Sid25 writes:
Indians are certainly damaged by Indian culture. More accurately I’d say, they are stunted by it. Indian culture is what you get when you have when youngsters are raised with the idea that, as long as you gain success in terms of career and status in society, nothing else really matters. There’s all there is to it. They are never encouraged to take up moral and social responsibility. Hindu society, whose prime obsession was preservation of caste and status, has resulted in this today.
Here’s how I’ve come to see it. Very few really mature beyond 15, the age where they probably had their first encounter with the other gender, booze or cigarettes and the age at which they start giving the first of the series of competitive exams that no Indian can escape if he or she wants ‘success’.
Therefore when they encounter varied of different social situations or when it comes to enjoying something abstract, they are dumbfounded and react with denial or imitation. And like a school child never grown up, the only sort of enjoyment they get is in pulling down others, outsmarting people, disobeying rules, abuse of power, mockery, humiliation and bragging.
Little wonder most Indian males posses these attitudes on most subjects.
Public places: As long as it’s not their home or my society, and as long as they don’t need to be there regularly, they don’t care about it.
Parents: Children are perpetually slaves to the older generations. Rebellion comes at a cost they would never be ready to bear. It’s better to conform.
Friends: All is well as long as no one is better than the others at anything. If someone is, he is put down regularly till everyone is equally useless.
Sexual partners and dating: She’s either a virgin princess who they can corrupt, trick and dominate, or a slut they can use and throw. Of course, dating like in the West is slowly becoming more popular, but considering how almost everyone ends up with an arranged marriage, all that amounts to nothing.
Things did vary across India. In many areas of south India in the past, people used to value education and a stable family, and were encouraged to take up responsibility at a young age. Bengal had a fairly progressive culture for a long period. But now, as new things have flood India such as white collar jobs, new tech and porn, Indians react the same way they do to anything new…confusion and imitation.
Everyone would love to live in the city of Mumbai, and everyone’s favorite holiday spot is Goa. It’s not surprising that these two are one of the few places heavily influenced by Christian culture. But ask any Hindutva nut about Christianity and let him react: Hypocrisy, denial and stupidity.
Good post from an Indian that sums up Indian culture quite well and shows how almost anyone growing up in this culture is going to be damaged by it. There’s probably no escape from getting damaged. Perhaps you can leave and move to the West. Perhaps you can be a sort of rebel or dropout like Shi or Pranav or some of the other Indians on here, but that seems to have a cost.
I always wondered why Indians were so greedy and materialistic. Literally the only thing that has any value at all in the world is money, status, job title, and stuff. Everything else is pretty near worthless. I almost think Indians are even more grasping and avaricious than Jews. Indians are something like Jews in a sense. They have many the bad qualities of Jews in spades but few if any of the good qualities.
And mind you, I believe that Jews do have a lot of good qualities. In fact, my mother always told me that I was basically a Jew in Gentile clothing so to speak and that based on my behavior, I belonged in a Jewish family, not a Gentile family. And from an early age, I have always wanted to be a Jew. Not the Ugly Jew like The Ugly American, but the good side of the Jews, especially the reverence for intellect and love of knowledge and the progressive, even revolutionary desire to be a light unto man and make the world a better place. I would not do well with the insane materialism of Jewish life; in fact, I would oppose it so much that it might make me think twice about being a Jew.
This piece helps me to finally understand why Indians are so shallow and greedy. It’s all down to Hinduism! What mattered in Hinduism? Status, status and status. Caste was nothing if not a status system. Now that India is somewhat post-Hinduized (many middle class Indians are probably fairly secular), the Hindu elevation of status as the sole value in life has been transferred to its secular counterpart. To be a “Brahmin” now means to have a great job title and career, a high income, and great material success, much of which can be wasted on showy, ostentatious displays of conspicuous consumption. To be an “Untouchable” in India now is simply to be poor.
And like a school child never grown up, the only sort of enjoyment they get is in pulling down others, outsmarting people, disobeying rules, abuse of power, mockery, humiliation and bragging.
It stands to reason that in a society where status is the be-all and end-all of everything, this behavior would be normative. This is how status-obsessed people act – forever in competition with everyone around them, always insecure, trying to pull down everyone else, mockery and humiliation of perceived lessers, wild narcissism and bragging, and a single-minded pursuit of grandiosity and success that causes one to bend rules, steamroll over everyone around you, trick and fool people, and abuse any power so acquired like a mad, shameless dictator.
Of course the West is full of such idiots. Go to the PUA blogs, and this describes most of the authors and commenters. But in the West, a lot of these people are openly despised as douchebags, jerks and assholes, and that’s when people are being nice.
Douchebag behavior is not yet normative in the West, if it ever will be. Especially in White and Asian culture, many people actively despise these types and think they are awful or lousy human beings. That’s the difference between the West and India. In the West, these types are often successful yet widely despised as lousy people, and in India, this is simply the normal way to be. No one seems to be able to conceive of a different way to behave. There literally is no other way.