FORGET IDEOLOGY, CONSIDER IDEA-LOGY!

By   ARVIND BANAVALIKER

                                LOOKING BACK, IT IS easy to see that practically the whole of the twentieth century was racked by a keen tussle between the forces of capitalism and socialism on the one hand and mostly fascism on the other and then, after the two World Wars had ended and the Cold War had begun, between the forces of capitalism on the one hand and communism on the other. But what did all these political ideologies have in common and in the end, with what tools and implements did they venture to wage their fights? What gave them their economic strength and their military means, the twin props without which no nation dare challenge another in our modern-day world? The forces of modern science and technology, of course.

                               It is customary to chart the economic progress of a developed nation by detailing its mastery of agriculture, its journey through manufacturing and industrialization, its graduation into a variety of services and now, even by the tracing of the emergence of its creative class. All these are recognized as stages of economic growth. What do all these stages have in common and what was that special element which enabled transition (slow or rapid, depending upon how the attempt at development was going) from one stage to another? The forces of modern science and technology, of course.

                                We speak about the political, economic, social and cultural dimensions of a given situation or a stated problem.While each aspect is important and often inter-dependent and while it is good to be multi-dimensional in one’s outlook, can any one of them claim to be the seed-bed of the others?  Is not the approach to political, economic and social aspects likely to be altogether different, in say, an Islamic culture from that in a Calvinist Protestant culture or from that in a Confucian culture? Despite these differences, with the economic and technological progress of all nations in today’s world, what is it that drives them towards a certain, inevitable convergence? Modern Kuala Lumpur does not look all that different from modern Shanghai or modern London. The forces of modern science and technology have given them all a common mien.

                               There’s no escaping the fact. Whatever you do, wherever you turn, you are thrown back on or rather speeded forward by, the forces of modern science and technology. Not education, not history, not economics, not religion or philosophy can avoid being deeply influenced by it.  Was it worth fighting all those bitter wars and developing all that enmity when the mighty force behind all that exhibition of strength was one and the same?  Are we overly swayed by ideologies (capitalism vs communism, conservatism vs liberalism, Hindu vs Muslim, Singhalese vs Tamil, Western vs Asian) when we should really be focusing our sights on idea-logy?  Because that is what modern science and technology is all about. It’s not merely the artifacts or products of science we see around us. Modern science and technology is essentially a corpus of ideas, a framework of thinking, an unceasing quest for truth.

(The above article is a slightly edited version by the author of an earlier article by him appearing in a Mumbai magazine)