01. A circumvented route to describe

02. Sitting in the cosiness of the US

03. The Hedgehog Concept

04. The magnificent stance!

05. Sample corrosion

06. Redefining GOOD to GREAT!

Now coming back to where the US is heading to, I can only say that it can be a new human experience. I remember a declamation by a Bengal-native Indian female now in the US. Before going into that I need to mention this incident in my life.

A circumvented route to describe a terrible human living experience

Many years ago, I did have a rendezvous with possible slum living. There was a time when I faced a very ferocious competition within my own family circle. One side, on my own family side, there was a sharp interest in seeing that I was deprived of a powerful adjutant in the form of a wife. It was a very visible scene in which I was seen to be gaining a pose of leadership, when my wife was positioning herself as my supporter. The very scene of her going around with me was seen as giving me a pose of leadership, which looked quite a funny scene for many persons in my family.

At the same time, on her family side, there was a deep consternation that I was changing her into an entity that was removed from the traditional routes of familial commands and loyalties. The very fact that our daughter was not being taught Malayalam added to the woe. For, there was then no visible way to enforce the various strings of command and control over her, that naturally comes when Malayalam is known by a youngster. I cannot say that the persons who were annoyed were bad. It was just that they were not happy with the development in which they perfectly understood me as totally crazy.

The situation became quite complicated when I started seeing certain new persons who had made entry into the family circle taking up the leadership to break the systems that I was promoting. It looked only a matter of weeks before they could teach our daughter Malayalam. The basic issue, to put it very frankly, was that the word Nee couldn’t be used to Varuna, for she wouldn’t understand it. Without her understanding that word, the huge familial leadership that certain persons wanted to enforce would not bear fruit. It was at this very critical juncture that I took the decision to move out of the place. I literally stopped by business activities, in which I couldn’t actually concentrate much.

The basic issue at stake was that I was trying to experiment with the idea as to what would be the personality shift in a native-born person if he or she is brought up in absolute English, in its most pristine form. It was part of my intellect and what I had been pondering on since my very childhood.

I called one of my acquaintances in a far-off city. He was a person who should have been very indebted to me for a number of issues, all involving huge financial support. He was at that moment running a big commercial establishment. I then went to the city and met him. I told him that I wanted him to arrange a house in that city, for I was moving with my wife and daughter there.

I had enough and more money with me for the shifting of the whole household as well as for paying adequate advance and rent for a good house there.

Within a few weeks we came by train, after travelling for around three days. In the morning hours, when we arrived, quite tried and sleepy, he had us taken to a place where the house he had rented was located. It was a shock to us. It was a single room, no window house, with a lot of others occupying similar rooms all around. There was a single toilet for everyone and a single pipe to take water from. All the rooms were facing a common small open space, which was of around twice a room size.

Even though we were all quite tired, we did not give in and removed ourselves to a better location.

It was an action that couldn’t be clearly understood in its implications at that moment. For, when we arrived in the city, he had come with his fabulous car and done everything for us in a very considerate manner. The way he was acting was as that he was helping me.

Now, it is here that a thought comes into me. This big commercial office was near to this location, but in a very cosy area. If we had stayed in this room which had all the definitions of a well built slum, but quite near to the cosy location, there was a very definite indicant word input that would come upon us. He was a local ‘respected’ and this was there in almost all the words and usages used about him. However, we would naturally come into the lower category, ‘respecting-him’ group.

Apart from this, inside the small space of this human living, everyone in all the connected houses would be strictly arranged in a hierarchy of ‘respect’ versus pejoratives. Individual claims to certain levels would not be allowed, unless it can be forcefully taken over.

The next question is why my acquaintance acted so considerately and did this ditching. The answer lies in a very specific part of the feudal indicant code trigger in feudal languages of India. The taking up of a person in a very cosy manner, and slowly placing him into the depths. It is like acting very graciously to a respected guest in a function, and taking him to sit with the servants. Actually, I have seen this being done in language codes. Like acting very lovingly to a person and then introducing him to others with a slightly lower indicant word. Even though it may seem a very small action when pondered upon in English, the fact is that once a person is introduced in a smaller indicant level, the others at that level will strive to hold on to him with a vice-like grip, and powerfully position him at their level. All his remonstrations to the effect that he is above their level would be of no use, unless he can physically remove himself from the location.

