Indian- vs American-style wisdom
There are two types of wisdom:
American-style wisdom is explicit, like “If you do something ambitious and fail, you move forward in your career, so it’s not a failure.” American-style wisdom is easier to understand. It’s often condensed into colorful phrases like “Fail your way to success”. These vivid catchphrases tend to implant themselves in your mind, so that you can call upon them when needed. To follow advice, two things need to be in place: first, you need to understand what you’ve been told. Second, you need to remember it till the time you need to apply it. American-style wisdom fulfils both critera.
American-style wisdom lends itself to easy communication to others. You can share it with someone who sought your advice. American-style communicators welcome disagreement, because it gives them a chance to understand the objections and resolve them, to make progress.
American-style wisdom lends itself to mass communication. You can tweet it. Millions of people can read your tweet and think about it. They may choose to follow it. Or agree with some parts and choose to follow those parts of the advice. People can add to the advice, for example, by saying, “This is good advice. The sooner in your career you follow it, the more the benefits.”1 Since American-style wisdom is easy to communicate, it spreads far and wide. Over time, we build up a body of best practices like disagree and commit, having blameless conversations, growth mindset, abundance mindset, ask for forgiveness and not permission, and so on. These give newcomers a flying start.
The world of American-style wisdom puts up on a pedestal people who are able to mass-communicate fascinating insights, while giving less value to people who may have fascinating insights but are unable to communicate them cogently, because then what’s the point?
American-style wisdom places the onus on the person sharing the wisdom to distill their years of experiences into crisp catchphrases that people can easily remember.
In contrast to American-style wisdom, Indian-style wisdom is implicit, rather than explicit. The guru doesn’t sit you down at a whiteboard and write down a bulleted list of guidelines. Instead, he lives his principles. You’re supposed to observe his actions carefully and try to reverse-engineer the lessons. You learn by osmosis and practice rather than by building up a body of principles as you do with American-style wisdom. If you asked a practitioner of Indian-style wisdom what the takeaway is, he may not be able to condense it into words, any more than you can ask a cyclist how to ride and get a list of guidelines. If you ask why, a practitioner of Indian-style wisdom may not be able to justify it. If you disagree, he may not be able to engage you at that level.
Indian-style wisdom places the onus on the disciple to learn what the guru is demonstrating in his daily life, not on the guru to explain. Are you a worthy student?
In contrast to American-style wisdom, which is logical and engages the brain, Indian-style wisdom is often about feel. When I was spending time with my aunt, I got a sense of peace, a sense that whatever problems I’m facing have been occurring in human civilisation since time immemorial, in the north and the south, the east and the west, across towns and villages, across plains, forests, mountains and rivers that have been flowing over the eons that humanity has existed. As a result, solutions have evolved and been encoded into the human subconscious. The world already has a solution, so I don’t need to worry about my trivial problem. Indian-style wisdom is often about feel more than logic, about the heart more than mind.
I lived in both these worlds. When I was a kid, in the 80s and 90s, I lived in a world of Indian-style wisdom. In this world, elders often spoke in riddles. I often couldn’t understand what the heck I was being told. When I asked for a clarification, they’d refuse, and sometimes get annoyed. One old codger criticised me for “arguing”. I remember being annoyed and asking my mom for clarification. When neither of us could figure it out, I dismissed it with, “It’s nonsense.”
When I entered the workforce, working at an American company, I found myself in a world of American-style wisdom. This continues today — as an advisor, I boil down my learnings into 1-minute shorts to teach my clients and their team members. Since nobody has time in today’s world, the onus is on me to condense each learning down into a short. Even if the viewer did have time, he may not be able to understand if I rambled on for 25 minutes. I’m a firm believer in and proponent of American-style wisdom.
When American- and Indian-style wisdom are in conflict, American- prevails more often than the other way around. First, the former is easy to understand. Once you’ve understood it, a catchphrase is easier to remember. Third, if you want to seek a friend’s advice, it’s easier to communicate it to him to set the context. That’s why we have a lot more American-style wisdom now than earlier.
Someone can respond to the tweet and disagree, sharing their point of view, which readers can read and decide which point of view to adopt. Even if you choose to do the opposite of what the original tweet said, that person deserves credit for bringing you clarity.