Mobile Ideas

By: Stephen K. Ainsah-Mensah

a. The atmosphere within which individual and collective thoughts tend to flourish faces unwelcome challenges when the matrix of thought happens to have its home outside the existing culture. This will mean cultural invasion has had an overpowering influence on the local culture and has, as a consequence, brought about a new direction in thoughts and actions. If the acquired development fits the existing cultural framework, one can be sure of a new style of development that is not merely momentous but praiseworthy.

b. The fanaticism that could arise from science and technology proves that culture is wedded to these two keys of development. It is as if science and technology are saying: pay heed to my superior culture because it has what it takes to make it superior: science and technology. This kind of fanaticism is thus stirred by science and technology, not the general characteristics of culture; so in many important instances, science and technology cannot be said to be neutral of culture.

c. A very materialistic society may fail to function well in the moral and scholarly domains. It so happens that the people are far more interested in material pursuits, not other elements necessary for personal and professional development. It has been said many times that a knowledge-based economy is more realistic and far more sustainable than a wealth-based economy. The reason is that the strength of the former is used to hold up and advance the strength of the latter.

d. The doggedness of an unalterable cultural system may prove the entrenchment of tyranny, both in the political and economic structures. The problem in such a system is that innovativeness hardly thrives; and if innovativeness could be realized, it is arbitrarily owned by those who are wedded to the tyranny. Thus, the greatest number of the people experience stunted mentalities. It may well be that cultural sterility grows and terrifies the society. Unless this absurdity is corrected, life could end up with the flourishing of gutter consciousness.

e. Nature keeps warning the advanced society by stating: Be careful about the way you use me. Show some modicum of sympathy regarding how you live in my midst or with me, else I shall, in return, pour my indignation on you. The entire drama in the relationship between nature and the said society seems to be more of a combat than reciprocity. Suppose humans win – precisely because they wrestle from nature her resources without the desired compromises – nature suffers; when nature wins, humanity suffers, for nature may let lose its natural disasters. It can be seen that a shared relationship between nature and humans is the most desirable; but this could happen at the cost of putting brakes on the immoderate production of goods from the immoderate advances in science and technology.

f. Contradictions in life are stark when excessive materialism clash with the intellectual and moral enterprise for pride of place in the society.

g. Intellectual sterility flourishes in an environment when ignorance and arrogance direct a lot of people’s courses of action. The problem may not be lack of knowledge about human affairs and other things. The problem may arise from fuzzy knowledge that unbendable authorities approve and release for public consumption. It is as if the prevalent culture sanctions such unwanted human flaws without professing them. Here, what is lacking is moral preparedness of the form: do what is right in accordance with the conscience and the good of the people.

h. There is not much relevant style in planning; there is little creativity and unappealing mental effort when excessive materialism defines the direction of production. People rush to create and create in a rush. But, then, the rush syndrome generates massive duplicity even though it can equally generate massive production; yet, quality grows at a pace much slower than cheapness.

i. The fruits of professionalism diminish when professionalism is tailored to bring about stiffened specialization. Here, innovation tends to be the dull repetition of stuff that may end up being shunned; so following some setbacks, the professional in question panics and is bound to function in a very aggressive fashion unacceptable even within the parameters of his/her profession.

j. The world stage is now proliferated with the concept and practice of quantity far more than quality. This shows that the triple terms, what, how and when, govern the process of production far more than the singular term, why. The because answer inferred from the why question is precisely the one that encourages social and economic planning so vital for arresting or avoiding chaos. One could also see the why question stimulating a call to analyze issues well before implementing or discarding them.

k. The problems about honesty and dishonesty strike at the heart of business in particular. In the present world, difficulties face honest people while dishonest people face difficulties. Honest people find themselves traumatized by the manipulative instincts and practices of others; dishonest people surmount their difficulties by applying gimmicks and mere strong-will talk to win. The honest person may say: I must win the trust of people by sticking to the truth; the dishonest person may say: I must win the trust of people by sticking to deception, which is the spirit of courage. The persistence and growth of acquisitiveness reinforces the principle of dishonesty, and honest people are at the losing end. Thus, there is a scarcity of virtue in a world that operates with the fuel of acquisitiveness.

l. Creative thinking has come to suffer from the dearth of abstract analysis, and the cure for this sickness may be found from a restructuring of the academic enterprise. The solution may be of the form: reduce the emphasis on tiresome details in narration and compensate for this shortfall with the lengthening of analysis that arises from imagination. Here, originality is likely to develop at a pace faster than was intended.

m. It is good for the logic of the past to teach the present. While the present goes through changes, in whichever form, the past presses its connections onto it, which is a natural thing. The past seems to say to the present: “let us connect our cultural forces, so that the character of growth and development does not get debased.” Thus, disorderliness is the outcome of a culture that servers this connection; and the dignity of the people, in terms of social, economic and political arrangements, sees a new quality that is all too fictitious. Without addressing this anomaly, there could be cultural tragedy, which may, in turn, dislodge the engines of growth and development.

n. Despair drives the consciousness and sentiments of a people who believe there is nothing proud to show except for a dying culture, a corroded social-economic framework, and a weakening individual and collective psyche that holds the breath of the society. Here, one must trace the causes of these disarrays and would realize that the ingredients of autochthony have been powerfully eroded by external forces. But why this erosion if the conscience readily suggests that the contrary is to be preferred? One needs to go back to the point that excessive human greed that go unsatisfied of an indigenous culture prompts a massive adventure into external territories. The culprits here would have rejected the dominating exercise of conscience in favour of a wandering passion.

o. The habit of redeeming consciousness through the breath of technology and technological products yields a new personality: the technical person. All too often, he/she is advanced in lifestyle, but his/her conscience tends not to be calm, so too his/her personality. If calmness could be seen, it may have been an invented one.