Is Modernity a Curse?

Since childhood, people of the developing world have been hearing words like modern, advanced and these have become synonymous to Western culture. Rather, they remain synonymous to each other. They are synonymous to development, progress and good life too. Generally, they have been seen or annotated in two perspectives by two different set of people. One is blindly in favour of these concepts. These populations are in minority. They are generally very highly educated. They have been rich in not just one generation but they are rich for the last few generations. They feel the real impact of modernity and its necessity in every walk of life. They take various life-making decisions accordingly, based on these concepts. But the vast majority of the population feels or has been forced to feel and realise that modernity is a curse. Modernity brings a lot of turmoil and complexities in life and society. It is not good for normal or common human beings. It provides freedom which makes the individual bad and uncontrollable. They are generally less educated or mostly illiterate. They are not very rich, rather they are poor, not from last one generation but they are poor and deprived for the last many generations that they have records or history of. They feel the real impact of modernity in every negative aspect and its wastefulness in every walk of life. They take various life- drowning decisions blindly, based on those negative feelings. These feelings about the wrong impact of modernity have been impregnated in the mind of a poor by some selfish and shortsighted visionaries from society. These shortsighted visionaries are enjoying all the fruits of development and modernity but they communicate to society otherwise. They, sometimes unknowingly and sometimes knowingly, but most of the time do so because of their selfish mentality. They do not want other deprived people enjoy freedom. But the question is; has anybody evaluated these? Has anybody critically analyzed them? A few of the educated and advanced people just use these as a tool for their own protectionism of existing comfortable zone many a time even at their own expense. Today, when the majority of the population of the developing world is on the verge of becoming developed or so called modern, not because those old modern people wanted it, but because of external factors associated with these social compulsions, it becomes essential to analyze them. It is important to understand that for centuries, some marginal people have been successful in spreading the wrong messages of modernity to humans at the cost of the growth of human civilization. In subsequent chapters, these ideas would become more clearer.
Western countries in the last few centuries have passed through tough or difficult phases of a free society. They have faced the initial teething problems of emerging free society. They have conquered them one by one. Today the part of the world which is moving towards developments is fortunate to have those experiences and solutions with them. There is no reason to be fearful about such westernization or modernity. Rather, we need to face those challenges head on. If we observe, we will see development basically means moving towards westernization. In the East also, whoever is privileged enough to be developed, have one yardstick to follow and that is to follow the West. Can we ever think of developing and putting our half of human civilization under the veil and let them live like ineffective souls? Can we ever declare half of human civilization as only half of the other half? Could we ever keep modernity away from the common people and think of development? It is in the interest of all the developed people to ensure that all developing people also become developed in every sense. Developing people get a chance to enjoy the privilege, pleasure and freedom of development. It is time to forget east or west, south or north. It is important that all developing people become modern and western.
Modernity itself is a very crazy and progressive word. Every human born in the civilized world would dream to be modern unless there is no fear fact’ attached to it. If anybody claims thinking in the direction of President A P J Abdul Kalam who preached that to have small aim is a crime, they want to become modern. Modernity brings prosperity. It provides basic amenities. It provides freedom, liberty and a sense of achievements. Modernity brings success, satisfaction and new zeal to life. Modernity shows the path to human to live like a human. Modernity brings us away from casteism, regionalism and religious mindset. Modernity directs us towards free life. Modernity shows the direction to be the part of the free world.
When we talk about modernity and think of progress, we can understand the importance of unlearning in life in a very clear manner. When the world is pledging to make poverty as a word of history, there is no reason why can’t we think of growth? The people of developed world with the change in the world scenario after 9/11, have become very conscious and active in addressing the growth of human beings of the developing world. There is no reason for us to be inactive or indifferent towards our own growth and development. We can never find a solution to new emerging problems of humanity in the old traditional and conservative ways. We have to look for new concepts. The new concept must emerge from Asia. When the whole world is looking for a economic turnaround towards Asia, we have to look inward for those new concepts. America and European countries are making deliberate and conscious efforts to curb their ego and unite for the betterment of humanity; we have to rise and grab the opportunities arising from these unifications. We have to rise from our self-imposed superiority feelings towards our old traditions and culture to make use of new and emerging opportunities. Living in poverty, deprivation and discrimination can never be our tradition and culture. We have to unlearn all those self-defeating traditions and cultures.
Western values which we generally recognize as democracy, human rights, free speech, rule of law etc, remain very confusing to normal citizens of the developing world. It is an other story that Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev says, “These are after all values that belong to the whole of humanity” Timothy Garton Ash in his book “Free World” says, “Freedom is elusive, difficult, risky, hard to define, let alone to achieve, but those who are unfree, know exactly what unfreedom is.” I do not agree with that perception being a part of developing world. What is elusive in freedom? Freedom is freedom. Those who are unfree will never know neither will they have any way to know about freedom, unless educated or liberated. The person living like slaves, living in poverty and deprivation, as child labour, ladies living in veil and so on are living in a world where they know no freedom to understand freedom. They would never understand the free in freedom. That’s how literacy becomes one of the prime objects of a civilized society. Literacy of an open nature, not dipped with biased or religious bent could possibly show the meaning of freedom to the people of free world. We need to make the mind a fertile ground, fertile garden rather than dust bin or scrap-drain. We have to stop using mind as a drain and make a boon of the opportunities.
Timothy concludes wisely, “We (people of develop world) can, and should, offer a tool box of experiences in all aspects of transition, from how to write a constitution to how to deal with a difficult past.” It is a great gesture from the people of the developed world for the deprived lot of the developing world. Certainly, it could be possible to help in writing a liberal democratic constitution. It may help us to spread democracy, human rights and concept of free world. They may educate us to be and know about freedom and free. However the main question arises, how the westerners going to help us to deal with a difficult ‘past’, which they are, neither even their last few generations, nor have ever witnessed nor experienced. The life of the twentieth century has given as a glimpse of development to the people of the developed world. They have experienced richness across the board. They have enjoyed all the privileges and materialism of the world for the last two-three-four generations. But can we ever imagine the past of the people since last 2-3 generations of developing world? They have not only faced deprivation, they are not only forced to live in deprivation, they are not only preached to and convinced to live in deprivation, they are deprived of basic amenities. At the same time, they have seen the rich; they have seen the abundance of resources available to human beings. Also, they don’t have basic amenities in their huts or slums, but have seen the luxury of palaces, apartments and hotels, not only they have been able to earn a mere livelihood, they have seen billionaires and making of billionaires in front of their eyes and so on. They are not only illiterate, but they are being forcefully humiliated by literate. They can stand on a road crossing in metro cities of the developing world and witness the future. The past is not only frustrating but humiliating too. It may not be very easy to deal with the past even for the wisest people of this earth. It would be a traumatic event. They are not ready to deal even with their past. It is a challenge to growth of human civilization of the unfree and developing world. It is a challenge to deal with the past.
That is how, the theory of growth evolved. Timothy Garton Ash appears so ridicules and that is where I have taken a challenge to explain those intricacies for the humanity. I have taken the help of few life critical factors during the lesson of unlearning. The crucial factors need to be defined and explained. The weak points and strong objectives have to be listed. There is sufficient amount of curiosity needed to delve upon the intricacies and dilemmas in achieving modernity and success amidst chaos. The people of developing world have to define their understanding on Modernity. But first just delve upon the issue – Is modernity a curse?