Social movements have had a significant
impact on consolidating egalitarian values and humanistic concerns. Education is instrumental in spreading awareness. These urgent pressure of awareness as changing
norms get embedded into democratic institutions. This looks like a logical template
for social change. Ofcourse it is a successful model but quite limited. In the
recent times I am quite convinced that technology is an activator and consolidator
of social change and has significant impact than social movements. The much-maligned
technology is prime initiator of social change than science could. Eventhough science
needs enlightened value framework to nurture and prosper it can work in narrow context
of society. Society, or even the scientist, could be feudal or racist while science
progress in the midst. Much of science developed and consolidated in this
framework. It has claim of superior that fuels justification and refinement of
process as inquiry. Superior to mundane worries of society. Humanistic concerns
in science are accidental and mostly personal. Vastness of knowledge can be humbling but the system is not driving
social change nor aiming a better society -by implication maybe. It is social neutral as much as value neutral. So, ironically science needs egalitarian
value system and open mind to sustain but is mostly isolated from social
reality. So is the case of technologists but implication of technology on society is cataclysmic.
Technology is application of science
for mass consumption. By its very nature it is meant to reach remotest and make
the most isolated and vulnerable access the world. The initial stage of technology
is always feudal, manipulated by few for greed and gains. As the technology spreads
it reaches a saturation stage -commonplace essential, and that is when the real impact of technology as
potent means of social change felt. From slow spreading printing press to fast connecting
smart phone it brings in a new paradigm of social change through changing minds
instead of social physical involvements. A person is virtually exposed to possibilities
that were not even conceivable. Once the initial excitement of technology settles
it gets to the responsibility of these possibilities. The freedom seeks more
awareness of the world. The diversity of ideas, cultures and regions opens to
understanding, subconsciously mind is priming for change. It necessarily leads to self-reflection, evolving and associating
to better ideas and possibilities. This is the greatest instigator of social change
than what was ever possible. It has potential to uproot ossified feudal structures
and juvenile control of religion. Atomized awareness reverberates into synchronous collective of better world. Answer to manipulation is more technology, more transparency
and more awareness, with a foundation of quality education. Significant social changes
have happened in last two decade than in last many centuries. We are
still in flux and once the new technology saturates change is expected to consolidate
into something better. Each human will access their uniqueness and work the potential
herein and connect to wider world. If swarm intelligence could achieve such
brilliant feat imagine swarm of each unique intelligence synchronizing into a whole. Imagine that!
**Thanks to technology I can access
anything, anywhere, anytime. And so, I was reading Ursula Le Guin. Le Guin, I am
embarrassed to admit, is a late involvement. I love scifi and IsaacAsimov, ArthurClark,
HG Wells, PhillipDick many more were my staple, wasn’t much aware of LeGuin.
To bracket her as SciFi writer is not doing justice, her concern was using
scifi framework to question contemporary social context and philosophical inquiry.
Landscape and technology can change but some questions are persistent, here she
immerses her charming stories into an entirely different social context to eviscerate
contemporary concerns, scifi is an accidental construct. I am reading ‘The Dispossessed’
that explores capitalism, utopia, collectivism so on (I have read poems
influenced by Taoism. Taoism, as is the case with Buddhism, is something I too
find interesting). ‘The One Who Walks Away from Omelas’ explores the trolley
problem ethics, not participating (wu wei -non action) is an option of powerful statement. I haven’t
read much but yes ‘The Left Hand of Darkness’ has an interesting premise of fictional
planet of human with no fixed sex, exploring themes of gender and sexuality. This
in an overtly sexualized and gender determined world. I was reading ‘Dreams Must
Explain Themselves’, collection of essays. ‘Introducing Myself’ is a hilarious piece
about no reference to ‘her’ in mainstream discourse or reporting. The gender is assumed to
be him. “If we have anything to learn from politicians it’s that details don’t
matter. I am a man, and I want you to believe and accept this as a fact, as I did
for many years”… “Women are a very recent invention. I predate the invention of
women by decades. Well, if you insist on pedantic accuracy, women have been
invented several times in widely varying localities, but the inventors just didn’t
know how to sell the product. Their distribution technique were rudimentary and
their market research was nil, and so ofcourse the contempt just didn’t go off
the ground. Even with a genius behind it an invention has to find its market,
and it seemed like for a long time the idea of women just didn’t make it to the
bottom line. Models like the Austen and the Bronte were too complicated, and
people just laughed at the Suffragette, and Wolfe was way too far ahead of its
time”. “So when I was born, there actually were only men. People were men. They
all had one pronoun, his pronoun; so that’s who I am. I am the generic he, as
in, ‘If anybody needs an abortion he will have to go to another state’, or ‘A
writer knows which side of his bread is buttered on’. That’s me, the writer,
him. I am a man.”
