Modern
Way of Life
By: Dawa Dema, B.A.
Eco/EVS, Sherubtse College.
Lobzang Basil Dawa,
B.Sc. Life Science, Sherubtse College.
Bhutan
is a small unique country nestled in the Himalayan mountain range with protective
culture and tradition base on customary rule, norms and a rich religious
heritage of Mahayana. As Rinchen said “The small, fragile and heterogeneous
society with a varied culture is not strong enough to sustain itself–especially
when the floods of modernization and Westernization seep through, attempting to
forge our culture.” The traditional culture could no longer remain protected ever
since June 1999, when Bhutan became last nation to turn on the television and
internet communication (Clark & Levy, 2003). This happened with the aim for
globalization, eventually leading to modern way of life under misconception of ‘globalization’
with ‘modernization’, ‘Westernization’, and ‘Americanization’ in accordance to Rose (2005). Modern way of life is
much concerned with technologies and science. Thus it is referred to the
Western culture as it is the most suitable model for modernization with access
to science and technologies. This modern way of life with advent scientific technology
and modern media of western mode of comfort had made the traditional way of
Bhutanese life a myth to the present generation. This depicts insecure future for
Bhutan. Therefore Bhutanese face far greater and unavoidable risks such as
cultural domination, rise in crime wave, mental stress, and weakening of family
bond unlike in the past despite few advantages.
The Bhutanese face risk of culture
domination at greater extend due to modern way of life. The United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) state that “culture is
the whole complex of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional
features that characterize a society or social group. It includes; modes of life,
the fundamental rights of the human being, value systems, traditions and
beliefs” (2002). Due to interaction of cultures there is an inevitable exchange
of ideas, values, rituals, and commodities. In the current world, in the name
of culture exchange, culture domination occurs due to more extensive
abandonment of local tradition and value, and the wholesale adoption of western
culture. At present in Bhutan we can
no longer see children and young ones gathered around their family elders
listening to stories and fables or see elders chanting prayers rather we see
that the chat topics ruling the conversations of women in most of the places
are about those characters in television serials. Youth are ashamed of singing and
dancing traditional song- zhungdra instead they like singing like western pop
singers. If one visits Thimphu, Bhutan’s capital city, along the streets or around the city,
almost all the youths are dressed in western fashion, with boys in low-slung
jeans and trucker caps, and girls in short skirts and high heels. The only
youths you will see in the traditional garb of gho for boys and kira
for girls are students still in uniform. The prominent pastime games about one and a half decades ago were
Khuru, Dego, archery and Sogsum, but today many people don’t know what and how
Dego and Sogsum are played rather they are more familiar with modern games such
as video games and cards. People don’t have time to worship god and go for pilgrimage
yet they have time for disco parties. These are consequences of adoption of
western culture. Hence if Bhutanese does not take precaution from modern way of
life at such a pace and adopt westernization, Bhutan will take no longer to
join the rest of the world in a homogenous cultural society where western
culture is dominant.
The rise in crime wave is the most threatening problem
face by the Bhutanese due to modern way of life and its accelerating at high
pace in comparison to past. Many stabbing cases had been reported in beginning
of the month. As per editorial warn mentioned by Clark and Levy that “we are
seeing for the first time broken families, school dropouts and other negative
youth crimes. We are beginning to see crime associated with drug user all over
the world-shoplifting, burglary and violence.” Many students are caught using
drugs and alcohols at very early ages and even smoking at greater extent. These
are the consequences of adoption of modern way of life by forgoing the
traditional way of life. Many youth are trained from the modern technologies
such as internets and television to rob and fraud people successfully. The most
prominent consequence is the gang fights among youth copying it from movies and
wrestling shown on television. Such change in the social behaviour of youth, transplanting
a new culture is attributed to modern way of life which is more dependent on
modern technologies. Therefore modern way of life is most threatening issue in
the Bhutanese society.
The modern way of life is all about materialism-
the attachment to money and properties, and has greater risk of mental stresses
such as dissatisfaction, greed and depressions. As Eckersley had rightly stated
that “Many physiological studies had shown that materialism is associated, not
with happiness, but with dissatisfaction, depression, anxiety, anger, isolation
and alienation.”(n.d. p.252.258). This is because success in materialism
attainment causes anxiety, hatred, alienation and isolation by other people out
of jealousy. According to Eckersley (n.d. p.252.258), the failure in the
achievement of materialistic life causes dissatisfaction, depression and
sadness leading to anger with not only what we have but also with whom we are.
Thus peace is never gained due to mental stress. Thus modern way of life is
threatening the peaceful life of Bhutanese.
The family bond of
Bhutanese people is extensively threatened by the modern way of life. In Bhutan
we can no more see strong family bond like in the past, most of the time,
families gathered around a TV show with a conflict over channels, women
fighting for Indian serials, children for the cartoon network. Women forget to
guide children cook for their husband. Each and every family member doesn’t
have patience to eat together like in the olden days. Mostly both
of the parents go to office and children get spoilt in absence of parental advice.
Thus modern way of life has unavoidable risk of losing and weakening families
bond. The strength of relationship among spouses is degrading leading to
domestic violence. Thus, such cases were pointed out by Clark and Levy, “Dorji,
a 37-years-old truck driver bludgeoned his wife to death after she discovered
he was addicted to heroin.”(n.d.). This is cause due to modern way of use of
drugs.
Along with manifold
impacts and far greater risk of modern way of life there are few advantages of
it. As stated by Thomos “Developments of technology aims to comfort people.”
The modern technologies comfort the life of people and make things work more
efficiently. People can have easier and accessible life. One can travel more
frequently to the place where it takes quite a long period, in once upon a
time. Yet these advantages of modern way of life cannot weigh the risk faced by
the Bhutanese.
Therefore in the recent years modern way of life is
dragging Bhutanese to many social and individual problems with greater risk
than that in the past. Although there are few advantages such as work
efficiency and ease, yet the major risk faced by Bhutanese such as cultural
domination instead of culture exchange, rise in crime wave with greater train
from media, mental stress due to attachment towards materialistic life, and losing
and weakening of family bond among parent-children and spouses are greater in
weigh. So in the nutshell, Bhutanese should always take such risks into account
before forgoing the traditional way of life with adoption of modern way of
life.
Reference
Eckersley,
R.(n.d.). Modern Western cultures a health hazards? International Journal Of Epidemiology
Vol. 35(2). PP.252-258
Rinchen, K.
(Media and Public Culture: Media Whitewashing. Royal University of Bhutan,
Ministry of Education,Thimphu.
Rose, E.(2005).
The Wiring of Bhutan: A Test Case for Media Ecology in the Non-Western World. Proceedings of the Media Ecology Association, Vol. 6
United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization. (2002). Issues on
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