Customer Reviews

Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The first half of *Ancient Futures* will delight and amaze you; the second half will break your heart.

In the 1970s, the Ladakhis of Little Tibet were a happy people. They had a sustainable traditional economy based on trade and cooperation - not money. One person's gain was not another person's loss. There was plenty of leisure, no hunger or poverty, very little sickness or disease, everyone was valued, there was no pollution and nothing was wasted. They got along fine with their Muslim neighbors and they kept their population stable through marriage customs based on land use. Almost every family had a celibate monk or nun. Buddhist monasteries and people had a mutually beneficial economic, social and spiritual relationship. Ladakhis are a naturally contemplative people with a great deal of spiritual awareness. "Schon chan" (one who angers easily) is about the only insult in the Ladakhi lnaguage. "Lack of pride is a virtue, for pride, born of ego, has nothing to do with self-respect among these Buddhist people." The author says that it took her two years of living among them to realize that the people were genuinely and joyfully HAPPY. Then the world beat a path to their door and all that changed - in fewer than two decades.

It's like a little piece of cultural time-lapse photography. What took western culture more than four centuries to do to the Native-Americans took only twenty years here. Ladakh has become a cautionary tale and a monument to western greed and stupidity.

Now there is poverty and unemployment, stress-related disease, women are devalued, the people are ashamed of their "backward" culture, there is little leisure but a great deal of pollution and waste as well as dispute between Muslims and Buddhists and the population had increased markedly. ("Interestingly, a number of Ladakhis have linked the rise of birth rates to the advent of modern democracy. "Power is a question of votes" is a current slogan, meaning that, in the modern sector, the larger your group, the greater your access to power. Competition for jobs and political representation within the new centralized structures is increasingly dividing Ladakhis.")

Chiildren are trained to become specialists in a technological rather than an ecological society. They no longer have time to learn the superb survival techniques of their families. Western culture is creating artificial scarsity and inducing competition.

Now I understand the mechanism better. A culture that has a heavily subsidized infrastructure invades a traditional self-sustaining culture and creates artificial "needs." So they go to the city to earn money which they never needed before, leaving their farms and women, who are immediately devalued because they're not wage earners. The people are no longer planting, irrigating, spinning wool, gathering seeds, harvesting, playing music and singing and telling stories, having seasonal parties, marriage parties or funeral watches - together.

Time has become a commodity. It has become uneconomical to grow one's own food, make one's own clothes and build one's own house. You have to pay your neighbors for the work that the whole community used to do for free.

The men are in the cities earning money and the women are producing tourist commodities with the wool they used to spin for their own use and the food they used to grow for their own families. Now they grow cash crops for strangers so they can make enough money to buy polyester clothes and walkmans and jeans for their kids and food grown hundreds of miles away and fuel trucked in from afar.

The Yak and the Dzo, uniquely suited for high altitudes of Ladakh gave rich milk but not as much as western cattle. So what did the conquering culture do? They imported cattle that can't make it at such altitudes, so more land has to be relegated to planting crops to feed the cattle, thereby upsetting the balance. And they call this progress.

Why can't we just leave people alone - especially when they're doing FINE without us?

"When one-third of the world's population consumes two-thirds of the world's resources," says Norberg-Hodge, "and then in effect turns around and tells the others to do as they do, it is little short of a hoax. Development is all too often a euphemism for exploitation, a new colonialism."

All this would be a dismal tragedy comparable to Columbus's complete genocide of the Tainos if not for a "counter development" movement generated in part by this author. Since the Ladakhis can't go back, they can at least go forward. Instead of importing expensive fossil fuels (previously they had used yak dung and kept warm) they can have solar houses and greenhouses, which have worked very well and given them one benefit that they have previously not had. That's something. Information is another plus. The people are being made aware that westerners pay more for whole grains, organic vegetables, pure water, natural fibers, and natural building materials - things these people have had for a thousand years without money. This is something so-called third-world people are generally not told about.

Once in a while a book comes along that changes one's perspective forever. *Ancient Futures* is such a book. I haven't been the same since.

