Transformations
When is sufficient enough? Logically when people have all their basic needs met; for an adequate nutritional diet, fresh water, decent accommodation, meaningful employment, that should fulfill the needs reflecting the imperative to survival, one might imagine. But that does not take into account human nature.Human beings are always looking forward, to greater achievements, grander conditions, higher aspirations. We see what others have managed to accrue for themselves, and we instinctively think: me too.
Perhaps this underlying dissatisfaction with achieving enough to satisfy basic needs lies at the heart of humankind's ability to conceive of, devise, experiment and produce the kinds of progressive advances in technology that have led us the present. The minority of bright, enterprising intellects within any society that press on to discover, to invent, to bring gifts to society of advanced knowledge and means of livelihood, represent the curiously bright minds that seek to know more.
Their incremental advances that have benefited society in so many ways, from medicine to agriculture, education and science, have led us to where we are today. And this is a place in time and presence where we have much. Much too much of much. Yet there are always other potentials that seem so alluring. We are as spoiled children who, having been gifted with something valuable, look to see whether there are even more gifts.
In China today, its vast population which was once one of collective impoverishment, with a tiny hierarchy of nobility and financially secure aristocrats, there are huge expectations in the population as the country advances its new economic agenda for acquiring bigger, brighter, newer, more advanced lifestyles.
People who were once rural dwellers, satisfied to work the land, live modestly and form a community of concerned folk, now look elsewhere, beyond that for their satisfaction in life and living. The middle class in huge urban centres is thriving, and others, looking in from the outside want some of that for themselves.
The old and the very young remain in those rural villages, living in traditional homes, working their land, growing produce and products in demand in the urban markets. Young adults do not respond to these perceived meagre, unsatisfying life-styles. Their aspirations are more grandiloquent, and who can blame them? The country's one-child policy (urban; two-child in rural areas) has produced a population shy on females.
Yet traditionally, though most Chinese value male babies and eschew female babies, the ratio of male to female was balanced. Now there is a dearth of women; too many young males and parents of boys are desperate to find wives for their young men. They beggar themselves by building grand brick two-story houses for their boys to attract potential wives, while at the same time the young men go off to the cities to find well-paying jobs.
Millions of young people converge on China's huge cities where manufacturing is in overdrive. They provide cheap labour by uneducated workers for the production of relatively inexpensive goods shipped abroad, broadening the country's export market and enlarging its capacity and GDP. Young workers envision themselves living middle-class lives, and everyone wants the latest high-status gadgets.
But there is a sense of loss and dislocation where values have been turned inside out and a great, gaping vacuum of dissatisfaction exists. The succession of young worker suicides presents as one symptom of this dysfunctionality. The cities bursting with people who have no time for community, only the wish to get on with earning more yuan to enable them to purchase ever more goods do not reflect heritage and tradition and culture.
"Nobody has the time to help. We're all too busy looking after ourselves."
What is happening in China occurs elsewhere as well. We're simply not quite as aware of it, because its effects are less obvious. But they are insidiously present. Except for those who look, except for those who find little value in life as it is lived today, with everyone too busy to be involved with anyone else. Except for the alarmingly high suicide rate just about everywhere one looks. Why in the world would anyone wish to end their life?
Because that life is seen to be without any redeeming value?
Labels: Economy, Environment, Social-Cultural Deviations, World Crises
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, July 03, 2010
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