Third Worldism, Its Aetiology and Cure.

By Shekhar Kamat

Third World poverty and suffering should be a matter of concern for every citizen of the world. If we wish to see that their suffering ends, then we first need to know what exactly is causing the third world to be the third world. I spent 45 years researching what were the causes of the West's development, and the third world's failure to develop. I wanted to know what was preventing the third world from developing. In this book I present the findings of my reserch. The results might just surprise you.

This has not been just an academic exercise. My aim was, if we could identify the true causes of the third world's failure to develop, then the whole humanity can devise appropriate strategies, and remedies to enable the third world to develop, so that they too can enjoy the same living standards the folks in the developed world enjoy, and lead thier lives in pleasure, comfort, and happiness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: shekhar kamat
• Release date: Mar 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215764565

Shekhar Kamat

I am a medical doctor who has worked in India, Singapore, and for 45 years in the UK. I have travelled to many countries including North America, Europe, Africa, and South East Asia. I have been involved in industry and commerce, apart from medicine. I have interests in Politics, Economy, Philosophy, Psychology, Finance, Industry, etc. I am a keen observer of how humans live in all the 5 continents. 

Book preview

Shekhar Kamat

PAGE II

KNOW THE TRUTH AND

THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE

(Truth as revealed by science that is)

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1. Introduction      4

Chapter 2. Human Thought       21

Chapter 3. The West and The Rest Defined      45

Chapter 4. Cognitive Faculty Of Epistemesis      60

Chapter 5. Cognitive Faculty Of Normative Thought    120

Chapter 6. Cognitive Faculty Of Reason     219

Chapter 7. Cognitive Faculty Of Intellection    237

Chapter 8. Epilogue    245

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Does third world suffering stir your conscience? Would you like to see their suffering end? If yes, then join me in doing something to end it. Together we can offer them a hope of a better future. But to do that we first need to know and understand how we got here in the first place, i.e., why only the West was able to develop while the third world failed to develop, becoming today’s third world. We need to know the true causes why the third world failed to develop like the West. And that is exactly what I have attempted to do in this book. Many possible remedies and cures for third worldism may then arise out of knowing the true causes that led the West to develop, leaving the third world to become the third world. To find true answers we need to take a step back and take a long hard look at the story of the humanity over the last 3000 years.

When we do that, we will find that humanity is broken, and all the king’s men and all the king’s horses cannot put it together again. And that is not for want of kings, their men, and their horses. I am referring to a situation which has arisen in the affairs of men where one sixth of humanity is developed and is enjoying the fruits of that development, with folks leading their lives in comfort, pleasure, and happiness, while two thirds of humanity is languishing in miserable conditions with folks leading their lives in poverty, want, hunger, starvation, etc. These are the world’s 5 billion great unwashed, better known to us as the Third World. How did things come to such a pass? Who is responsible for this to have happened?

It was to find answers to questions like these that drove my 40 years investigation into the matter. I wanted true answers, real answers, true causes, true explanations for the West’s success in achieving development and the third world’s failure to develop resulting in them being left in a third world state. And yes! Before you jump to the usual answer, Colonialism! I wish to make it clear that colonialism did not play any causal role in the West’s development and the third world’s third worldism.

This has not been merely an academic exercise either. This exercise of mine has been driven by an ulterior motive. And that motive is my passionately felt desire to see the third world get rid of their third worldism and live like the West lives – in pleasure, comfort, and happiness, which development alone brings. But to do that we first need to know how humans develop, how the West developed, and why the third world could not develop, remaining by default in a third world state. Without knowing the true causes of these, we cannot advise the third world about how to develop like the West did. This book does just that, because it describes all the findings of my 40 years investigation into real causes, true causes of why only the West was able to develop, but the third world could not. With this book the third world folks will now know what development is, and how to achieve it. They can now look forward to leading their lives in comfort, pleasure, and happiness, leaving their third worldism behind. This book is a bearer of good news for the hapless wretched third world folks.

I would like to describe this book as my Good News for all the humanity, because with these Good News I can now declare that I have just switched on the light at the end of a long dark tunnel faced by the world’s 5 billion third world folks. A long dark tunnel of hopelessness, insecurity, pain, suffering, fear, engendered by their being struck in a state of third worldism, unable to develop. The whole world can now start working towards eliminating third worldism, making third worldism history by helping the third world to develop.

