During the discussion with philosophers last night, glaring cultural differences among us became obvious. The Western European and American (including Latin American) scholars gleefully exchanged apocalyptic scenarios and denounced progress and capitalism.
Scholars from India and Eastern Europe (khm, khm), on the other hand, saw the current moment in history as highly hopeful and refused to agree that we would all be better off without the Western civilization or capitalism.
“Look where this completely misguided idea of progress brought us!” a Latin American philosopher exclaimed. “If the results are this horrible, then surely we can agree that the very idea is rotten to the core.”
“We have 3 women sitting at this table, talking about philosophy,” I observed. “This is something that couldn’t have happened at any other moment in history. My ancestors were slaves. So you’ll have to excuse me for disagreeing that the belief in progress is misguided.”
“Yes, but you have to agree that capitalism is evil!” a philosopher from France said. “The birth of capitalism really messed everything up.”
“I can’t agree,” a scholar from India responded. “The free market is one of the greatest advances of humanity. I’m sure Clarissa here will be glad to tell us just how problematic a regulated economy is.”
Clarissa nodded vigorously.
It’s curious to me that I had the greatest affinity with the worldview of an Indian scholar and had almost nothing in common with American and Eastern European thinkers. We also had a discussion of whether a sense of security or insecurity comes from the inside or is created by the external conditions. The Indian philosopher and I were instantly on the same page. Our understanding of each other’s ideas on the subject was almost intuitive. The Western scholars, in the meanwhile, looked perplexed when they heard the Indian and Eastern European ideas on the subject.
It was the Indian’s and the Ukrainian’s turn to look stumped when Westerners started discussing how everything was horrible, life was hopeless, and they were surviving on a subsistence level, working as indentured slaves, while traveling all over the world, wearing beautiful clothes, using sophisticated technology, and enjoying expensive wines. I suspect that “subsistence level” means different things to Westerners on the one hand and Ukrainians and Indians on the other.
Clarissa's Blog 
Well even capitalism is a mixed bag, as the French philosopher would know had he read his Deleuze and Guattari. Capitalism at least breaks up the hegemony of puritanical thinking, often religious, but sometimes atheistic. It forces change and innovation. It is also compulsive about forcing things in this way, so it can be unhealthy in this way — it takes things to extremes.
As for non-Westerners and capitalism, I think they haven’t experienced the inner emptiness that makes the Westerners cry tears of self-pity even in the midst of plenty. There is still a lot of humanism in the third world, for instance. So a balance between one’s already existing humanism and capitalist opportunity seems very attractive. Westerners, who have often been drugged into conformity both literally and figuratively, and do not even have substantial enough will to resist, due to the inner logic of capitalist materialism (and competitiveness at any cost) deadening their souls, do not always experience the hopefulness that humanists are still free to retain.
LikeLike
Is there a typo in the third-to-last word in the first sentence of the second-to-last paragraph? I wasn’t sure if you meant “Eastern” or “Western.”
LikeLike
Do people really talk like this or are you exaggerating their statements to make some point?
LikeLike
My thought exactly…my first reaction was “I hope she is oversimplifying, otherwise it sounds like two Argentinians discussing politics for hours in a coffee store”. There is a reason why the concept “filosofo de cafe” is a pretty accurate stereotype of the Argentinian urban middle class.
LikeLike
Yeah, I mean, for supposed intellectuals to speak in such absolutes like ‘capitalism is evil!’ and ‘capitalism is lol totally the best thing ever, you guyz’, without any nuance whatsoever, just sounds weird.
LikeLike
One of my college friends once said, “OMG, I just saw Professor A enter the toilet! He is such a genius, I find it kind of strange that he uses the toilet, just like a regular person!”
LikeLike
Not only do people talk like that, they give entire scholarly presentations on the subject. One after another, one after another. Do a search for the word “progress” on my blog and you’ll see how many times I blogged about hearing these same ideas in academic environments.
LikeLike
Luckily for me I guess, my academic environment is different than this–like SB and SP, I also thought you were writing a parody of some sort.
LikeLike
I’m really surprised to hear all this. How many times did academics and academic bloggers come to this very blog to develop doom-and-gloom scenarios and complain how they are suffering in indentured servitude? Reread the most recent 99 vs 1 thread and you’ll see statements that are far more bizarre than anything I mentioned in this post.
What happens is that people spout this stuff all the time but then get scared of their own ideas when they see them written down like this.
LikeLike
Some welcome truth, Honey…
LikeLike
As much as I agree with you that this is one of the best periods in history as far as quality of life, political liberties afforded to people in many countries, and the position of women in developed ones, is concerned, I am unable to share the enthusiasm for Western capitalism that some other people from the third/developing world/BRIC countries seem to possess. It is very bad news for the planet if India and China emulate the energy-extravagant, consumeristic culture and norms of development put in place by the West. Free market capitalism for all its virtues fails on several major counts, one of which is sustainability. I do hope Asian and Latin American countries, followed by those in Africa, do realize the importance of coming up with alternative models and paradigms of growth, different from the dogmas put in place by the Industrial Revolution. As a member of the Indian middle-class, I am slightly alarmed to see the somewhat uncreative material lust of my compatriots and their counterparts in China, and their near total insensitivity to the majority of our populations who are still very badly off.
LikeLike
The lack of alternatives is evil 🙂
LikeLike