Globalization of the wrong kind

I was recently reading an article about a scandal in an Indian cricket league (known as IPL) involving corruption and politics at the highest levels. Political corruption is nothing new for India but what shocked me was the moniker this scandal got from the Indian media - "IPL-gate". India has a long and glorious history of corruption in both politics and cricket from which we could have garnered lovely names for this scandal and yet, the media chose to name this scandal the way America names its - by adding the 'gate' suffix! I am still trying to understand this. Is this because creativity sorely lacks in most Indian "creative" fields such as writing and music, as I have lamented before? or is it because Indians find it hard to appreciate anything Indian despite an illustrious history. (I have a theory about it that I'll save for another post.) The horrific Mumbai terrorist attack was called "India's 9/11" by the media. Even more troubling to me because in India dates are written in the dd/mm/yy format so if the journalists were being original they would have at least called it "India's 11/9". The same goes for the Satyam Computers scandal. That was labeled as "India's Enron". Intentional or not, it does seem like a cultural colonization of India is in progress and it is voluntarily being encouraged by Indians. Nothing is good enough, unless it can compare to America.

Where is the news?

I was reading an article somewhere bemoaning that we no longer have authoritative newsmen such as Walter Cronkite and universally-admired leaders such as FDR. I have already talked about the article about erosion of dignity in our world that others are worried about. That got me thinking, and the more I think the more I am convinced that people such as Cronkite & FDR still exist, or rather they were no different from the people of today. It is just that the lens through which we view them has changed.

In my opinion, it is a simple consequence of the choices we have in media, especially the 24 hour, for-profit news networks and I just don't mean Fox News. These channels are in the business of making money and will do whatever it takes to get ratings. Anger sells, so we have Fox News. Humor sells and so we have Jon Stewart and Bill Maher. This is why Simon Cowell has been a judge on American Idol for so long - people would rather have snark than reason. People would rather be entertained, even when they are being informed, and hence CNN's vanilla-news is regularly losing viewers. Have you seen Bill O'Reilly outside his show? Watch Lou Dobbs on this video. He seems like such a reasonable guy, but what happens to him on his own show? Nowadays, comedians such as Stephen Colbert aren't the only ones assuming a TV persona. The news personalities and even their shows, put on a persona to entertain. They either stoke anger against those who they don't agree with or turn them their opponents into caricatures to be laughed at. This completely de-legitimizes the other side. Bush was president to some and the village idiot to others. Obama is being painted as anything ranging for Lenin to Hitler, and people who disagree with him are swallowing it up. Same goes for the "experts" - there are too many of them to be relevant, and each side is constantly tearing down at the other. With all this name-calling, digging up of skeletons and questioning everything, no wonder it is hard to find a leader to respect. Even Gandhi would have had tough time in this media climate.

We don't have newsmen like Cronkite anymore because we really don't have news anymore. All we have is entertainment. I think our hope lies with shows such as Law & Order, or Boston Legal - that is where I see hard questions being asked and often a nuanced debate about them. Real entertainment, it looks like, might be our only hope for a reasoned debate.

Character and dignity

I came across this article and was reminded how much I admire dignity and character in a person. These are ephemeral qualities, hard to describe or measure, but easy to recognize. The question arises, can these qualities be cultivated? Can I do something now so that my children grow up to be dignified adults with character?

As suggested in the article, George Washington sought to change external habits to “shape inner morals”. Certain acts define graciousness or dignity, and a place to start would be to ensure my children always do them whether they want to or not; simple things such as greeting people, and saying proper goodbyes.

The other aspect of dignity is mysteriousness, or rather restraint in what personal information you reveal to others. In this age of Facebook, when all our friends are intent on telling us everything from what they ate for lunch to what Crayola Crayon they are, restraint seems like a much harder thing to teach kids to value. Add to that our pop-culture where the society is obsessed with the worst of people, and value of dignity becomes even harder to teach. After all, the people who acted insanely during the health-care reform town-hall meetings got to come on TV and express their opinions, whereas nobody noticed the people who asked reasonable questions.

The other problem the ubiquity of so called “real people”, with the help of TV and other media, creates the feeling that it is fine to behave in an undignified manner because others are doing it too. Milgram proved with his social experiments that people are capable of doing nasty things just because other people are doing them as well. The way current pop-culture is going, there are no good role models left for children. Maybe the thing to do is to actively cultivate friendship with the type of people that can be good role models for my kids. Then they can do what the “crowd” does.