I like to call these Good News because in many aspects they resemble in their purpose, Good News a certain Jew of history described his purpose 2000 years ago. A Greco-Roman Jew named Paul invented the doctrine of Good News to describe his Christ Project. Its purpose too was the same as mine: To save humanity.

Unfortunately, Paul’s Good News remained circumscribed to the folks in the West only. They never reached faraway folks. It left a vast swathe of humanity untouched. Paul wrote his epistles to the Galatians, Corinthians, and Romans etc. but failed to write to the Punjabis, Bengalis, Tamilians, Afghans, Somalians, and Rwandans and so on. They are the third world folks of today, precluded from enlightenment, development, emancipation, forced to live their lives in ignorance, falsehoods, voodoo beliefs, poverty, illiteracy, with no civilization, no modernity, no development, only backwardness, primitiveness and failure, AKA third worldism. If you do not agree with me, ask the Southern Baptists.

My Good News deserves to be called Good News because both Paul’s and my Good News are designed with the same purpose, same aims in mind: Civilization and development of all humanity. Only our means to bring them about differ. Paul’s means to usher humans unto civilization was through acceptance of Christ through baptism and faith. My aim is the same: bringing about civilization and development of the remaining 5 billion who makeup today’s third world. But my means are different. My means are modern, secular and involve achieving civilization and development through Knowledge, Reason, Rationality, Truth, and Intelligence which are to be employed to bring about changes in third world folks’ thinking, beliefs, worldviews and thereby bringing about changes in the ways they behave, act and live, doing just as the folks in the West do.

Paul’s Good News might have saved a few million souls. My Good News have the potential to save hundreds of millions of lives. Real lives of real men, real women, real children in the third world which are lost because the world does not know how they can be saved by helping them to develop. And the Good News is, I have discovered the secrets of how the West was able to develop and why the third world failed to. And I am about to pass these secrets on to the third world folks, so that they too can give up their third worldism and embark on their own journey to development, just the way the West did. With my Good News, all the 5 billion third world folks can look forward with hope to enjoying living standards enjoyed by the developed West. And that is the light at the end of the long dark tunnel for the third world folks.

My conclusion is, third worldism is NOT inevitable. It is curable. And it is this hope which I wish to bring to all the third world folks. It is this hope that represents the light at the end of the long dark tunnel for them. Paul’s Good News might have offered humanity a promise of a better life. My Good News offers humanity a promise of life itself. And the reasons for my confident conviction? Fruits of my 40 years investigation into identifying true causes of the West’s success in developing and true causes of third world’s third worldism. I present them to the world in this book.

For years men have been groping in the dark, trying to find answers to why the West alone developed, leaving the third world in a state of third worldism. Men have been scratching their heads, cogitating, speculating, theorizing, postulating about who or what was responsible for things to have come to such a pass where one sixth of humanity we call the West was able to develop, enjoying their lives with comfort, pleasure and happiness, while the rest of the humanity we call the third world is left behind, left to suffer from want, deprivation, poverty, hunger, starvation, destitution, diseases, deaths, not able to secure adequate food, water, shelter, adequate enough even to stay barely alive.

In this book I present the findings of my 40 years of investigation into what really lies behind the West’s success in achieving development and the third world’s failure to do likewise. In this book I will describe what premises I chose and what methods I used to reason them to conclusion. I believe my reasons and conclusions are credible and valid because of the methods I have employed to arrive at the conclusions I have arrived at. One can never secure objective, empirical evidence for conclusions derived from qualitative research, especially in areas of human thinking, behaviors and ways of life. But we can secure some credibility and guarantees of validity for those conclusions by virtue of them being derived from an ethological study conducted without prejudice, personal bias, or any preconceived subjective assumptions and from having been conducted by performing objective, impersonal, and dispassionate observations of human behaviors. One can then extrapolate the probable thinking, thought processes that could in all probability be driving those behaviors. Such a scrupulous methodology, I believe, affords those conclusions the property of being rationally justifiable, and therefore being most probably correct, and therefore credible.

