A perfect world

Ender's Game (2013)

I had a rather enjoyable time reading Orson Scott Cards' Ender series. Years back I watched the movie "Ender's Game" and it had remained among my list of all time favorite movies because I felt it was both engaging but yet so intuitive and knowledgeable. Recently I read Ender's Shadow and subsequently Ender in Exile. I was awestruck at how detailed and wholesome the characters and situation created in the books are. And Orson's books were written, most of it anyway, way back in 1984!

But a particular topic struck a chord in me which I felt inspired to write about. The things I had wrote about recently were definitely flimsy and I don't really like what I was writing. It was not as in-depth and well written as my better essays like "Faith in Reason" or "We Perceive Patterns in Life" for in those essays I thought about them for days and took time to write and re-write them. My more recent posts were inspired writings as like now and done in an hour or two, so the level of writing is never to my liking. The topic I want to delve on touches a little on a topic I have been working on for weeks and is still in the making, a truly long one I would call "The Fall of my People's Image." As the title of this blog post suggest, I'd attempt to contemplate what a perfect world would have been if certain societal rules are ignored and forgotten and systems work a certain way.

In Ender in Exile, Earth had defeated (wiped out is a better phrase) the technologically superior and feared alien race, the Formics, after years living in fear of them. While at first the world was united to fight the Formics, at the news of the Formics annihilation, people start to revert to their usual past affliations, be it their race or country. The Russians tried a coup of the International Fleet, China invaded India. India retaliated and then invaded China. Eventually a group called the Hegemon led by Ender Wiggins brother, Peter Wiggins, managed to outmaneuver and win each and every dominating factions in the world and united Earth. Due to past histories and differences, people just could not unite together much like how the world is now. The world now is made up of hundreds of countries which are separated by their neighbors due to so many reasons and there are also so many racial, cultural and religious differences which cannot be bridged. Peter Wiggins introduced a universal language I.F. Commons, essentially English, as the standard language to create one united culture on Earth. However, he could not erase deep-rooted sense of belongings created by history, so many cultures still retained their values and language and the world worked more like autonomous federal states each with a spokesperson to speak what the people wants.

A different situation occurred in the planets where humankind tried to establish colonies over former Formic colonies. The mindset of the colony at the beginning was survival and in order to survive with a limited number of colonists (who were army survivors and are lightyears away from Earth) they had to be versatile and crossbreed among each other. There would be no particular race or differentiation because that would only hinder their bid for survival.  All would be classified according to what they could do which would ensure the colony survives. A problem did arise on a planet later named Ganges when a new shipload of colonies arrive from Earth (50 years later as that is how long it takes to reach a colony from Earth). The new colony consisted of 4/5 Indians and as a result the planet became a subculture of Earth Indians. People simply revert to the same lifestyle as they had on Earth instead of finding a new identity together. The 1/5 non-Indians though at first would resist this culture but over 5 or 6 generations, they would embrace this culture. Everyone would be "Indian" and it would be an insult to not refer to them as such. This caused a stir on planet Earth where the other races like the Kenyans, the Kurds and such then wanted a planet to call their own. They want to exert planetary dominance; racial dominance as what had happened right after the formic wars. It occurred to me that differences no matter what will exist over time. Sooner or later, all planetary colonies will be like Earth with different cultures and affiliations. 

Flags of South East Asian nations

One of the reason there are feelings of strong belongings to groups are due to differences. In groups one finds safety. In groups one finds strength and survival. And these groups were catagorised based on common traits. The easiest trait one can find is race. People of the same race can relate to each other because it is blatant that they are of the same species. What I feel is bound to be what my fellow brother feels, because we are the same! But, who knows what that other skin coloured friend might feel. He is different, he may not know what I feel. Years later when separateness between cultures has gone on long enough and developed differently, this FACT changes. He was brought up in a different culture, who knows the way he thinks. When race becomes not a problem, instinctively, social status becomes the problem. The rich mingle with the rich for who knows what the poor are like! They may steal, they may be desperate. They may be violent by our standards. Religion all started to seek a common ground, a common place for all. But they fail to dominate the world with their ideologies and thus now we have so many religion which causes another layer of division. 

Trust

The solution which I feel is the best to remedy this situation of differences is trust. But how do we breed trust with so long a history plus the social expectation on conformity weighing on us? It takes steps. The first step is, it would take utter humility of ones upbringing; to seek to understand and embrace another person from a different background. Once you get over the fact that you and your race, groups, self are not better than another, then world unification is achievable. And it would take an enormous effort to do this because this was not how we were brought up. We were brought up to be proud of whom we are; that is the trait of a survivor in this world. But in a new era, where cooperation in exchange for asserting one’s dominance over another is more productive and beneficial, this trait have to be vanquished. The media and markets already portray certain views on what the world are. Some factions are more privileged and more powerful than others. These images paint an artificial portrayal of the world and then stamp it into reality. Our cultures may try to assert its power and dominance over another by glorifying past histories and heroes and even have negative generalisation of another culture which would promote revulsion and more differences between the races. This definitely happen in more globalised multi-cultural cosmopolis in the world where residents have to work alongside a wide variety of people with the constant fear of losing one's identity in the chaos. A cosmopolitan holds the risk of diluting their heritage by placing work and relationships above their birthrights. They  thus create petty images and stories to create their differences and allay suspicions such that there is an obvious difference between cultures. This could be in a form of private jokes, racial stereotyping and a feeling of superiority over another culture. 

