GLOBAL DIVERSITY VS. GLOBAL ‘SIMULTRY’
‘Simultry’ (pronounced sigh-mull-tree) is the exploitation of simultaneous evolution, that is, when more developed cultures take advantage of less developed cultures. In our world, everything is in evolution, and individual representatives of the same entity may be at various stages of evolution --- infant, young, mature, old, dying. This poses conflicts amongst the various individuals about their needs and creates possibility for bad things to happen as the simultaneous evolutions impact each other.
Simultry is the bigotry of the advanced, of the modern. It opposes mutual solutions, it refuses to wait for the slower, and it uses differences to its gain. The result of simultry is a larger gap between the developed and undeveloped, leading to conflicts that eventually obstruct the evolution of even the advanced, creating misery for all.
Simultry is a general concept that can be applied to any situation, where a more advanced entity takes advantage of a less advanced one, such as in relations between teacher and student, parent and child, manager and employee, leader and follower, and nation over nation.
The ‘simultrist’ is the one who perpetuates simultry.
The forms of simultry are varied and are beyond just the relations between nations. The abuse or neglect by a parent of a child is simultry. Here the problem is that the less developed entity is innocent, weak and an easy victim of selfish adults. The very word “family” is a term that should stand against simultry in the treatment of the young.
The relation between teacher and student could also develop into simultry where the more advanced teacher does not help the student evolve. The dynamic of leaders and followers are also about two entities at differing stages of evolution yet coexisting. The danger is that a leader will exploit followers and keep them in a state of need, that is, in a state needing a leader, and then not be able to think or act independently like a leader does.
We can even see the relationship between managers and workers in this light, where the worker is not allowed to develop her or his potential to think like a manager even if she or he does not have a management post. The forms of simultry are many.
What should motivate the more advanced one in a relationship with a less advanced one?
It should be principle, the principle that the less developed must not be exploited. Self interest is also a motivation, for in the end, not allowing a child to become a healthy adult does not help adults, and not teaching students does not help teachers or produce new teachers. The interest of the less developed is of concern too, we should want to grow and become like ourselves in all ways, to join the higher community. Lastly, our motivation should be love -- we should love children, love students, love the people of less developed nations, love workers and love followers. This is why simultry is really an issue about “families” in the larger sense.
But why do we not see that? Why do rich nations not understand this? Why do Americans have a hard time seeing the misery in the world outside their borders or for that matter within their borders?
Are we not all of the same human race, the same family? This gets to the heart of it. What we have is a kind of bigotry. And what we have is a massive and general “human family dysfunction” on this planet that originates from the richer realm.
There are differences in levels of technology, economics, individuality, and government sophistication on the planet. This Americans note right away. We are proud of our advanced status, our most advanced status as the cutting-edge nation of the planet. We have a kind of shock and repulsion to other societies. We see them as ‘primitive’ in a sense.
More, we do not appreciate the cultures of other peoples. We do not think that there are ‘different’ ways of doing things which might be better ways too. Difference should be appreciated because there is more than one way to do things, one can learn from this. Further, cultures have solved problems of values in society and created institutions when we are befuddled with the same issues and we are failing at them.
Being superior in technology, economics or government does not make you superior as a human being to another human being. And, we must grasp that individuality and freedom are the result of a long human evolution, and that other cultures must strive for this in their own ways.
Arrogance and castigation of the less developed is very wrong. Do we laugh at children or students? Do we put them down and avoid them? This is not proper behavior in the greater human family; this is a super-dysfunction or planetary dysfunction of sorts on the level of nations, religions, cultures, ethnic groups and races.
Each nation has its objective circumstances, no one chooses where they are born and the history of the culture they are born into.
And advanced nations at one time were not advanced. There was a time when they were poor, had little technology, their governments were problematic, people were less individualistic and less free.
Even on the level of cultural criticism much of what the rich nations say about poor nations they too were practicing just 50 or 100 or 200 years ago --- which is just 5 minutes ago in historical time. So if they evolve why can’t the others?
The less advanced will evolve. If the advanced nations have already been there and have evolved, then so can the poor, if given time, support and patience. Everyone has intelligence and creativity, drive and ambition, these are universal human traits. Just look at the rise of various economies around the world in the last ten years.
Further, the advanced can learn from the diversity of cultures -- for there is something different and new there, and they will solve problems in a different way than we have.
There is no place for arrogance and repulsion and disconnection in our world. Far too many Americans look down upon the planet. The arrogant English imperialist detested the world because it did not do things in the ‘English’ way.
Americans have taken their place, and our haughtiness takes a specific American form: We have an obsession with the ‘new’, we suffer from what you might call ‘Novosis’ (‘novo’ meaning new, and ‘osis’ referring to a malady or illness). And since we have all the new stuff, then no one else gets any respect or attention. The new is a wonderful thing, it makes life exciting, it shows you are creative, but we have, unfortunately, found the down side of the new, the extreme of it.
If we practice simultry bad things can happen to everybody on this planet. The poor will resent the rich, conflicts will appear. Their lack of economic development will affect ours in the long run, because they will not be able to trade with us at the level we require. Their economies will not be good places to invest because they are too poor and their people are uneducated. Their lack of growth directly affects our growth in the long run. So, our economy will stagnate too.
We are one family, one system -- what is good for one is good for the other, what is bad for one is bad for the other.
Consider another thing, if the rich nations suddenly decide they must help the poor, then the next error is to invade them with idea that they are exporting a ‘democratic revolution’. Then the rich nations get more insurgency and more problems. And then we have the opposite affect of spreading very conservative cultures, and this is worse for America and other leading nations.
Nations must go through their own evolution, we cannot do that for them, that is a basic law for all human beings, whether it is children, students, employees and followers...and even adults, teachers, managers and leaders etc.
This means we must be patient, persistent, be advisors and not meddlers, and we must aid not harm.
We should try to ‘converge’ the evolutions, bring them up to our level over time. We must be patient and wait, but not idle waiting, actively support them, and create joint projects.
Someday, the less developed will catch up and then who knows, maybe, it will America’s turn to be less advanced. Perhaps even in technological or economic matters, who knows? Or it may be that others will solve cultural, religious, philosophical, moral, psychological and social problems ahead of America. And at the present we are not doing a good job on these fronts precisely because we focus solely on economic and technological issues.
We are at a strange turning point in history right now; who knows what will happen in these next few years. If we do not handle things well, then we may find ourselves behind other nations.
Then we might have to consider the meaning of our American saying: “Be careful how you treat people on the way up, because you may meet them again on the way down”!
Cage Innoye
Axxiad News