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opinion

The Great Global Conspiracy

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“There are, of course, conspiracies in American life: Watergate was one; Enron seems to be another. And conspiracy theories have oozed through the history of the republic from the days of anti-Masonry onward. But it was Kennedy’s murder, coupled with Oswald’s, that left our era more inclined to reach for conspiracy as the explanation for certain events – from Roswell to the moon landing to Whitewater – that we cannot understand, or for some reason wish to believe never happened, or inflate with a significance they cannot possess.”
Freed From Conspiracy, By Thomas Mallon, November 21, 2003 New York Times

This editorial explained a lot to me. I have wondered why some people want to believe that there’s a conspiracy behind just about anything. When I frequented Internet discussion groups on behalf of Adaptec/Roxio, I observed people who insisted that just about everything that went wrong with computers was part of a Microsoft conspiracy to… what? Cause ulcers worldwide?

Everyone loves a good conspiracy theory, perhaps because, no matter how “fiendishly clever,” a conspiracy is easier to grasp than the huge, messy truth. Such theories are fun, but, even from my limited perspective on the vast corporate world, I think I saw what was actually happening.

Basically, any organization is considerably less than the sum of its parts. Your company may have many smart employees but, most of the time, they will not be able to use their smarts efficiently. So much gets in the way: individual egos, bureaucratic structures, territoriality, inertia, lack of resources, cultural and character misunderstandings (or the opposite, groupthink). Hell, it’s hard enough to overcome these kinds of problems in that much smaller organization, the family.

So most companies don’t work very well, and most of what any company manages to produce is the precious little that survives many trials by bullshit.

Which means that Microsoft, as a very large organization, is collectively very smart – but also very dumb. It’s certainly not smart enough to pull off the kinds of grand conspiracies that people wish to attribute to it. (Microsoft has tried to get away with all sorts of things, but has been amazingly dumb about it, for example leaving trails of incriminating emails. Hello? Are we a software company?)

Most national governments are even larger than Microsoft, with few agreed-upon goals (at least Microsoft has a clear goal of making money for itself and its stockholders), so governments seem even less likely to accomplish any hidden grand design. Very occasionally, a government manages to achieve a grand goal that everyone agrees on, out in the open. Master plans hidden away from public view either don’t remain hidden, or don’t succeed.

What all organizations aim for, from the largest to the smallest, is to SURVIVE. In any way possible. That’s what we all grope towards, however blindly or inefficiently. Companies are created to make money by producing goods and services. Governments come into existence to serve their citizens. But all types of organizations are sooner or later subverted to support the survival of the structure and the individuals within it. Hence, for example, the power of France’s large public sector. Everyone agrees that it would be best for France and her taxpayers were the numbers, salaries, and pensions of civil servants to be reduced – everyone except those civil servants themselves, and they can bring government to its knees with strikes.

Some politicians (and even some civil servants) start out with ideals or ideologies, changes they see a need for and hope to gain sufficient power to make. Yet almost all end up focused on retaining power, by hook or by crook. Is this because power is so inherently corrupting? Or just survival instinct? If you are part of the power structure, you’re more likely to survive, whatever happens around you.

It all goes back to Darwin. From the single gene, to the cell, to the conglomeration of cells we call an organism, on up to the family, the company, and the government, everyone’s fighting for survival, both individually and as a “body” of whatever sort. Should we mourn this inherent banality in the human spirit?

I think not. After all, this is what we – and all our fellow species – have evolved to do. If our ancestors had not been in it for survival, we wouldn’t be here to tell the tale.

But neither do we have to give in to it. The fight for our individual survival does not excuse us from giving others equal rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. There will be excesses, rules and laws will be broken. Shake your head, sigh, keep pushing back. But don’t give in to the fallacy that it’s all a big conspiracy. If there were such a monster, we could find it and behead it. But there’s no single monster. What we’re up against are the many-headed monsters of stupidity, greed, and the survival instinct – in other words, “we have met the enemy, and he is us.”

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American culture, opinion, politics

War is Virtual Hell

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I’ve seen Michael Moore’s Farenheit 9/11. Very disturbing in so many ways that I won’t go into – whether you agree with Moore or you don’t, this film is not likely to change your mind. But one thing in particular, peripheral to Moore’s arguments, jumped out at me.

The film shows an American TV ad recruiting people for the national guard. The ad uses computer-generated characters, both men and women, looking very heroic and Lara Croft-ish as they morph between uniforms and street clothes, handling high-tech equipment, flying planes, etc.. Elsewhere in the film, Moore interviews tank soldiers in Iraq, who describe with gusto how their tanks have music systems which allow them to pipe music right into their helmets. “We put this disc on” (showing a black CD with white print, couldn’t quite see the name), “it really gets the adrenaline pumping.”