As far as building character goes, a major contributing factor is hardship in childhood. In comfortable middle-class families like ours, hardship is hard to come by. What parent wants to deliberately put their kids through hardship? As a friend said, “it is crazy that you are worried about lack of lack”. The other ingredient for character seems to be strict discipline. Discipline is a hardship, in the sense that kids aren’t allowed to just do what they want. We parents however are overloaded with too much information about how to achieve discipline. Should the children be paid for doing chores? If punishing for bad behavior too negative, then isn’t rewarding for good behavior same as bribing? How much praise is too much?

What is a parent to do?

Flawed humans

I am seeing myriad reactions from people around me about Michael Jackson’s death. There are people who grew up on his music and are on the verge of tears and then there are others who say “good riddance” to a freak . Yes, he did finally descend into inexplicable behavior but does that in anyway undermine his music and its appeal?

On a similar note we have the recent saga of the South Carolina Governor – a rising star in GOP, an independent thinker, a sharp politician and what not, until he had an affair and acted in a somewhat weird manner to hide that affair. Now he is nothing.

I haven’t lived in any other society for my adult life so do not have a perspective on this, but I wonder if it is only US society that holds its public figures to such high standards of behavior. An idolizing to such an extent that the slightest misstep derails everything they might have achieved in life, and strips them of all other qualities they posses. Is there no room for regular flawed humans in public life?

I am reminded of something I read on religion once. Islam and most Evangelical forms of Christianity in the US have a lot in common. They are new religions, still in their teens, full of hope and ideals, and not yet tempered by missteps, questions from within and attacks form the outside. The morality is absolute and the word of religious texts is literal with no room for interpretation. That or as I blogged before, an immigrant's values are stuck in the times he left his native country. Since the US population is all immigrants, maybe that explains the wide-spread prudishness.

The thoughts of Jacko beg another question. With the examples of Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger, Britney Spears and Lindsey Lohan all around us, what is it that still prompts parents to push their children to be ‘stars’?

India and development

I made a short trip to Delhi recently and visited the Select City Walk mall. Except for the crowds, and the fact that you didn't have to bus your own tables at the food court, I might as well have been in a mall in the US. Same stores, similar styles, same restaurants. There is much more security of course - you have to pass through metal detectors and get your bags checked when entering the mall, a constant reminder of the terrorist threat that looms close. Same holds for the Delhi airport. I am still pleasantly surprised on every visit.

The newspaper stands are full of the same magazines - Vogue, Cosmo, Elle. Even the home-grown glossy Femina proclaims very Cosmo-like headlines about sex and fashion. There is a craze for brand-names even in little kids. Women dress in the latest styles. Even the leading conservative political party is having very GOP-like identity crisis.

Kids are eating too much junk food, watching too much TV and obesity is a real concern. Going out and playing however poses a problem. There aren't many open areas to play in. Given the heavy traffic, and lack of sidewalks etc. purposeful exercise such as riding a bike to school or walking to the store is impossible. Most houses don't have yards. Most urban kids live in apartment complexes making going out and playing even more difficult.

India is in a rush to Xerox the lifestyle that developed countries took decades to build. The breakneck pace of this development is leaving no room to ponder the downside or a concerted effort to preserve what is unique. Maybe India will continue to remain the mish-mash of old and new that I see now, or maybe our kids will never know what it means to shop at a sabzi mandi.

I still make sure I make a trip to the Haus Khas village and Aminabad before they too become festooned with McDee arches and become a picture postcard of their original self.

So many conflicting thoughts swirl in my mind these days, and NY Times' India correspondent expressed them better and more poetically than I ever could.

Once, the movie

I enjoyed the film Once and love the soundtrack. I have it on my iPod and since I often play it in the car my daughters enjoy the music too. The other day they asked me that if they could see the movie as well and I am still debating if I should show it to them.

On one hand it could be a very simple decision; the film is rated R because there is a lot of swearing in normal conversations, not the obligatory kind that happens in some Hollywood action films. The story of the film is based in Dublin. There was this other beautiful Irish film I saw which was rated R too because of all the swearing. Do Irish people really swear that much!? Normally I am extremely uncomfortable with swearing. "Shit" is the worst I can do. I can't even hear anything worse than that but somehow Irish swearing doesn't bother me as much.

On the other hand it is a very beautiful film. The romance between the main characters is very simple, realistic and sweet. Unlike most Hollywood movies, even the movies directed towards teens and most music these days, sex isn't portrayed as the be all and end all of the romance. It isn't that big kiss that finally tells you "he loves you", but it is lot of little events and encounters. There is a very awkward attempt at sex in the movies but it doesn't get very far. I think it will be good for my girls to be exposed to this kind of stuff as I doubt they are going to encounter many realistic romances in their lives. I do not want them to grow up with the ridiculous idea of love that pop culture sells these days where love and sex are impossible to distinguish from each other, and there are no conflicts in love.