The Traditional and Modern: Shall the twain meet?

There is a general tendency to know the old as outdated, almost all the time. Truth is old but never outdated. So is honesty, righteousness. So is dishonesty and falsehood. Some things are ageless and never prone to obsolescence. There is also a tendency to look upon technology as panacea. As if it is going to solve all our problems. We tend to be over enthusiastic to receive new technologies and overtly eager to forget previous one. It is like looking forward to new branches and ignoring the stem and roots. You can’t ignore history. That’s where you have evolved from. You may run away from it for sometime but you will come back to it sooner or later.

In my country, traditional (older) and modern world co-exist; seldom speaking to each other save in the time of distress or at a few meetings to marvel at each other like tourists occasionally do. Can the twain meet? Can the easy manner of the former mingle with the hectic moves of the latter? It ain’t easy. Both look upon each other like a great grandson looks upon his great grandfather. Both think they come from a different world. Both are likely to have affinity for each other. The traditional world is ripe with age and the wisdom of the ages and looks upon the modern world with eyes of an elder, saddened by the gross lack of warmth in the latter’s life. The modern world finds it hard to reconcile with “slow and least ambitious” traditional world. There is no doubt that both can learn from each other, but only if both are willing.

It is heartening to think about how traditional goods, in their original form, can be marketed through internet. Speaking of internet, it is powerful, cheap and fast medium to disseminate information; accelerate trade; remove boundations of physical presence and time; save several costs, etc. it is not traditional (old). Indeed it is a great power.

The gap needs to be bridged. The twain shall have to meet to do that. Being both --traditional and modern -- does not mean being less modern. It just means having deeper roots. And it doesn’t sound bad really. Why not use the age old wisdom amassed by saints. However, care should be taken to not become orthodox. It is good to be influenced but it is dangerous to be molded by them, never to change again. It is always good to learn new things, it is better not to forget good old things learnt earlier.

Education now has very little, if any, of traditional but lots of modern. And it gives perhaps more importance to the modern. This creeps in a feeling of being “different” in students who go on to further stages of life with that belief. Few books filled with facts never made a sage full of wisdom, knowledge, compassion, vision. They can only fill in a feeling of being wise and “different”. In the process, we limit their vision to a very limited view. Hence, two different worlds thrive and like I said, they seldom meet. To design marketing, financing solutions for pottery makers is uncool. But designing portfolio of a fund management company is supercool. While pottery makers are producing goods, portfolio just allocates funds to companies that produce goods (or services).

An entity (e.g. pottery making) may not involve complex operations but can have a market (and it does have, though not big). A villager in the countryside, far away from city should not have to worry about the transaction risk, translation risk, foreign exchange exposure, pricing, etc. that is inherent in foreign trade. That is the ideal situation. It is not easy to teach the potter all these things. He should not be despised because he is so. He still makes good products that are sold far and wide. Similarly, eliminating intermediaries in agriculture produce can unlock lots of benefits, only if one is willing to go and explore it. Perhaps it won’t be unwise to rethink about uncool activities.

It is simply best when knowledge of all kinds and ages mix. It is not utopia but very much possible. It is like breaking all boundaries which have no purpose but got built on their own, with out anyone noticing it.