These two scenes seem to show that the US military is training its people to treat war as a video game – complete with soundtrack! You can roll along a Baghdad street, guns blazing, and not even realize that those are real people you’re killing.

But real people do die, on both sides, and several of the soldiers Moore interviewed commented on how grim and grisly the reality was. Had no one told them, in all their training to kill, what dead bodies look like?

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opinion

National Self-Esteem

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Can a country have an inferiority complex? Certainly the US strongly feels its own superiority, and this is reflected in its media. As pointed out in a Doonesbury cartoon years ago, a lot of American advertising uses the word “America” to sell products that have nothing to do with nationality. Mike Doonesbury asks: “Why are Americans so insecure about themselves? Do any other countries make ads that are so relentlessly chauvinistic?”

As a matter of fact, they don’t – at least not that I’ve seen. But Mike had the wrong end of the stick: the driving force here is not insecurity, but pride. Americans have a strong sense of what it means to be American, and it’s the kind of warm, fuzzy feeling that makes advertisers want to create a link (in the public mind) between their product and “being American.”

Watching American TV, you might get the idea that American is not only the best thing to be, it’s the only thing to be. The American media tends to ignore the rest of the world, at least until forced by events to sit up and take notice.

To a point, this is understandable; most news organizations report to a local/national audience whose interest in faraway events is limited. In reports of, say, an airline disaster, the local news will say that “x number of people from our country were involved, x others;” I’ve seen this in both the UK and Italy. The disasters that no one local is likely to be involved in get short shrift indeed: “x thousand people killed in floods in Bangladesh. End of story.”

But the United States is the leading player on the world stage, so other countries’ news media report extensively on America’s affairs, both internal and external. What happens in America affects the world. (This, by the way, is a huge responsibility, but one that most Americans seem unaware that they carry.)

Italy, on the other hand, seems to have an inferiority complex. It’s the world’s fifth or sixth largest economy, yet Italians seem to feel that Italy doesn’t really deserve much of a position on the world stage. Maybe I’m just imagining things, but I get this impression most strongly from the Italian news media.

The US public probably would not have noticed that Italy sent troops to the Gulf War, but the Italian TV news gave “our boys” lots of coverage, partly, I suppose, because it was easier and cheaper to interview them than soldiers of other nationalities. But sometimes it felt as if the Italian journalists were like the nerdy kid who tries too hard to get noticed by the rest of the class: “See, see! We’re there, too!”

A couple of Italian pilots managed to do something newsworthy: they were shot down, captured, and beat up by the Iraqis. The Italian press was delirious: finally, we have something momentous to say about Italy’s participation in the war.

Italy’s lack of national self-esteem shows in other ways. There are some things that everyone acknowledges the Italians are good at: food, design, leather. But beyond that, many Italians are convinced that the Americans do it better. Back when I was with Incat Systems, a small Italian company bent on conquering the global CD-R software market, we had trouble selling our software to Italians; some thought that software from Italy couldn’t possibly be any good. When half of the company moved to California and the same Easy CD software had an American address on it, more Italians were eager to buy it: it’s American, it must be good. (Whether Italian or American, Easy CD went on to take the lion’s share of the worldwide CD-R market; that’s why Adaptec bought it.)

As far as American customers knew, Easy CD was always an American product. Years later, when Easy CD Creator 4 was released, the suggested retail price (SRP) was $99 in the US, with a $20 rebate. In Europe SRP was set at the after-rebate price of $79. I got vitriolic email from an American: “How dare you give a lower price to foreigners on an American product?”

My response was: “The original Easy CD Creator was the offspring of Easy CD, developed in Italy, and CD Creator, developed in Canada. Even today, of the engineering staff in California, at least half were not born in America. So what exactly is an ‘American’ product?”

Never heard from him again.

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opinion

Some Thoughts on Extremism

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Talking with a friend about the events of September 11th, he mentioned that many devout Muslims, and even Hindus, are offended by some things they see on Western television. My first reaction to this was: “If it bothers them, they don’t have to watch it.” In some countries, governments try to “protect” their people from material that may transgress “local standards,” though censorship is more often in the interest of protecting the governments themselves than their citizens’ social values. We in the West react with horror at the thought of such censorship, and many people go to a great deal of trouble to obtain materials that their governments don’t approve of (hence the popularity of shortwave radios to pick up the Voice of America and the BBC World Service).