Many of the conclusions I have arrived at have been through a process of inductive reasoning from observed patterns of clinically observable behaviors, both in the people in the West and the people in the third world. This might cause some raised eyebrows among those who are skeptical about the validity of conclusions deduced through inductive reasoning, but I strongly feel there are grounds to believe they are justifiable in this case. I found that this methodology was the best means of getting to the truths about the most probable causes of the West’s success in developing and the third world’s failure to develop. My findings aim to give you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about all things development and all things third worldism, warts and all, without bias, without prejudice, without favor, without fear, without fervor.

My primary intentions in this exercise are not to ridicule, insult anyone or hurt anyone’s feelings, but to get to the bottom of the truth why only the West succeeded in developing and won, while the rest failed to, and lost, so that we can draw correct lessons from the West’s success with the sole intention of using this knowledge to enable the third world to develop. My conclusions about the true causes of third worldism will enable the third world folks to identify, acknowledge, admit their own failings, mistakes, so that they can take corrective steps towards charting their own journey towards full Western style development, leaving behind the miseries and agonies of their third worldism. I am sincerely, honestly, with all my heart rooting for the whole third world to succeed in developing so that they too can enjoy the same standard of life I am enjoying in the developed West.

This book can therefore act as an instruction manual for the purposes of civilizing, modernizing, developing of all the third world. Now for the first time all the third world folks can know exactly what development is, what developing is, and how they can develop. This book gives them the full technical know-how to develop. For the first time all the world’s 5 billion third world folks have an opportunity to lift themselves out of their cesspit of third worldism, backwardness, primitiveness, failure, and start developing, so that they can all live happily ever after. Amen!!!

You really need to visit the third world of Africa, India to see for yourself how terrible, heart wrenching third world suffering is. It rips my heart apart having to see those poor, unfortunate, hopeless souls left to fend for themselves with no one taking upon themselves the task of helping them, saving them the agonies of living in third world conditions. All the world does is supply plenty of sticking plasters as solutions to the third world’s problems. What is going wrong? Who is failing whom? Time has run out and we need answers, solutions. Now!!!

We cannot have true answers, devise correct remedies, solutions, until we know the true causes for the situation to have arisen in the first place. We have got to know the true causes why some humans have succeeded in developing while some humans have failed, ending up as the third world. That knowledge has so far been elusive. Humanity seems to have been baffled by development and third worldism. In that respect the universe of human development and third worldism resembles the Pre-Hellenic cosmos: bewildering, baffling, confusing, chaotic, causality unknown. Whenever faced by such situations, the stock human response is to call it complex and push it under the carpet. I refused to acquiesce in this approach. I decided to investigate. The result is this book, which reports the findings of my investigation.

Knowing correct causes, true causes is what this book is all about. Only upon knowing correct causes can we devise correct solutions for the third world’s problems. Absence of knowledge of true causes of development and third worldism has given rise to a knowledge vacuum. In such a vacuum many theories about causation abound. Top of the Pops of theories, especially in the third world like India is, all their third worldism, failure, is all the fault of those evil wicked colonialists. Indians believe that those evil nasty colonialists looted their wealth, destroyed their industry (what industry?) and became wealthy themselves on the back of poor hapless Indians’ precious blood, sweat and toil, leaving India as a poor third world country. Other conspiracy theories abound too. One such theory among Indians is, the same evil wicked West is at work cooking up dark conspiracies to prevent India from developing and becoming a superpower. The West, they believe is fearful, jealous even, of a resurgent, all powerful India threatening them. To me that sounds very much like one of Baldrick’s cunning plans, except it would be comic if it were not so tragic.

The truth is none of these theories hold any water. The simple truth is, the West started developing 3000 years ago, and that process began with the arrival of the Greek speaking lndo-Europeans in the Aegean. While India has been a backward, primitive third world country ever since it come into existence as a piece of landmass which floated off from the Gondwana land mass and came to rest by the Himalayas. Colonialism, slavery are minor details in the history of both the West and the third world. Third world’s third worldism happened irrespective of it being colonized. The truth is, colonialism and slavery are results of the West’s development, not its causes. Colonialism and slavery have no causal relationship with the genesis of the West’s development and the third world’s third worldism. Colonialism ended in India 70 years ago. Who stopped India from developing in the last 70 years? Even tiny Singapore developed within 25 years of the end of the colonial rule.

