Patricia Mukhim
Alvin Toffler the noted thinker who almost saw the future wrote the book, “Future Shock” in 1970. He had foreseen the digital revolution and the communication revolution and their impacts on cultures worldwide. The book – reprinted fifteen times merits serious reading even today. ‘Future Shock,’ was gifted to me by Peter Lu a friend, who has since moved to Canada and settled there with his kids. Peter has marked in green some of the lines he felt I should be reading with more emphasis. When Toffler wrote ‘Future Shock’ there was no internet; no worldwide web; no mobile phone and no social media. But Toffler was a futurist and knew would take the world by storm. Toffler speaks of the theory of adaptation and how there has been no such theory in the past that would help explain the human resistance to change.
Normally, we study the past to understand the present and make sense of the future. What Toffler does differently is to give humans a coherent sense of what the future will look like so that we are adequately readied to meet that future. Hence the future is used as an intellectual tool to enable us to anticipate the future without the shock that unpreparedness can bring as it has done today. None of us at this time last year imagined that we would wake up into a situation where physical distancing is a necessary behaviour; where one’s mask covers up half the face to the point that one cannot even recognise friends; and then rubbing the hands with loads of disinfectant so that even the skin is beginning to complain! In the coming winter months the skin will protest even louder as it shrivels up, thanks to the repeated application of alcohol-based sanitizers. Covid is that future shock we never anticipated and are still groping for an answer.
In Meghalaya we are already seeing how the change of strategies to better adapt to Covid (such as reducing the quarantine period to 10 days from 14 or 28 days) has created resistance in sections of people because they have internalised permanence. The WHO then ICMR idea that in 14 or 28 days of quarantine a Covid positive person or even an asymptomatic one would have shed all his viruses and would not infect anyone else. Now the same ICMR says 10 days is enough to stop infecting others. Having read how the Covid virus mutates and reinvents itself, change of strategies is the only way to adapt to the new normal. Those unwilling to change or refusing to see merit in change must accept that “Permanence is lethal,” because it will lead to a collision with the future and for which we will have to pay a huge price. There is nothing wrong in changing strategies according to the behaviour of the virus. Those questioning such rapid change in strategy need to look at underlying reasons in their own psyche and ask themselves why they resist change and why permanence is preferable and comfortable.
In the past we looked for durability in a product. Now we quickly move on to newer more improved features in computers, smart phones et al. This is what led Toffler to coin the term, “Economic of Impermanence,” which some call the ‘throwaway society.’ So while we are constantly moving from older to newer gadgets because of efficiency, we don’t move equally quickly as far as changing mindsets is concerned.
In this article the focus is on innovation in Education and Tourism:
In the chapter, “Education in the Future Tense,” Toffler already foresaw that education need not necessarily happen in a school. He says parents and students might sign short term ‘learning contracts’ with the nearby schools committing them to teach-learn certain courses or course modules. Students might continue to go to school for social and athletic activities or for subjects they cannot learn on their own or with their parents or family friends. In short home schooling with short bouts of school attendance mainly to learn social skills and group interface might as Toffler suggests be the new method of education. For nearly eight months this year students have been engaged in distance learning while their parents have been the chief educators. I believe that students have learnt a lot through this method and learnt empathy as they shared screen time with their siblings and also learnt to adapt to a routine of also being helpful in the house doing simple chores; many even learning to cook and bake – skills they would have had to enrol in and pay for.
To quote Toffler, “If learning is to be stretched over a lifetime, there is reduced justification for forcing kids to attend school full time. For many young people part time schooling and part time work at low skills, paid and unpaid community service tasks will prove more satisfying and educational.” Haven’t we already arrived at this point? Students need to learn from contrived experiences for which we need extremely creative minds to enrol as teachers. Schools as they are being organised and run today – with one adult teaching a number of young people seated in fixed rows, facing front get absolutely no training for role versatility. I find this suggestion even more exciting – Nothing should be included in a required curriculum unless it can be strongly justified in terms of the future. If this means scrapping a substantial part of the curriculum so be it. This, Toffler says is because tens of millions of children today are forced to spend precious hours of their lives grinding away at material whose future utility is highly questionable. How I agree with this! So much of what I and my peers learnt at school, are of no use today, nor were they of any utility then.
Meghalaya has been exploring new directions in tourism. An insightful article in The Economic Times by Sandeep Goyal (ET April 30, 2020) speaks of the future of tourism in these Covid times and lists out what aspects of tourism will work and which features will continue to be in the doghouse for some time. Goyal says as far as tourism is concerned only that which focuses on nature will triumph. He says nature and wildlife will be preferred over monuments and history in the months ahead and that the hills, the sea resorts, wild life reserves and slightly isolated locations will win over crowded favourites of the past. Meghalaya is gifted with plenty of such natural destinations. There are waterfalls and living root bridges to behold; there is caving, kayaking, trekking, camping, zip-lining etc., which are our special attributes.
Chief Minister Conrad Sangma and his team in the Tourism Department have already coined the term, “resilient tourism.” True it will take a while for tourists both national and foreign to come to Meghalaya and for the hotel industry to open up but the local population should be allowed to visit the tourist destinations in their own state and stay at the locally built home-stays, resorts etc., after taking due precautions. They too are after all paying for the sights and sounds. Tourist destinations need to open up and the local communities need to learn that they cannot lock themselves in and lock other out forever.
True that too much has happened in too short a time and adjusting to rapid changes is something we were not taught. However, we are all on a learning curve. Fifty years ago Toffler had said ‘copability’ will be more important in the future than ‘capability’. The Covid 19 pandemic too is challenging us to cope with change and adapt to the new normal. We should develop the resilience to slowly start with local tourism and drive out the paranoia. Experts say the travel and tourism business could take between 9 to 24 months to rejuvenate. Those who persist will succeed; some will struggle to come up to their previous peaks and others might even perish. But resilience also means finding other avenues. Change is the only constant thing and one lesson Covid teaches us is to adapt to change and quickly reinvent ourselves and repurpose our lives.