However, let’s look at the other side of the coin. Compared with standards in Europe, Americans are downright prudish. In Europe, billboards featuring naked women are common; in Italy, even supposedly serious news magazines boost sales by putting a picture of a naked, full-breasted woman on almost every cover. In the US, such goings-on would be dimly viewed by the peculiar anti-pornography partnership of Christian Conservatives and feminists. (The feminists fear that such uses of women’s bodies are exploitative. Many American religious conservatives, as far as I can tell, are simply horrified by the thought of sex for anything other than procreation.)

Does this mean that everybody in America is so politically correct, or so conservative? Of course not. But there seem to be an awful lot of people in America who put an awful lot of energy into trying to tell other people how to live their lives. Even when I agree with their basic beliefs, this frightens me.

I hate, loathe, and despise the Taliban for similar reasons: they have managed to impose their way of thinking – an extremely conservative way of thinking – on most of their country, to the grave detriment of all its citizens, but especially the women. Since I (unlike them) believe in democracy and freedom of choice, I fully grant every member of the Taliban the right to determine for himself what his religious beliefs are and how he will live his life in accordance with them. But I don’t agree that the Taliban have the right to impose those beliefs on anybody else.

Afghanistan in recent years is a chilling example of what can happen when “righteousness” is taken to its logical extreme. Could it happen in America? Shortly after the terrorist attacks, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, two prominent American religious conservatives, spoke on television:

[Falwell] “I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way — all of them who have tried to secularize America — I point the finger in their face and say, “You helped this happen.”” quoted in the Washington Post

In other words, if America as a whole practiced Falwell’s brand of Christianity, God would protect us from terrorists.

Take this kind of thinking to its logical extreme, and you have the America imagined by Margaret Atwood in her novel The Handmaid’s Tale. If you haven’t read this book already, I strongly recommend that you do. The society it depicts is not that different (for women) from Afghanistan under the Taliban.

Similar thoughts, more elegantly expressed: Fighting the Forces of Invisibility, By Salman Rushdie

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opinion

Globalization vs. Local Culture

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Originally published in Adventive’s
I-Branding Digest,
Oct 2, 2001

Context: I am American, but have lived half my life overseas, of which the last ten years in Italy with my Italian husband.

From what I’ve seen in extensive travels and living abroad, most cultures are very resilient, and most adult members of any culture are eventually capable of deciding for themselves what they do and don’t want to assimilate from a foreign culture.

Example: When I was going to high school in India 20+ years ago, an Indian businessman who had gone to university in the US opened a restaurant in Delhi (Nirula’s). It consciously imitated Americanisms such as fast food and 31 flavors of ice cream. Some of its patrons were foreigners like myself who occasionally craved a taste of “home”. But the huge majority were Indians.

When I returned to India four years later for college study abroad year, Nirula’s was thriving and had become a countrywide franchise. One of my classmates argued that it was an example of American cultural imperialism. From his point of view, the entrance of McDonald’s into India must have been even worse. And yet, and yet…

Obviously there is demand in India – by Indians! – for both Nirula’s and McDonald’s. In both cases, an American concept has been not merely transplanted, but adapted to its new environment. I don’t expect to ever see beef hamburgers served anywhere in India, but “mutton” and veggie hamburgers are selling very nicely. These restaurants also serve Indian snack foods that you would never find in an American McDonald’s.

American fast-food franchises the world over have adapted in similar ways to local tastes and cultures. In any country you go to, for a quick education in cultural differences, step into the local Kentucky Fried Chicken. Sure, the decor, colors, typefaces, etc. will look familiar – those are aspects of the brand identity that people are reassured by and want to retain. But the menu may contain quite a few surprises. McDonald’s in Italy serves espresso. And beer. And offers a choice of ketchup or mayonnaise with your fries.

Similarly, Indian languages and music have taken in what they like from the west and adapted it to their own needs. In the Seventies, disco music was as popular in India as the rest of the planet. Nowadays you get delightful mixes such as traditional bhangra made into dance music. This music is brought back across the ocean both by Indian emigrants and strange people like myself, where it can add a new dimension to the Western cultures which helped to create it – I’m told bhangra is very popular in some London dance clubs.

Oh, and another example: Coca Cola. Biggest brand on the planet, right? Remember a few years ago when there was a huge fuss in the US about “New Coke” vs. “Classic Coke”? “How dare they touch the sacred recipe.” Well, folks, the recipe for Coke in other countries has been different for a long time. In Asia it’s sweeter, because people there prefer it that way. In Europe it’s made with cane or beet sugar, instead of corn syrup (which I think tastes a lot better).

So who’s imperializing whom?

Note (Oct 7, 2010) – Interesting to see that Nirula’s is now using the tag line “It’s desilicious”. Desi is Hindi for “of the country,” i.e. Indian. When Nirula’s was founded, foreign was cool. Nowadays being Indian is cool. And that’s cool!

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