In order to cure third worldism we need to know the correct causes of human development and third Worldism. Whenever humans have attempted cures without knowing the true causes, it has led to failure. Take for example tuberculosis. When humanity did not know correct causes of TB, they treated TB with nothing but fresh air, good food and sunshine. So, they built huge sanatoria at great expense. An example of prescribing wrong remedies because true causes of TB were not known. All the fresh air and sunshine did not cure TB, but at least the patients died with a smile on their faces. The only people who benefited from such ignorance were the builders of those sanatoria.

I see something similar happening in the world’s approach to third worldism: The sanatorial approach. Ignorance about the true causes of development and third worldism is preventing humanity, the UN agencies, charities, well-meaning bleeding hearts in the West, the looney left liberals, the experts, the economists, etc. from devising correct remedies to cure the third world of its third worldism and guiding them towards development.

And so, just as the builders of sanatoria benefitted from ignorance about the true causes of TB, today a whole new industry has evolved around third worldism remediation who are the sole beneficiaries of ignorance about development and third worldism. Many have built successful careers on fat salaries. As for the wretched, poor, hungry third world guy, as soon as his charity handout is exhausted, starvation, hunger, death stare him in the face. All because the world cannot figure out exactly what is causing third worldism in the first place. The world therefore ends up approaching third worldism with the only remedy it knows: The sanatorial approach. Such sanatorial remedies include aid, cash, charity, various UNDP programs and so on, all just sticking plasters. The only people who benefit from this hysteria are the crooked middlemen: The criminal, evil, venal, thieving politicians in the third world. It does not help that the crooked and the criminal are the politicians themselves in the third world.

I felt extremely exasperated after watching this circus. That generated a desire in me to do something real, something substantial about this problem. I decided the only way we can find sustainable solutions to third world’s problem is to fathom out what was causing third worldism. It was for this reason that I decided to look into the whole business of development and third worldism.

I thought I was uniquely placed to undertake this task because I have lived in the developed West for over 45 years, as well as in the third world. I thought I had amassed considerable knowledge, experience, and insight into all things development and third worldism. If I could join all the dots, then we could have a full picture. We can then use this knowledge to help the third world to develop. I decided I could use all this expertise to get to the bottom of two things:

What led to the West’s success in developing?

Why did the third world fail to do likewise, remaining by default in a third world state? Did anyone stop the third world from developing? If so, who?

I believe I have succeeded in finding answers to both these questions. Humanity can now use this knowledge to make third worldism history by advising the third world what it needs to do to develop. This book describes the story of my efforts in investigating and seeking answers to the above two questions and most importantly securing knowledge of the truth about all things development and third worldism. In order to afford credibility and guarantees of validity to the conclusions I have reached, I have described the methodology I have employed in my enquiries, how I reached the conclusions I have reached, what those conclusions are, and on what grounds I can rationally justify them as being correct (most probably). I have described what premises I selected and how I have reasoned them to conclusions, which affords them a certain property of rational justifiability.

There can be no objective empirical experiments one can conduct in this field of enquiry. Therefore, the best guarantees of validity of my conclusions derive from my being an impartial, unbiased, unprejudiced, neutral observer, and from my strictly reasoned and rational interpretations, analysis. I used only Reason in reasoning my premises to conclusion. No passion was used in the process of making judgements, justifications. I can therefore claim that the validity of my conclusions can best be guaranteed on grounds of plausibility, being supported by Reason, which affords these conclusions the property of being rationally justifiable. And that is good enough a reason to claim that they are correct. Most probably.

Cursory observations of goings on in the third world had made me suspect that colonialism could not have been the real cause that made the third world, the third world. One evidence fortified my hunch. I have been a witness to how Singapore, a tiny nation of 2.5 million souls with no natural resources, not even drinking water, but only its 2.5 million people, transformed itself from a marshy swamp to one of the most advanced, dazzlingly beautiful successful country, all within a short span of 25 years post colonialism. I have been a regular visitor to Singapore for the last 45 years. I also observed firsthand how India, a country of 1.3 billion souls, endowed with all the resources God can possibly bestow upon humans, failed miserably to develop, even 70 years after the same colonialists left.