Sitting in the cosiness of the US and declaring affection for native land human despoilment

I have had the occasion to view some slum living. It is actually not a very rare thing in independent India. However, what really rankled me much was the declaration of the Bengal-native female who had become a professor in an American University. Sitting in the extremely cosy ambience of an American university, she was speaking with great admiration for the slums of Bengal. She was a saying that it was a great human living experience. Well, as experience it might be great. But not something that she would want for herself.

This much I wrote, just because I reached the topic of where America was heading on to. Well, it is going on to some new human living experiences, like the great experience of Bengal slum living. It would be a totally new living experience. One that one can stand in a distant location and admire. For the human tenacity. Well, it is a forewarning. Such words should be treated with respect. So that such dire circumstances can be circumvented. Yet, there is always the other side. It is the fact that people who barge in from feudal nations carrying all the negativities that they themselves are running away from, would find even the tragic state of an English nation, a great living. For, so much is the difference even a slight English environment can make.

The Hedgehog Concept

People from feudal language nations have a particular hedgehog shield. The term hedgehog is taken from Jim Collins’ fantastic book GOOD to GREAT. In this book, the term is used in the sense that the hedgehog has only one tactic to deal with contingencies. That is to curl up inside its spines. It is a very powerful stance that can withstand the attack of almost all enemies.

Now, people from varying feudal language nations have a particular hedgehog pattern of dealing with social and commercial competition. In most of these nations, what they face is a definite block to articulation and healthy discussion with the person in authority, big and small. The invariable hedgehog shield that never fails them is the use of bribes, going through family connections, political connections, giving gifts and homage and paying very obvious obeisance. In English nations, when the nation is in an unadulterated form, with only English personnel in every slot and points, this hedgehog shield is not required. However as the nation slowly turns non-English, with people from varying nations filling up the slots, and each one of them continually and deeply connected to their own native nation social and familial systems, the need for this hedgehog rises up. It is slowly seen as a very effective management strategy.

However the Sitting Ducks of the US, the original English natives, are at a loss as to how to handle the situation. They are the frame that holds the system. But others enter inside it, infect it, manage it, manipulate it and later corrode it, in a manner that suits them. They have no ingrained loyalty to any English systems, even though they would declaim their extreme devotion to English and US. However, if put in another social system, they would immediately change like the chameleon, and play the game that suit that particular local systems. It may be mentioned in passing that the original English had a stance of no-compromise, wherever they went.

The magnificent stance!

It is here that the traditional English were and are different from them. They never compromised their stance to suit the local rascality. Everywhere they went, it was England, with not even an iota of compromise. The newcomers of US are not of that bent. They are in Rome, they will do as the Romans. If they are with the cannibals, then they are the foremost of cannibals. This is the tragedy that is now infecting the English nations.

Society and social conventions will get compromised as never before and in ways possibly never envisaged mentally. It can bring in total disarray in family system and culture. For the environment of uneasy distractions can drive out the mood for building up focused family systems. The outside world would be seen changing in ways and routes that are not the natural progression of English societies.

It is time the Sitting Ducks took up a stand and say that enough is enough.

Sample corrosion

I remember one scene that took place approximately around 14 years back. I am sitting with a young man. He is from a rich family. He and I were discussing about English nations. He went on saying depreciative things about ‘Whites’ who were running the English nations. Their racism, their arrogance and their snobbishness. The talk then more or less moved to towards all these qualities in English language. He also spoke that he had applied for an American visa, which had been rejected. Now, it was an understanding that once an application for a visa is rejected by the US consulate, it is not easy to have it revoked. However, he said that his family members were working on it. They had enough contacts inside the Consulate. He said that he was sitting with crossed fingers.

Suddenly the phone rang. It was the news that his visa had been approved.

