"Do unto others" and all that jazz!

Allow me to grumble about one particular aspect of globalisation which acts like a pebble in my shoe and that is trying to come to terms with odd-sounding and downright peculiarly spelt names.  Take Anand Giridharadas for example.  Splendid chap, I'm sure, and he seems to be a very acute observer and commentator on the American scene but, honestly, how do you get your mouth round a name like that unless, of course, you are of Indian origin.  In fact, the more I waste my time dwell on this subject, it did occur to me the other day as I watched the names of people appearing on Fox News that they must spend most of their lives spelling out their names to strangers.  Imagine, every time you order something on the 'phone, book a table, speak to a sales person or a government clerk, you have to spell your 12+ letter name, probably two or three times, too, before they get it right.  Poor old Mr. Giridharadas, he could write another article in the time he spends spelling his name!

And it would be a jolly good thing if he did because he is a good writer.  He was the one who picked up, where others failed to notice, the almost 'revolutionary' ideas proposed by Sarah Palin and upon which I remarked here.  Today he is back in the NYT with an interesting observation on current hostilities in America.  Not just the hostilities between Right and Left in the political arena, although they do seem to have risen to heights of ferocity that I do not remember from the past (although old men's memories are not to be trusted), but also the hostilities between ordinary people which have arisen, he suggests, through a decline in basic human decency.

He cites the case of Amazon which has hit the headlines 'over there' following an exposure of its work practices which would make a 19th century Lord Gradgrind dribble with pleasure.  You need to read his piece to gain a full understanding of their despicable behaviour.  But, he adds, this is merely a sympton of a greater malaise within America:

The more I travel, the more I observe that Americans are becoming foreigners to each other. People in Texas speak of people in New York the way certain Sunnis speak of Shiites, and vice versa in New York. Many liberals I know take for granted that anyone conservative is either racist or under-informed. People who run companies like Amazon operate as though it never it occurred to them that it could have been them crawling through the aisles. And the people who run labor unions possess little empathy for how difficult and risky and remarkable it is to build something like Amazon.

Giridharadas sums up his unease thus:

What is creeping into the culture is simple dehumanization, a failure to imagine the lives others lead. Fellow citizens become caricatures. People retreat into their own safe realms. And decency, that great American virtue, falls away.

Far beyond official Washington, we would seem to be witnessing a fraying of the bonds of empathy, decency, common purpose. It is becoming a country in which people more than disagree. They fail to see each other. They think in types about others, and assume the worst of types not their own.

I simply do not, I cannot, judge his accuracy but somehow it has the ring of truth  Is he, perhaps, the Toqueville de nos jours?  If so, America is in even more trouble than it thinks it is!

 

Comments

[dearieme]

He should move to Canada - remember Lord Tweedsmuir: "You have to know a Canadian awfully well before you discover his surname."

[Andra]

David, on an unrelated subject but one I thought you would find of interest.
I have just watered my bush and it is looking just great, simply thriving in the sun. Flourishing really.
I'll see if I can get a good photo of it to send to you.
You will just love it!

[David Duff]

Andra, well done, obviously it has been in receipt of plenty of TLC.

Canada had a lucky escape, DM, I nearly moved there once.

[Umbongo]

Well I (more or less) lived in Denver, CO in the early 80s and I never met a Coloradan with a good word to say about a Texan.

[Dom]

This past year, I bought a GPS, a camera, several books, and a Kindle. I search around for the cheapest price, and in every case I ended up at Amazon. I'm amazed by how cheap the items are, and how quickly they arrive. It's like there is only one store in the world.

I had NO IDEA working conditions were that bad. Thanks for posting the article.

[David Duff]

Yes, Dom, it gave me a pang of conscience, too, but I don't think their warehouses here operate on quite the workshop basis they seem to do 'over there'.

[David Duff]

Well, Bongers, down 'ere in Somerzet we do be none to keen on there they Dorsetians!