Singapore (2015)

So, what is the solution? We can start by working on a common language, much like what has been done in most major cities like Singapore which embraces English despite its citizens once having so many different languages. A common ground for communication opens many channels for understanding. Language have also been proven to be the reflection of cultures (we can tell many things about a particular culture from their language). If everyone embraces a common language as their language of choice, they can be part of a same culture despite their differences. Dilution will happen, definitely, but in the end we get a more united and less violent world. But it does not end there. The next step to developing trust is to live in another person's culture. That means to do the rituals or quirks which another culture does and think as they do on why they do certain things. The very least we can do is to understand another persons culture. Learn their practices, beliefs and superstition. From animosity towards practices which they do, we learn to understand them and accept them. We fear the unknown, not the people. Frankly, if we find certain things odd and funny behind the reasoning behind certain practices, it is most likely that the people who practice them also find them odd. Afterall, without our imposed identities like race, religion or income level, all of us are sentient and thinking beings. We are able to reason the same, we are able to perceive the same. Society may delude or shortsight us but our initial potential to reason is the same. Our situation may limit us, but our minds are equal. The world may not be created equal, but we are created equal. Once we understand and strive to achieve this sense of equality, trust will emerge. So learn your friend's culture.

Charles Handy's The Age Of Paradox (1994)

After we reached the level of sensitivity and understanding which respects another person's culture, we would have built a sense of empathy and compassion for others. Adam Smith's famous Invisible Hand Rule learnt in Economics to describe how markets work naturally by matching consumers to sellers was actually made on the basis of an emphatic society. The theory was first published in his book "The Theory of Moral Sentiments". It is a book about ethics, not Economics. In order for our world to work, we must think for our fellow human folks. The next step thus would be to create a good, not perfect, system to give shape to a society. A perfect society is not desirable. It would mean conformity and authority; one with limited freedom. That would result in resentfulness and a creation of dissenting factions, something we were already trying to vanquish. A good society would ensure people are given enough freedom but yet willing to conform to rules so as to maintain a proper structure. It is a paradox a good system have to work with and be flexible in. Charles Handy wrote in his book "The Age of Paradox" a possible system to govern any groups, countries or business. "Everyone have to think like a businessman in his life". He calls it Federalism which also uses a Dual Citizenship method for each individual in the organisation. I find it a suitable method, atleast for now, to govern all sorts of organisation, The boss, or leader of the organisation do not have authority over every single decision of the organisation. It would mean bureaucracy, communism even, and thus less work would be able to be done with more resources used. Work would not be delegated appropriately as most people would not have the responsibility in their work (decisions are made by the managerial board) and each individual's potential cannot be reaped to their maximum potential. Federalism works, like in Peter Wiggins Hegemon Earth, by delegating tasks to groups of people to fulfill. How they achieve it is entirely up to them. Each individual would thus have to think of ways to achieve this goal for the sake of achieving the desired target. An idea they conceive themselves will bear stronger ownership towards its enactment and fulfillment. The dual citizenship works such that the person will have both a sense of belonging to first the leader and second their federation. A certain amount of resource will be provided for the federations to work with and the leader will be there only  as a figure who supervise and is available as support for all the federal states. This method have been used by major technological companies such as Google who creates teams of gifted individuals to create what they want and oversee a product from factory to consumer. Liberation is key to control. That is the paradox a good system have to work with and this is what is needed in a perfect world. Each individual needs to work and feel a belonging to a certain group, not generated by bias or imposed societal expectations, but by one created by a leader or government to work to achieve their own happiness. With everyone working towards something, the world would see an exponential influx of ideas and advances never before achieved. Just imagine, all around the world, every groups of people are given the resources to do what they wanted and they would be held accountable for what they do. Everyone starts from ground zero. There would be no corruption for corruption would be obvious in these communities. They get the resources which they themselves specifically asked for and work to get what they want out of it. There would be no competition and overpowering of so-called Greater nations, all answer to the one government or leader. That is the power of Federalism and unity.

Beneath this mask...

Maybe it all seems a little sci-fi. Unrealistic. My source is definitely sci-fi. But the thing is, it just takes time for people to catch on to ideas. Like a quote I rather love from another all time favorite movie "V for Vendetta": "Die! Die! Why can't you die? ... Why won't you die?" "Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof".  One person will convert their ideas to fulfill this greater good and then another and they hold on to their beliefs. They work like that in their life and their success (which I hope is how it would end in) would be seen by their peers. They convert their beliefs. Soon, enough people embrace this method such that it becomes an official thing. Like Communism or Capitalism. Then Federalism becomes the way to govern. Trust and understanding would take some time to accomplish and is the harder of the two steps to a better world. But it is an idea which just needs to catch on somehow. That might prove to be the impossible point, but I have hope it can happen. I, for one, wants to live in a better, more fulfilling and united world and an end to petty conflicts. So, here I will wait. As one believer. Living my life as such, waiting for our ranks to swell. 
Until next time, Wan.