By Dr. Sawraj Singh
For the last two centuries, the world has lived with this wrong impression that modernization and westernization are the same thing. In other words, modernization was brought by the west. This concept belies historical facts. The basic inventions had already been made in the east. The Industrial Revolution made it possible to produce goods at a large scale. Claims that the west gave everything to the world are not true.
This anecdote shows that these claims are not true. An Englishman, while having his breakfast and reading his newspaper, was bragging that the English gave everything to the world. However, he did not realize that the fine tea he was sipping was discovered in China. The fine china of which the cup was composed was also first made in China. Similarly, the paper of his morning newspaper was invented in China, and also the printing press which printed his newspaper, was also invented in China.
I feel that there would have been modernization even if the west did not dominate the world. Modernization would have come even if there was no Renaissance or Industrial revolution in the world. Before the Industrial revolution, the west was not philosophically, economically or technologically more advanced than the east. The Industrial Revolution made it possible for the west to produce goods at a large scale and also to market and sell those at a large scale. This laid the foundation for the economic domination of the world.
Economic domination led to political domination. Political domination strengthens and perpetuates economic domination. In the last two centuries, we have seen the world caught in this vicious cycle. The economic and political domination of the west made it possible for them to project history the way they wanted. They promoted the myth that modernization is synonymous with westernization. They presented their experience as universal experience of mankind and their values as universal values.
This gives an impression that only the western civilization is a genuine civilization, and other civilizations before them were not real civilizations. They claim that they have taken mankind to the highest level of development.
If we look closely, then it becomes apparent that modern man under western civilization is more selfish, greedy, arrogant, impatient, intolerant and vengeful than ever before. It is true that he is less likely to physically annihilate his opponents than men before him. However, he likes to destroy his opponents legally and economically. Just look at the number of lawsuits people file against each other. All of these are started with the intention of taking revenge from someone who they feel has hurt them.
According to Buddha, violence is not limited to physical violence alone, but starts in your mind when you think of hurting someone. All these lawsuits are started to hurt somebody legally and economically. Therefore, at least according to Buddhism, they are acts of violence. Moreover, sometimes legal and economic damage can prove far more dangerous than physical damage. Just look at the number of people who commit suicides after suffering economic damage and compare it to the number of people who commit suicide after sustaining physical injuries.
Selfishness, greed, arrogance, jealousy, revenge, impatience and intolerance are all signs of primitiveness rather than modernity. It is clear that consumer culture of the west has evoked primitive instincts in men rather than make them more civilized. Therefore, it can be concluded that westernization, which reduces the existence of men to consumers, is actually making them more primitive; and westernization is not synonymous with modernization.
When we speak of modernization, we expect people to be more refined. They should be more patient, understanding and tolerant of others. However, what we have is exactly opposite of this. These values are associated with higher centers. On the other hand, we associate values opposite to these with lower centers. Generally, we perceive movement toward higher centers as modernity, and movement toward lower centers as movement toward primitiveness.
Primitive man felt insecure because there were constant dangers to his physical survival. He developed primitive responses for his survival, which is called fight or flight. He felt anxious and his body released hormones like adrenaline which acutely raised his blood pressure, heart rate and blood sugar to cope with the situation. Westernization has made us feel so insecure that our blood pressure, our blood sugar and our anxiety level all have chronically gone high.
The only difference between us and primitive men is that at least they were only suffering from acute anxiety, in other words their fight or flight response only came into play when they actually faced danger. However we are suffering from chronic anxiety that means we are living under constant feeling of insecurity that our survival is at risk. We should ask ourselves, have we become more modern or more primitive?
Dr. Sawraj Singh, MD F.I.C.S. is the Chairman of the Washington State Network for Human Rights and Chairman of the Central Washington Coalition for Social Justice. He can be reached at [email protected].
