A couple of pages into "The Price of Civilization," Jeffrey Sachs has the following explanation for America's sorry state:
"The American economy increasingly serves only a narrow part of society, and America's national politics has failed to put the country back on track through honest, open, and transparent problem solving. Too many of America's elites - among the super-rich, the CEOs, and many of my colleagues in academia - have abandoned a commitment to social resonsibility. They chase wealth and power, the rest of society be damned." (Emphasis mine)
I recently read this brilliant and lengthy piece in The New Yorker about Dharun Ravi's trial. (For those who are tired of reading about this trial, read this article anyway.)
The article reveals a disturbing and twisted reality, but one that any college kid would find all too familiar. Ravi obsesses over his roommate's homosexuality, Clementi can't get over the fact that he's been assigned to room with "an Azn."
It's normal to struggle with what is unfamiliar. I was 13 when I first met an openly gay couple (two girls whom I met at summer camp) and I did feel weird about it at first. I know I've served as a so-called "messenger" for other people before. It happens to all of us in some way.
What worries me more about the whole Dharun Ravi story isn't that he was uncomfortable with his roommate's sexuality, it's that it never ocurred to him that what he did was wrong. It never ocurred to any of his (highly educated) peers, either. Maybe some of them suffered misgivings, but the moral implications of using a webcam to invade someone else's intimate encounters seem to have been lost on all of them.
What does it say about America when our most promising students aren't taught the difference between right and wrong? These are kids who were given all the tools to succeed. Ravi comes from a well-off family. He probably had high SAT scores. His parents sent him to the best possible schools, and (as if that wasn't enough) to summer nerd camp. And yet they neglected to instill in him the most basic and fundamental moral precepts central to being a good citizen.
And I wish I could say this was just the "Dharun Ravi story" but it isn't. My own college campus was disturbingly similar. I met people whose reading comprehension skills were excellent, but who couldn't comprehend the most basic links between action and consequence. I sat through lectures on philosophy, the Bible, the Qu'ran, every aspect of international trade and finance, journalism, etc, but not once did any professor bother to ask a class, "what does it mean to you to be a good citizen?" The closest we came - and it was pretty close, I'd say - is when we debated media ethics in my journalism classes. At Medill, at least, questions like "what does a journalist owe his sources, his readers, the people he writes about?" formed a fundamental part of our education.
Unfortunately, that was a blip on the radar. Questions of how to approach technology, of what constitutes a fair society, etc - simply did not come up. My point is, Dharun Ravi is a product of our so-called "elite" educational curricula. His callousness, his obsession with wealth, his well-crafted sentences and corresponding moral vacancy - it's all a parable for how the educational system and the state seem to have conspired to create a future elite that doesn't give a rat's ass about anything or anyone. Everything from the Dharun Ravi story to the Wharton students who thought shouting "get a job" at Occupy Wall Street protestors was a rational retort to a real and growing problem in society illustrates what I'm talking about. (Remember when Marie Antoinette told the French peasants to eat cake? Look what happened to her. To be fair, of course, some students at Harvard had a different response.)
Nor are we - immigrants - off the hook for this one. I recently read Amy Chua's "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother." Chua obsesses over how she wants her kids to become champion tennis players, celebrated musicians and no doubt future Ivy League grads. She personifies the virtues necessary to get there - hard work, dedication, staunch character. But nowhere in her book does she write, "Above all, I would like my daughters to know the difference between right and wrong." I'm sure she cares, but how is that - the most fundamental thing that any parent bequeathes a child - so utterly absent from a modern parenting memoir?
We Asian-Americans (not en masse, but too often) have focused on the fact that America, alone among nations, has offered us unprecedented opportunity. But somehow we've managed to avoid asking what values have enabled that success, and how to give back fairly to that society. We've looked to ourselves - and our own hard work - without fully embracing open-mindedness and tolerance.
Nor, as Sachs suggests, is the solution to be found in the developing world. The pace at which young Indians have embraced a Western lifestyle kinda shocks me. But at the same time, I see a corresponding shallowness among (many, not all!) young Indians. We go out to insanely expensive clubs, drink whatever we want, wear whatever we like, date casually, own iPads and fancy cars - but there should be more to a good life than a satisfied appetite. Values - treating a neighbor with respect, upholding tolerance, accepting that actions have consequences, protecting those who are weak, speaking the truth even when it's difficult - these things just haven't caught up. Our grandparents' generation lived lives of Gandhi-an ascentism. Those vaules may no longer resonate, but endless consumption is not a value system.
Essentially, what I'm saying is that we live in a time of stimuli and opportunities. Ages ago, JFK (admittedly, not the best example of a self-made man) famously said, "ask what you can do for your country." I don't think enough of us are asking that question, not just about our countries, but about everyone around us - co-workers, friends, partner, family.
---
Disclaimers (you know, for fun):
-I am self-absorbed. I would like to be less so. I'm not saying I have answers, I'm just asking questions.
-NOT ALL people in America or India represent what I'm talking about. It's all a spectrum.
-Being a good person IS NOT correlated with profession. An honest man can run a hedge fund and an asshole can run an orphanage. We will not all be Mother Teresa, nor should we be, but that doesn't mean that each person, in his own way and in his own industry, can't find a way to add value to society without diminishing what people in other fields do. An investment banker who mocks a social worker solely for being poor and a social worker who mocks an investment banker solely for being rich are both equally insecure.