There is a lesson to be drawn from this tale of two nations. And that lesson is, colonialism does not cause third worldism. India was third world long before the colonialists came calling, and India is third world long after they packed up and left. That led me to suspect that the real causes why the third world is the third world—backward, primitive, failed, must lie somewhere else. And just as I was deliberating about how to figure out those real, true causes, something epiphanic happened to me, which galvanized me into serious action. That was my Pauline Christ moment. It might have happened to Paul on his way to Damascus, but mine happened to me on my way to Goa from London.

When my plane landed at Mumbai on January first, 2000, I had travelled from London to Mumbai via Singapore. Nothing unusual about that, as I had made similar trips many times before. Except this time, it was different in one respect. That is because I had just witnessed how the developed world including Singapore had celebrated the end of the millennium with big parties. They had reasons to be excited about the end of the millennium. They were celebrating 1000 years of achievements and success, looking forward to the next 1000 years with hopes and expectations of a still better and successful future. They were fully justified in experiencing a self-congratulatory satisfaction in their achievements in the last millennium, for, in the millennium past they had achieved a lot. They had civilized, modernized, developed, building highly successful societies, nations, countries. They felt justifiably proud of their achievements. It was deserving of celebrations and partying. They did exactly that.

But in stark contrast, as I landed in India, all I encountered was the usual deathly silence, the usual funeral atmosphere. The end of the millennium was just another dull day at the office for 1.3 billion Indians. It meant nothing to them. There were no reasons for celebration, joy, or partying. All those celebrations I witnessed in the Western world might as well have been on another planet for Indians. Indians experienced no causes for celebrations, partying. I discovered why. They had nothing to celebrate because in the last 1000 years they had achieved nothing, nothing to be proud of, nothing to be excited about. For, they have been doing in the last 1000 years what they have been doing in the last 10,000 years: NOTHING!

In the last 1000 years they had not achieved any civilization, any modernity, any development, and any success at anything. They had nothing to show for themselves. Just the same old misery, same old anarchy, chaos, same old grinding poverty, starvation, hunger, illiteracy, ignorance, falsehoods, voodoos, diseases, deaths, incompetence, and a continuing fruitless struggle to keep alive, survive, with the same old miserable backwardness, primitiveness, and failure: an enduring third worldism.

And when I proceeded to my destination, Goa, a journey of 600 km, all I could see everywhere were wretched, miserable, poor peasants – bare feet, bent over in their fields, ankle deep in mud, toiling in 40 degrees sun, tending to their crops with their bare hands, exactly as they have been doing for the last 10,000 years, unchanged. Modernity had not touched them. They were still living in mud huts, plastic tents, with no water, no electricity, no sanitation, and no toilets, defaecating in the open, with no civilization, no modernity, and no development. It was a picture of humanity caught up in a time warp leading lives as they did in the Biblical times, but in the 21st Century.

It was at that point, as I stood looking at that medieval picture of India in the year 2000 CE, that I experienced my very own epiphanic moment. It was not unlike what those Greek speaking lndo-Europeans (GRIES for short) might have experienced when they first arrived at the Aegean 3000 years ago. When the GRIES first arrived at the Aegean 3000 years ago, they were faced with a universe which appeared to any casual observer as a baffling, mysterious, mystical phenomenon, with everything going around in apparent chaos, with no obvious discernible order or cause. So, everyone looked up at the heavens and exclaimed in awe and admiration, saying Ah! God!! Everyone explained away all the mysterious, bewildering, chaotic goings on in the Universe as the handiwork of a superior creator manager they called God. That is how they made sense of what they saw, and everyone nodded in agreement. Everyone was contented.

But the GRIES were not having any of that nonsense. They were not satisfied with the infantile explanations of an all singing, all dancing God being the creator, manager. They refused to join in the chorus of Ah! God!! They took one step back and thought God could not be the true cause of the phenomena in the universe witnessed by the humans. They experienced a strong hunch that there has to be a different, perfectly sensible, rational, reasonable cause which could explain all the apparently chaotic, mysterious happenings in the universe, which in all probabilities did not involve God as a causal agent, actor. They experienced a strong hunch that there must be an underlying rational order beneath all the apparent chaos and randomness. They also experienced a strong feeling of confidence in their own ability to discern that order and the true causality.

