in technical terms, "un-Hindu" because they are breaking caste. Traditionally, we upper-caste Hindus would have had to go and bathe in the Ganges or perform other ritual ablutions if even the shadow of a lower-caste person fell on us (this was true throughout the country and with only a few exceptions till my generation, though this is now less and less true, particularly in the cities - read the novel, UNTOUCHABLE by Mulk Raj Anand, published in the 1930s, which perfectly captures the plight of the lower castes - which is still what exists in most villages specially in Central India. I hope to put related material on my website when my son gets around to completing it after his exams in a few weeks. As India has put traditional Hinduism behind it, it has progressed, just as China has progressed to the extent that it has put traditional Confucianism behind it, and Roman Catholic countries have progressed to the extent that they have put traditional Roman Catholicism behind them.
4. However, even at the time of struggle for independence from Britain, the number of people who followed Gandhiji were relatively small, and certainly the number of companies that backed Gandhiji were tiny - notably the Birlas and the Tatas (and we must remember that the Tatas are Parsis, not caste-oriented Hindus). Both the Birlas and the Tatas were rewarded, for their involvement in the the independence struggle, by means of lucrative licences and contracts, by post-independence Indian governments who created an oligopoly in a restricted market, which held back India's progress till the partial-reforms that are now helping the country to forge ahead. Fortunately for India, as well as for the Birlas and Tatas, businesspeople are adept are adjusting to new circumstances, and the business houses continue to flourish today.
5. Historically, it was the duty of my caste to make money and we were authorised (and in reality did) charge unlimited interest (or, to be more precise, as much interest as the market would bear), reducing tens of millions of people from other castes to bondage (virtual slavery) - something that, shamefully, still exists in parts of India.
6. Consider also that India is still one of the most corrupt countries in the world - and this corruption exists not only in politics but specifically in business. The Indian Stock Market is, regretfully, one of the least transparent and reliable in the world, and there are frequent scandals which are widely reported in the press, as well as other scandals which are not reported in the press but are public knowledge. Even though Indian shares are doing very well at present, I would not invest in most of the companies that are on the Exchange without inside knowledge of the individual company concerned (which is technically, in Western terms, illegal as well as immoral). However, portfolio investing in such companies is of course a different matter and can be less risky as well as more profitable. And I should say that there are a few individual companies whose accounts and statements I trust (including Infosys, Wipro, Tata Group, et al) - but these are a handful of islands in a sea of corruption. The relationship of this corruption to our spirituality is essential to understand. Our traditional spirituality related only to caste (dharma) and did not - and does not - have anything to do with morality in the Western sense. In fact, when an Indian becomes a "saint" he (usually "he") is considered to be beyond earthly things like morality. So he can indulge in the most immoral behaviour and still be accepted as a "holy man" - perhaps now you will understand why "gurus", such as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and Osho, were and are able to retain their status as "gurus" in spite of doing what would be regarded as totally unethical things if done by normal, ordinary or average people, let alone by "saints". Christian priests and evangelists immediately lose credibility if they indulge in any immoral behaviour because the behaviour contradicts their beliefs, but immoral behaviour does not traditionally undo the reputation of Hindu "gurus" because their beliefs imply no earthly morality.
Does all this perhaps help to place in context why I said what I did in my article on CSR?
yours sincerely
pg Sphere: Related Content
Saturday, April 16, 2005
Wilberforce and the Darwinists
Today, I am reminded of a piece by the British columnist Richard Donkin, on William Wilberforce and his enormous achievement in abolishing slavery. The piece was published almost exactly a year ago in the Journal of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts Commerce and Manufactures.
In the article, Donkin asks a profoundly disturbing question: "How can someone who did so much for human rights have suffered such a mixed press both in his lifetime and beyond?",
In the article itself, he answers perfectly adequately the first part of his question (why was Wilberforce so vilified in his lifetime?) - the vast mass of the
middle- and upper-classes in the UK then owned slaves, and it was naturally not in their self-interest to have slavery abolished. It is worth adding that, in attempting to abolish slavery, Wilberforce and his colleagues were trying to change the entire basis of every economy throughout history round the world till then.
However, Donkin does not even attempt to answer the second part of his question (why has Wilberforce had at best a mixed press after his death?). This is a particularly interesting question because, since his death, long after all question of economic self-interest has disappeared, the press on him has been not so much "mixed" as uniformly patronising or antagonistic.
