In a series of discussions,questions of alternatives are placed before the readers of The South Asian. The first part of this series asks why this discussion is even relevant.

What is the point of this discussion?
As a race, are we not living in the best of times? Is the question of alternatives even relevant?

We live in a world with much disparity. Numerous indices show much progress. Economic wealth of many nations has grown beyond imagination. Technology has brought wireless and the internet to slums and remote rural districts. Clearly, we have progressed much. And yet, more nations are bound by debt where annual interest rates are higher than their GNP. And yet more people are without potable drinking water than ever before. More people live in conditions of squalor than ever before.

How then do we understand our world? Are we to understand that we are part of a great progress and these problems are but small errors in the system? Or are these problems the pointers to something being seriously wrong with how we live? The fact that the indices that define progress are accessible to less than 15% of the world is perhaps a sign that there is something seriously wrong with the system. However, a deeper analysis is necessary. We have to ask questions about the process of development, specifically regarding who really has influence on the direction of progress, who is empowered and who is marginalized.

“Therefore Alternatives” is a quick summary of the framework of development and the foundations of our modern society, pointing out the problems that are intrinsic to this framework. (These notes are a summary of more extensive discussions presented in various references.) These intrinsic problems imply that the problems of our world are not owing to faults in implementation or in the details of the basis of our modern world; in fact they show that we must rethink the foundations on which our world is built.

“Therefore Alternatives” does assume that we are in search of a society that provides an environment that is amenable for an individual to realize himself or herself, to live fully as an individual and to ensure that others also can live fully as individuals. After all, we do this at an individual level by striving for this ourselves and often trying to help our family and friends achieve this. The discussion also explores possible alternative world where this may be possible.

(It is only when we become conscious of the problems with a system that we begin to explore solutions and only when we begin to explore solutions and experiment that we will find a set that work. This is not to argue that we must begin to disrupt all our systems right away – that will cause chaos and more violence. However, we must begin to search for alternatives. Therefore alternatives.)

In justifying ‘alternatives’ it rests on the proponents of the alternatives that the world today has intrinsic problems whose solutions lie outside the frameworks or assumptions on which our societies are built. This in fact is the case – it is quite easily realized that we in fact live in fundamentalist societies.

-Sanat Mohanty