Anyone who lands in the third world for the first time will also come face to face with a third world universe right here on earth, not unlike the one faced by the GRIES when they first arrived in the Aegean 3000 years ago. A third world universe made up of apparently chaotic disorderly people running around like headless chickens, going about randomly, with no obvious purpose or aim, in conditions of total anarchy, chaos, disorder, filth, clutter, a complete absence of any organized order, a shocking level of deprivation, poverty, lacking in basic amenities, with whole families sprawled on pavements, living in plastic tents with dirty, unkempt, malnourished, disease ridden children, with no hope, no future, no promise, or guarantees of a better tomorrow, with men, women, children left out on a limb with no one caring for them, eking out an existence, fraught with insecurity, fear, hopelessness, leading a wild unorganized existence with all primitive ideas, beliefs, concepts about the reality, the world around them, an overwhelming all-consuming trust in a God, who they are convinced runs their lives, their universe, with no trace of any civilization, modernity or development, with not the slightest inkling or desire to know what has caused all this. A picture of a third world identical to the picture of the pre-Hellenic cosmos faced by the GRIES.

And so, just like explanations were flowing fast and furiously among the pre-Hellenes that an all singing all dancing God had created the universe, there were wild explanations flowing among the third world folks like Indians why India was a backward, primitive, failed third world country. They too, like the Pre-Hellenes had a ready answer as to who was responsible for the state 1.3 billion Indians were in: Ah! The bloody colonialists!! was the chorus among all 1.3 billion Indians. (It still is 70 years after they have left). Those evil wicked colonialists are wholly and squarely responsible for the third world state India is in, said all Indians, and all 1.3 billion Indians nodded in agreement.

But of course, just like the GRIES, I too did not feel I could join the chorus of Ah! Colonialists!!. Like the GRIES I too experienced a hunch that underlying all this third world chaos, disorder, clutter, there must exist true, real causes why a country of 1-3 billion souls, endowed will all the God given resources at their disposal had failed, remaining uncivilized, unmodernized, undeveloped, primitive, backward, a failed third world country. A country where 70% of its people have not seen what the modern wonder of electricity looks like, have not been able to organize a running water supply, defaecating in the open etc., etc. I too experienced a hunch that it could not be the colonialist who was responsible as a causal agent of India’s third worldism. I was of course aware of the limits of the colonialist’s powers. Could not beat Iceland at football you know! Nor could they show much success at the Eurovision song contest. It was nool pouans all the way.

If the GRIES had come face to face with an apparently chaotic cosmos desperately needing true explanations which did not involve God as a causal agent, I too came face to face with an equally chaotic, baffling third world universe desperately needing true explanations which did not involve the colonialist as a causal agent. In many ways today’s third world resembles the Pre-Hellenic cosmos: chaotic, mysterious, with no discernable order, causality unknown. And just like the GRIES who experienced a hunch that they had it in them to find the truth about the workings of the universe, I too experienced a hunch that I had it in me to find the truth about who or what caused the third world to be third world. And so began my search for the Holy Grail, trying to find out why the West was able to develop, but the third world could not.

Question was, where does one make a start?  With very few obvious clues, I decided to do what the GRIES did to begin their search for the truth about the reality, the cosmos – start with a blank canvas! I decided to take a leaf out of the GRIES’ book and examine how the GRIES approached the challenging task of solving the mysteries of the universe and laying bare all the truths about the reality for the benefit of all humanity. Examination of the methodology the GRIES employed, their way of looking at reality, their ways of thinking, how they framed the questions etc. gave me many clues, directions about what line of enquiry I should follow. Studying how the GRIES like Thales, Anaximander, Democritus thought gave me clues about how to think about a problem like a chaotic third world.

Their methodology for knowing the truth, true causality, stressed on making minute observations of things one is attempting to understand. Their methods involved making observations, examination, critical analysis, taking dispassionate approaches, drawing inferences, making interpretations through deductive and inductive reasoning, application of reason, rational thinking, observing laws of thought, logic, identifying patterns, reasoning premises to conclusion by use of reason, eliminating passion etc. Conclusions derived from such methods earn their guarantees of validity by such conclusions being rationally justifiable by all men of reason, and because they follow all laws of thought and sound logic.