Before I give my own answer to Donkin's question, it is worth pointing out that Wilberforce did not merely abolish slavery. With the fifteen or so friends in his "Clapham Sect" or "Clapham Circle", he was involved in launching over a thousand initiatives for reforming Britain, from creating new companies such as Wedgwood, to trying to create universal literacy, to eradicating political and religious corruption, to setting up the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Between them, the Clapham Circle transformed England from a corrupt, feudal and exploitative society, such as we still find in most parts of the world today, into the relatively physically clean, organised, transparent, upright and cohesive
society that was Victorian England.
So it is the more astonishing that the names of neither Wilberforce nor the Clapham Circle will be recognised not only by any schoolchild but even by any participant in University Challenge or Mastermind.
Why is this? My answer is simple. The immense effort that the Clapham Circle put into the social transformation of England on the basis of their piety was not matched by any great intellectual exertion on their part.
The result was that, when the English elite started to turn to Darwinism as the defining myth of their intellectual landscape from, say, the 1880s, the children and grandchildren of Wilberforce's generation came to consider the Clapham Circle to have been well-intentioned but not quite as intelligent as themselves.
This is still the case today. People interested in spiritual things are, in England, considered nice people but somewhat outside the pale intellectually (how
many committed christians do you find among Oxbridge dons? Or any other
eminent university's professors?).
In other words, Wilberforce and the Clapham Circle have been written out of history by the Darwinists. The obscuring of Wilberforce and the Clapham Circle is part of the Darwinist rewriting of history - and the takeover of our mental life by the Darwinists and their successors has been particularly fierce since the end of the Second World War.
The logical consequences of Darwinist doctrine are now coming home to roost in our politics, economics and society.
So it is time to re-examine the incredible story of how the fifteen or twenty individuals in the Clapham Circle (including Wilberforce) transformed the culture of the whole of England within their lifetime.
We need to learn the lessons from their struggle, so that we are better equipped in our struggle against the forces of destruction and dehumanisation in our own time. Sphere: Related Content
In the article, Donkin asks a profoundly disturbing question: "How can someone who did so much for human rights have suffered such a mixed press both in his lifetime and beyond?",
In the article itself, he answers perfectly adequately the first part of his question (why was Wilberforce so vilified in his lifetime?) - the vast mass of the
middle- and upper-classes in the UK then owned slaves, and it was naturally not in their self-interest to have slavery abolished. It is worth adding that, in attempting to abolish slavery, Wilberforce and his colleagues were trying to change the entire basis of every economy throughout history round the world till then.
However, Donkin does not even attempt to answer the second part of his question (why has Wilberforce had at best a mixed press after his death?). This is a particularly interesting question because, since his death, long after all question of economic self-interest has disappeared, the press on him has been not so much "mixed" as uniformly patronising or antagonistic.
Before I give my own answer to Donkin's question, it is worth pointing out that Wilberforce did not merely abolish slavery. With the fifteen or so friends in his "Clapham Sect" or "Clapham Circle", he was involved in launching over a thousand initiatives for reforming Britain, from creating new companies such as Wedgwood, to trying to create universal literacy, to eradicating political and religious corruption, to setting up the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Between them, the Clapham Circle transformed England from a corrupt, feudal and exploitative society, such as we still find in most parts of the world today, into the relatively physically clean, organised, transparent, upright and cohesive
society that was Victorian England.
So it is the more astonishing that the names of neither Wilberforce nor the Clapham Circle will be recognised not only by any schoolchild but even by any participant in University Challenge or Mastermind.
Why is this? My answer is simple. The immense effort that the Clapham Circle put into the social transformation of England on the basis of their piety was not matched by any great intellectual exertion on their part.
The result was that, when the English elite started to turn to Darwinism as the defining myth of their intellectual landscape from, say, the 1880s, the children and grandchildren of Wilberforce's generation came to consider the Clapham Circle to have been well-intentioned but not quite as intelligent as themselves.
This is still the case today. People interested in spiritual things are, in England, considered nice people but somewhat outside the pale intellectually (how
many committed christians do you find among Oxbridge dons? Or any other
eminent university's professors?).
In other words, Wilberforce and the Clapham Circle have been written out of history by the Darwinists. The obscuring of Wilberforce and the Clapham Circle is part of the Darwinist rewriting of history - and the takeover of our mental life by the Darwinists and their successors has been particularly fierce since the end of the Second World War.
The logical consequences of Darwinist doctrine are now coming home to roost in our politics, economics and society.
So it is time to re-examine the incredible story of how the fifteen or twenty individuals in the Clapham Circle (including Wilberforce) transformed the culture of the whole of England within their lifetime.
We need to learn the lessons from their struggle, so that we are better equipped in our struggle against the forces of destruction and dehumanisation in our own time. Sphere: Related Content
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