One of the reviewers on this site said he ended up buy copies for his friends. So have I. This book is a must-read for every person who is concerned about the preservation of our planet and our species.

pamhan99@aol.com

After reading this book, I suddenly realized the root problem of Western Civilization: We have no culture. Where there was once culture, we now have an expanding economic order threatening all life on the planet. Through its mechanism of growth and expansion, the global economy is conquering and converting life's diversity into an ecological and social monoculture of cash crops, Levis, soda pop and movie theatres. Perhaps moonscape would be a better word. Of course, it doesn't have to be this way. Our fast-paced, increasingly technological, capital-intensive, fossil fuel-centered, centralized, highly specialized, travel and commercial-oriented, often stressful society is by no means the end-all-be-all of human history. Murder, child abuse, drug abuse, theft, poverty, hunger, and every other problem that plagues the West are not products of human nature. The pathology of civilization is not natural or inevitable, and the Ladakhi are proof of this. Read this book and rediscover ancient, profound, life-affirmating alternatives to the modern humdrum. Discover another way of living, thinking and feeling. Important, necessary, engaging and masterfully written - this book was a treasure to read. Indeed, it was an awaking.

A MUST READ

How does life in a non-industrial society compare to life in our own? In which society are people happier? If life in non-industrial societies compares favorably to life in our own, then why are the barrios of the third world filling up with migrants from remote villages? This book provides surprising insights into these questions. It also provokes reflections on our own society and its influence on the rest of the world. After reading a used copy I picked up for free, I bought seven copies of this book for friends and family!

Rarely have I felt more dispair about the direction of what we know as civilization as I felt halfway through this book. The Ladakh people are described as happy, healthy, and self-reliant. Suddenly, the "real world" happens to them, and they come to see themselves as poor, when before they had no need of money.

The authors do a nice job of weaving a story of hope at the end but I have concern for the future of these people. It helps me understand the decision the government of Bhutan has made to isolate themselves from western-style civilization.

This is an incredibly eye-opening book. A lot of the problems in modern life are those we attribute to the faults of human nature. This book shows us that it is the nature of our culture, not our inborn human nature, that is responsible for greed, selfishness, and jealousy. This book gives hope that we can see the importance of our connections to each other and what they really mean.

What makes this book so profound for Western readers is that through the Ladakhi experience we not only see the identical disintegration being perpetrated on other peoples throughout the world, but we come to understand the roots of our own social malaise as well.

This is an excellent book. It inspires questions about community and sustainability and culture which lead to further investigation. The author doesn't offer a solution, allowing the reader to live with his or her questions and find another several levels of questioning about who we are and how we live with one another and with our planet. It has the potential to open conversations about how we want to live and the choices we make about our economic, technological and social systems. It opens the reader to being altered by engaging in this conversation.

I bought this book and started reading it while staying in Ladakh for three weeks, two years ago. The place was still amazing, but unfortunately the destruction process was in full swing. What the author says is pure common sense and her worst predictions have become real. It is a shame how we can spoil not only the environment, but also the soul and the way of life of an ancient culture. The second half of the book is not pleasant to read, but anyway, it is revealing. This is how greed (ambition they call it?) works.

Highly informative and recommendable.

By the way, do not miss the editorial review by Mr. Donald Clay Johnson at the top of the Amazon's reviews section of the page. I found it really ... amusing

I learned of this book in reading 'Three Cups of Tea.'I enjoyed that book, but enjoyed this one even more. I found the author's observations of the changes and 'hoax' of development to be thoroughly refreshing. It offers a sobering and realistic assessment of how traditional cultures and values can be and have been undermined by the greed and homogenization brought with 'development.' I recommend this book to anyone who's ever wondered what 'development' means for traditional peoples and cultures.

This book has changed the way I looked at the issues of development, modernisation & morals. An amazing read, beautifully written and with great insights.

I have just returned from a trip to Ladakh and I could really relate to what Ms.Norberg talks about in the book.

Just a couple of side issues. It'd be good to know what exactly went wrong in Ladakh. Here are a people who for 2000 years had lived successfully by the rules of Buddhism. How & why did Buddhism fail these people in the face of global/western economic & cultural imperialism? Does the blame lie with Buddhism- it being too 'compassionate' and allowing a religion? Does the blame lie with the Ladakhis who probably were not as sincere Buddhists as they are made out to be?

After all if they really were such devout Buddhists, how come they fell to the greed that capitalism breeds?

Anyway, these are issues which could have been addressed in the book. Regardless, the book is excellent! A must read.