"The American economy increasingly serves only a narrow part of society, and America's national politics has failed to put the country back on track through honest, open, and transparent problem solving. Too many of America's elites - among the super-rich, the CEOs, and many of my colleagues in academia - have abandoned a commitment to social resonsibility. They chase wealth and power, the rest of society be damned." (Emphasis mine)
I recently read this brilliant and lengthy piece in The New Yorker about Dharun Ravi's trial. (For those who are tired of reading about this trial, read this article anyway.)
The article reveals a disturbing and twisted reality, but one that any college kid would find all too familiar. Ravi obsesses over his roommate's homosexuality, Clementi can't get over the fact that he's been assigned to room with "an Azn."
It's normal to struggle with what is unfamiliar. I was 13 when I first met an openly gay couple (two girls whom I met at summer camp) and I did feel weird about it at first. I know I've served as a so-called "messenger" for other people before. It happens to all of us in some way.
What worries me more about the whole Dharun Ravi story isn't that he was uncomfortable with his roommate's sexuality, it's that it never ocurred to him that what he did was wrong. It never ocurred to any of his (highly educated) peers, either. Maybe some of them suffered misgivings, but the moral implications of using a webcam to invade someone else's intimate encounters seem to have been lost on all of them.
What does it say about America when our most promising students aren't taught the difference between right and wrong? These are kids who were given all the tools to succeed. Ravi comes from a well-off family. He probably had high SAT scores. His parents sent him to the best possible schools, and (as if that wasn't enough) to summer nerd camp. And yet they neglected to instill in him the most basic and fundamental moral precepts central to being a good citizen.
And I wish I could say this was just the "Dharun Ravi story" but it isn't. My own college campus was disturbingly similar. I met people whose reading comprehension skills were excellent, but who couldn't comprehend the most basic links between action and consequence. I sat through lectures on philosophy, the Bible, the Qu'ran, every aspect of international trade and finance, journalism, etc, but not once did any professor bother to ask a class, "what does it mean to you to be a good citizen?" The closest we came - and it was pretty close, I'd say - is when we debated media ethics in my journalism classes. At Medill, at least, questions like "what does a journalist owe his sources, his readers, the people he writes about?" formed a fundamental part of our education.
Unfortunately, that was a blip on the radar. Questions of how to approach technology, of what constitutes a fair society, etc - simply did not come up. My point is, Dharun Ravi is a product of our so-called "elite" educational curricula. His callousness, his obsession with wealth, his well-crafted sentences and corresponding moral vacancy - it's all a parable for how the educational system and the state seem to have conspired to create a future elite that doesn't give a rat's ass about anything or anyone. Everything from the Dharun Ravi story to the Wharton students who thought shouting "get a job" at Occupy Wall Street protestors was a rational retort to a real and growing problem in society illustrates what I'm talking about. (Remember when Marie Antoinette told the French peasants to eat cake? Look what happened to her. To be fair, of course, some students at Harvard had a different response.)
Nor are we - immigrants - off the hook for this one. I recently read Amy Chua's "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother." Chua obsesses over how she wants her kids to become champion tennis players, celebrated musicians and no doubt future Ivy League grads. She personifies the virtues necessary to get there - hard work, dedication, staunch character. But nowhere in her book does she write, "Above all, I would like my daughters to know the difference between right and wrong." I'm sure she cares, but how is that - the most fundamental thing that any parent bequeathes a child - so utterly absent from a modern parenting memoir?
We Asian-Americans (not en masse, but too often) have focused on the fact that America, alone among nations, has offered us unprecedented opportunity. But somehow we've managed to avoid asking what values have enabled that success, and how to give back fairly to that society. We've looked to ourselves - and our own hard work - without fully embracing open-mindedness and tolerance.
Nor, as Sachs suggests, is the solution to be found in the developing world. The pace at which young Indians have embraced a Western lifestyle kinda shocks me. But at the same time, I see a corresponding shallowness among (many, not all!) young Indians. We go out to insanely expensive clubs, drink whatever we want, wear whatever we like, date casually, own iPads and fancy cars - but there should be more to a good life than a satisfied appetite. Values - treating a neighbor with respect, upholding tolerance, accepting that actions have consequences, protecting those who are weak, speaking the truth even when it's difficult - these things just haven't caught up. Our grandparents' generation lived lives of Gandhi-an ascentism. Those vaules may no longer resonate, but endless consumption is not a value system.
Essentially, what I'm saying is that we live in a time of stimuli and opportunities. Ages ago, JFK (admittedly, not the best example of a self-made man) famously said, "ask what you can do for your country." I don't think enough of us are asking that question, not just about our countries, but about everyone around us - co-workers, friends, partner, family.
---
Disclaimers (you know, for fun):
-I am self-absorbed. I would like to be less so. I'm not saying I have answers, I'm just asking questions.
-NOT ALL people in America or India represent what I'm talking about. It's all a spectrum.
-Being a good person IS NOT correlated with profession. An honest man can run a hedge fund and an asshole can run an orphanage. We will not all be Mother Teresa, nor should we be, but that doesn't mean that each person, in his own way and in his own industry, can't find a way to add value to society without diminishing what people in other fields do. An investment banker who mocks a social worker solely for being poor and a social worker who mocks an investment banker solely for being rich are both equally insecure.
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