The inevitable change

[Dubious]

I have noticed alot of my people are somehow scared of change. They have made a culture out of it. That somehow EVERY change is wrong, someone will play the victim card while others will claim it is the evil west. When will we learn/ understand that the world is a dynamic environment, change is inevitable....

The world itself speaks of animals which went extinct when they were incapable of adapting to changes
Conservationist will tell you that if you dont change, you wont survive.
Mega industry tycoons will tell you if you dont change with time you will drop out of the market
Scientists will tell you if you dont walk with technological changes you are outdated and wont have a spot ...
Law makers will also tell you as times change laws need to be updated

If everything on the planet revolves around change and accepts it why do we fight it and avoid it and think of it as destructive?

This is a bit of an old article but there are somethings I want to highlight which are VERY applicable to a lot of us:
Nov 13, 2015

Nokia CEO ended his speech saying this “we didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost”.

By: Ziyad Jawabra


During the press conference to announce NOKIA being acquired by Microsoft, Nokia CEO ended his speech saying this “we didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost”. Upon saying that, all his management team, himself included, teared sadly.

Nokia has been a respectable company. They didn’t do anything wrong in their business, however, the world changed too fast. Their opponents were too powerful.

They missed out on learning, they missed out on changing, and thus they lost the opportunity at hand to make it big. Not only did they miss the opportunity to earn big money, they lost their chance of survival.

The message of this story is, if you don’t change, you shall be removed from the competition.

It’s not wrong if you don’t want to learn new things. However, if your thoughts and mindset cannot catch up with time, you will be eliminated.

Conclusion:
The advantage you have yesterday, will be replaced by the trends of tomorrow. You don’t have to do anything wrong, as long as your competitors catch the wave and do it RIGHT, you can lose out and fail.

To change and improve yourself is giving yourself a second chance. To be forced by others to change, is like being discarded.
Those who refuse to learn & improve, will definitely one day become redundant & not relevant to the industry. They will learn the lesson in a hard & expensive way.

Nokia CEO ended his speech saying this “we didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost”. By: Ziyad Jawabra | Ziyad Jawabra | LinkedIn

This in here carries a very deep msg ....Koi hai jo sochay samjhay!

 

[Indus Pakistan]

@Akheilos As usual you make very intelligent observation. Change is a constant through time. Great empire have vanished and where there was nothing there is superpower. I find Pakistani culture particulary hesitant toward change. I think significant reason for this is we carry the historical memory of a defeated and humilated people.

The West defeated us and colonized our ancestors in form of British imperialism. One of sad effects of that defeat reverberates today in our collective hesitancy toward change. Our ancestors internalized the defeat at the hands of the West by injecting a kind of hatred of anything WEstern in our collective DNA in particular our religious corpus became defined as anti Western. This defeated mentality or even inferiority complex plays out today in how we percieve anything Western as bad.

However take other societies which faced the West and came out intact with their honour like Turks or Japanese. Both countries (the former Muslim) show no such inferiority or defeatist complex and will absorb anything "Western" without much thought or torturing themselves. This can be seen in dress codes, cultures that prevail in both countries. There is no fear or some complex over adopting anything from the West. If is good take it. No long debates.

In our defeated complex ridden societies they look at the minute details and if anything Westen is detected all sort of comments will ensue. I guess it is false protectionism at play and indicative of very feeble society. On the other hand confident societies like Turkey or Japan changed themselces within a generation in light of West not because they worshipped them but because they had the right recipe. You can see Japan and Turkey today stand head and shoulder above other non Western peoples.

A visit to Istanbul will expose how insular and locked in Pakistan is by comparison. That is because there is culture of being averse to change.

 

[Dubious]

I find Pakistani culture particulary hesitant toward change. I think significant reason for this is we carry the historical memory of a defeated and humilated people.

I actually dont think that is the problem!

The MAJOR problem is that tying people down to a cultural/ traditional on going process, which benefits only the top cream of people who "literally" control the rest of the system is what stops change from happening...

I will give you an example, educate a man and suddenly he will start asking questions, keep him with the brainwashed idea of being "gratitude" towards a man supplying him with 20% of what he deserves and he will remain in that cycle forever until and unless he starts questioning....

Our ancestors internalized the defeat at the hands of the West by injecting a kind of hatred of anything WEstern in our collective DNA in particular our religious corpus became defined as anti Western. This defeated mentality or even inferiority complex plays out today in how we percieve anything Western as bad.

I again disagree....there is less to do with the defeat at "anyone's hands" because the way history is told in Sub continent, PAKISTAN was born after the long turmoil....it is in no way seen as any defeat ...If I would see it shown as ownership with pride and a winning of 1 day over india....14th August!

However, west is equated to Hollywood (sexualizing women, booz, violence, cowboy - lack of a system) ....it is equated to lawlessness based on movies from the wild west....

As for the "religious nut jobs" well they do all the "hollywood" equation better than any "hollywood" movie ...they have women, booz and guns...but they put in fear into the mindset of the remaining people to keep them away from overpowering the lazy druggy hollywood fanboys claiming to be religious nut jobs!

While the liberal fanatics seem to base the whole "west" phenomena linked with tv serials like "friends" where all Joey does is change partners in bed...

Those tv series kind of portrayed that hollywood of that level is the only thing "West" has to offer....they have closed their eyes to technology, coz if you give people technology, they will know that the clerics were rubbish and lying like anything!

