Monday, February 2, 2015

Plus Ça Change, Or Maybe Not So Much

In conversation recently, my younger son mentioned that a coworker of his had just returned from a trip to India, where he was originally from but had not visited in a very long time.  He and my son are both very thoughtful individuals, and as they discussed his trip, he couldn't help notice a remarkable distinction between the two societies.

Although the coworker had not been back to India for at least 15 years, it struck him that it hardly mattered whether it had been 15 years or 15 minutes -- nothing had changed.  The India of 2015 was essentially indistinguishable from the India of 2000 and, in his view, the India of 1900.

The two of them then discussed the contrast with the 2015 version of the USA -- a stark contrast, they agreed, because society here changes constantly.  And that, friends, was a remarkable insight that is worth wondering about.

I do not pretend to be very familiar with Indian society as a whole, and am not so stupid as to guess very much about it and then make inferences.  But I do wonder to what extent there is any actual incentive to change much there, particularly away from the most urban areas, and even in them.  A billion people live there.

To me, their exchange far more critically pointed out something about the USA, rather than about India, primarily because we are the country that so little resembles the other societies on earth.  Were you or I to slide into a coma and awaken ten years later here, there is no doubt that it would be into a different society from that last encountered.

I'm not even talking about things like technology, because that's too simple, but the way we apply technology.  We all carried laptops and flip-phones, then iPhones and laptops, then iPhones and tablets, and each evolution changed a dozen important things about our daily lives.  We take to some (iPhones) and reject others (Google Glass), but we do it quickly and the ones that pervade our lives do so thoroughly and immediately.

I lived through the '70s and astronomical interest rates, 15% mortgages and the like.  Inflation was terribly high, and we were all thoroughly depressed.  Mortgages are now advertised at 3% or less, and have not changed more than a point or so in many years, although the housing market is a disaster.  Banks once paid a decent rate on your savings; now you would never open a savings account with an expectation of return -- all the money goes into the stock market.

We do the same thing culturally.  Had you gone comatose in 1999, would you have assumed to wake up 15 years thereafter with the prevalence of gay marriage, interracial couples depicted all over the TV series and, at the same time, an instinctive response to an armed forces member with "Thank you for your service?"  Palm trees and beaches were wonderful in 1999 (they still are), but getting warmer is now somehow a bad thing.  The USA is now the "big power" in the energy market and soon to be near the top in oil production.

We do the same thing politically as well.  Thirty-five years is a blink of an eye in a country like India in terms of change, but think about this: In the USA, in that 35 years, the same country elected Ronald Reagan (and George Bush #41), then Bill Clinton, George Bush #43 and Barack Obama, reelecting each of the four as if moving from one extreme to the other.  Our sitting president is far more hostile to our former ally Israel than he is to the Iranians, even though they hate the USA the same as they did in 1999.  

"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose", the saying goes -- the more things change, the more it is the same thing.  We change here in the USA, because we are free to.  What an interesting topic for a slow weekend.  Oh, yeah, the Pats won the Super Bowl.  Plus ça change ...

Copyright 2015 by Robert Sutton 

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