sevaka v0.19: East and West

There is something to be said about being a Hindu living in the West. India still is a hierarchical society, while it is changing it is moving quite slowly. Being in America that didn’t exist. It is a flat society with upward mobility, and while I do think that the American Empire is in decline, I do not think America itself is.

America has a lot of attributes that I think can be balanced by the ideas of Hinduism. America is a hyperindividual society, India is still a society built on family bonds. There is a constraint on what one can do in India or what the family wants, America is ideologically built on individualism and pursuing one’s own goals. I don’t think either one is right, and the balance of both is where things lay.

You need individualism to take the risk of starting a business or doing something entrepreneurial and different within the workspace, you need a moral bond that ties you to the family with the goal of uplifting the entire family up. Both are needed. I think we are weirdly returning to that equilibrium anyways with both societies chasing after the values of the other.

I do think America is going to become more conservative and religious over time. I do think India is going to become more individualist over time. But the goal is an equilibrium.

Modernity is not wrong, it is wrong when it is unconstrained like it has been in the West. Modernity has given immense progress, but has led people to unhappy within that progress. What we in America need is a moral footing.