What impressed me was the way that US official conventions had been ruptured by a particular route of overcoming it. Well, if his family could do it here, it could do the same in the US itself also. For, everywhere there would be ‘Indians’ and their henchmen in vital and vantage positions. For feudal languages work on particular link routes based not on professional conventions, but on family links, friends and such other things, all connected in a varying slots of attachment, loyalty, superior-inferior command structure and much else. These things are not there in pristine English. However, these things can enter and create powerful cells inside the soft English world of decent interaction and fair-play.

For proof of this, see this case. (Spying on the roommate).-————— Community service in the US is actually personality development training.

Redefining GOOD to GREAT!

Now before moving on, I would like to say a few words about GOOD to GREAT. It is generally mentioned as a great book on business management. I have read the book in detail some years ago. I do not really remember every point. However, my understanding is that it is not a book on commercial management alone, but of something of more vibrant input. The idea that Good is not Great was a very powerful one, which more or less gave me an answer to a very crucial question that lurked in the innermost core of my mind. That of what was different about the British-Indian management from the national management by the Indian leaders like Nehru, Indira Gandhi etc. These people are also known to be quite able. And are reputed to be great national managers. But then, how does one make a comparison.

After reading the book, I did a cursory glance through the history. I found that even though the British rulers set up a lot of institutions, organisations and infrastructure in a nation with nothing to spontaneously set them up or to uphold them, one does not see history mentioning any one of them specifically as great. For, when one leader departed another came into the picture and more or less the system continued with the same level of efficiency. However in the case of the Indian leaders, when one departed, there was the general feeling of some great void. The greatness of the departed leader was emphasised by the incapacity of his predecessor. In many ways, it is seen that in India, a useless and unfit predecessor is an essential item for the greatness of a person.

It is here that I found the English system to be of fascinating quality. English individuals do not become Mahatmas. For, everyone is more or less of equal stature. There is no code in English to define each other as Mahatmas and such. There were no Mahatmas among the fantastic British leaders who ruled ‘India’. However, in newly formed India, every Tom, Dick and Harry is a Mahatma, if he or she can make the media and the textbooks parrot the theme. No other evidence is required.

Herein lies the exact GREATNESS of the English Empire. One great manager followed another. Yet, none became a Mahatma. No one became great by inducing mediocre persons to succeed. Well, the fact is that the greatness was not in the individuals, but in the English communication system that created great conventions and quality institutions. Individual persons were not important.

SEE these comments discussing my comments on HuffingtonPost:

faithnj May 3, 2012 at 12:33am

there may be differences between people of different nationalities, or ethnicities— but it still doesn’t make it right to stereotype people. at the end of the day, EVERYONE is an individual. you can’t name a single group of people- and then apply a dumb stereotype to every single one of them. at the end of the day, you gotta take every person just as they come. beside,

Chucky Sly June 17, 2012 at 6:46pm

I was born and raised outside the US. My family and friends are truly an international and astoundingly diverse group. For any single one of them to hold the views you stated in your original post would corrode the bond that we have, made stronger by our differences. You apply group think to ethnic groups without regard to their individuality (just one example: “native English-speaking Blacks of US bear a more superior heritage than the lady from East Europe.”).

Yeah, pseudo-intellectual claptrap. Eliminate these observations from your consciousness and free your mind.

MY COMMENT: It is quite apparent that the commenter are not aware of language codes that route out human thoughts, culture, behaviour and even the concepts of good and evil. The basic insight that can be had is that no one seems to be even aware of the existence of feudal, respect versus pejorative codes in feudal languages. Even the very existence of feudal languages is unknown to them.

Then there is the issue of individual goodness versus individual iniquity. Well, there is a group of fowls living in a house. They are meant for meat to be eaten on feasting days. In the house, there are two individuals. One is a very good person. The other is an evil person. Yet, to the chicks that are living there, is there anything like, ‘This man is good’ and ‘The other man is evil’? Their personal disposition has no meaning to the birds. Meaning that feudal language speakers have a particular mental and social disposition. That is to splinter the social system, and to ennoble a few and to denigrate a lot many, the moment they speak in their own language.

Once, many years ago, a companion did speak thus: There is one man. He is very good. But he has a negative side. When he is hungry, he will eat any man he fancies!