If you give people ease then they wont ever need to come and make a taweez and like the empty churches of the West, the pir baba of Pakistan's will lose business

However take other societies which faced the West and came out intact with their honour like Turks or Japanese. Both countries (the former Muslim) show no such inferiority or defeatist complex and will absorb anything "Western" without much thought or torturing themselves. This can be seen in dress codes, cultures that prevail in both countries. There is no fear or some complex over adopting anything from the West. If is good take it. No long debates.

And hence your theory flaws, if anyone should have inferiority complex it should be Japanese, coz they were butchered by the Hiroshima and Nagazaki incident and on top of that served sanctions AND had to pay fines for several years! If psychologists had a say that would not only have humbled them but also jammed them with inferiority complex. But no they were and are hard working people...so didnt fall to such crap!

Instead they opened their own culture to the world, with anime where by many of the technological comics/ stories we read/ watch as Hollywood originated from Japan...Transformers, power rangers and many others...Japanese Pop and its fashion....

What they did was instead of importing the western culture they started with exporting their own and well with Americans pouring in they have also adapted Western culture. But it didnt come free, they had to give up alot of their religion and other old traditions...

Turkey has always been at an advantage, it is in between Asia and Europe and many of its population actually come from all over Central Asia as well as Europe! So they would have no problem accepting and assimilating....

So I would say bad examples....Maybe had we done like india EXPORTED our culture and made it integrate instead of overly eager to accept a culture totally foreign to ours...change would have been easy.

Gradual change is always the best coz it gives time for environment to absorb the shock ...sudden change doesnt help...What Pakistan is going through in terms of fashion was a sudden change. What it went through in terms of cultural pick up was also a sudden change, kind of screwed those people who tried it and freaked out the remaining who were with the expression "what is going on"....

In our defeated complex ridden societies they look at the minute details and if anything Westen is detected all sort of comments will ensue. I guess it is false protectionism at play and indicative of very feeble society. On the other hand confident societies like Turkey or Japan changed themselces within a generation in light of West not because they worshipped them but because they had the right recipe. You can see Japan and Turkey today stand head and shoulder above other non Western peoples.

I dont think we lack any confidence...Your analogy seems a very nicely hidden way to bash Pakistani culture.

What you failed to understand is we are very comfortable with ourselves. When one is comfortable with themselves they dont seek change coz why change something that is comfortable?

We have soo much culture in Pakistan we have become too comfortable with it. With chaos being either termed as "foreign" or is suppressed by bullets / political (every dept in Pakistan is politically organized) and on top of that lack of education and lack of any point of unity, there never seemed a reason to actually seek change....Everytime someone introduced a change, he was either shot/ found dead/ proclaimed a terrorist/ infidel and whatnot....kind of scaring away any other who would try!

THIS whole kind of points to the feudal mentality - the biggest crippling point that the British Raj left behind and the stupid politicians accepted instead of getting rid of it as a disease. It was accepted because of the already "wadera" attitude which prevailed in the areas and no one wanted to get out of that comfort zone. Anyone who tried was labeled something or just killed...

A visit to Istanbul will expose how insular and locked in Pakistan is by comparison. That is because there is culture of being averse to change.

A visit to Istanbul only showed me how much "modern" Turks are dying to assimilate into the the "in" West and forget themselves - whom tourists come to visit and experience (sure some tourists who shouldnt be allowed anywhere on the planet but their own homes, who only want things they get back home)
====================================================================
Now what I am trying to say is when you are comfortable with whom you are and all you wont change.

Change only happens due to chaos/ some form of disturbance. For Japanese it was WW2, sanctions, they were BOMBED!

For Turks, they lost a whole empire literally overnight! They were decreased from a Khalifat to nothing! BIG change!

For Europe it was same! They went from MAJOR COLONIAL empires to almost nothing! They occured losses - in terms of cities (burnt, blown up, destroyed during the war) , people/ army, land (lost or had to be ceded or given independence)...and hence change was inevitable! EVERYTHING had to be rebuilt! Everyone was building so it was a peaceful time...No one was interested in starting another war...everyone was too busy patching up their cities ....

Women rights (change) came in when women started getting educated, because many had lost their husbands, or there wasnt enough to eat ....this led to them obtaining jobs and a voice ....and realizing that yes they do have a soul (yes it was literally debated if women had souls)

 

[Indika]

Status Quo, benefits the ppl who are currently running the system. They fear any change will end up loosening their hold on the system. Hence if you look at any thing society,organization,religion,ppl if they are in power they refuse to change. If not in power they fight it.

A good example is corruption, ppl dont actively fight it for one simple reason bcos it benefits them. But everyone is against it.

 

[airmarshal]

Change is always resisted. Pakistani or any society, change is a difficult but inevitable process.

The Canadian elections were contested on 'change'. Across the border in US , there is a strong streak to shake the status quo of American politics. Hence you see Trump rising from nowhere. Although you may not agree with characterization of change, there is a yearning for change.

Muslim societies in general have been non receptive to change. We have dogmas of tradition, of our esteemed but lost culture to hold on to. And when we dont understand something, we hide behind religion which we really dont practice. We dont mind living in a changed environment but we dont want to be part of it. Its therefore we have been left to rot and sulk while other nations have prospered.

Prosperity and measure of society's development are very capitalistic ideas in today's world. I dont agree entirely with them. But your example is of a business environment which does not entirely apply to a nation, a society or people collectively.