I therefore employed the same principles in my project of finding the true causes of development and third worldism employed by the GRIES – making dispassionate observations, rational evaluation of objective evidence, critical analysis, detection of patterns, deductive and inductive reasoning etc. etc. To that end I decided that I will make a start with what was objectively observable. I soon discovered that what was most easily amenable to direct observation was man’s conduct, his behaviors, his actions, his activities – what he did, how he lived, his way of life: his conduct of living. I subjected both folks in the West and the third world to such objective, dispassionate, unbiased observations. I also drew inferences regarding what could have driven them to conduct, behave, act, and live the way they did. Above all focusing on not just what they did, but on what they DID NOT DO, and what could have driven them to NOT do those things

I soon found that what was easily observable, i.e., man’s conduct, behaviors, actions, were also the very things that made up man’s way of life – how he lived. I observed all these for 45 years, both in the Western folks and the third world folks. I had to ensure that I watched them without them becoming aware that they were being watched. This was essential for scientific authenticity and empirical validity. For, if anyone became aware that he was being watched he could put on an artificial act. I had to observe everyone under their natural conditions to observe their natural behaviors, actions, activities. This is vital because only observations performed this way can qualify as being a proper scientific ethological study. Only a study done this way can afford my conclusions credibility and guarantees of validity.

To understand how folks in the West and folks in the third world thought, behaved, acted, lived, I had to collect data on all aspects of their lives, living. From where could I get this information, this data? The best sources for such information, I twigged, were various media through which folks expressed their thoughts, ideas, concepts, beliefs, opinions, their world views, their likes, dislikes, their aspirations concerning their lives, and their ideas about what they thought were their best ways to live. I had to work out what meaning they made of everything, and what influenced their meaning making. I had to take note of all their views, opinions, beliefs, and everything that shaped their lives, and what determined how they chose to behave, act, and live.

I scrutinized all their media through which they expressed their thoughts, ideas, and opinions. So, I watched all their TV programs, films, soaps and so on. I watched Coronation Street and EastEnders and all. I read their newspapers, magazines, editorials, articles by experts, letters to the editor, observed their political activities, political behaviors, politicians’ speeches, party manifestos, their religious conduct, religious literature, took note of their world views about the reality, Gods, holy men, their attitudes to women, their statecraft, governance, crimes, corruptions, their approach to law and order, their ideas about economy, industry, trade, finance, science, knowledge, truths, falsehoods and so on and so forth.

I studied very minutely how politics, democracy, governance, people’s voting behaviors operated in the West and India. I got opportunities to observe firsthand how corruption, frauds are committed in India, all from my own personal experiences. I could witness how Indians practice dishonesty, cheating, thieving, lying etc. all from my personal experiences. I am personally a victim of all these and more. I was able to experience firsthand how the police, judiciary, bureaucrats, politicians, practice corruption and perform fraudulent, often criminal behaviors in India, on a scale that will make your jaws drop. I experienced firsthand how India’s industry, commerce, finance, operate, all from my own personal experiences.

I studied and analyzed India’s agriculture scene, its rural and urban life, transport and infrastructure, education, healthcare (or absence of it). I studied their ideas about morality, normality, and their attitudes to change. I looked at how they selected their premises and reasoned them to conclusions. I found that folks in the West used reason to reason premises to conclusions, while folks in India used passion to reason them to conclusion. I examined how they formed their beliefs, made justifications, judgements, conclusions and how they exercised choice, and made decisions – all things that ultimately have a bearing on how they behaved, acted, lived. I discovered that Indians fear reason and rational thinking. Indians kill rationalists.

I examined their culture, traditions, customs, religious practices. I studied their approach to science, knowledge, truth, and falsehoods. I examined their level of skills, talents, aptitude, work ethic, productivity, their trainability, skillability, etc. It is an established fact that only 7 percent of Indian graduates are employable. The rest are completely useless. I studied their attitudes to sex, marriage, women etc. etc. Needless to say, I subjected both Europeans and Indians to the same level of detail, exhaustive observations, analysis, scrutiny etc. etc. for 45 years plus. May be listening to Radio 4, reading the Financial Times, The Economist etc. for 45 years and watching EastEnders made my job a pleasurable experience. (Not Coronation Street though, I had to draw a line somewhere. I find ITV intellectually deadening.)

I now had enough material, data, to embark on an exercise of performing a comparative analysis of Western and Indian thoughts, thinking styles, their beliefs, worldviews, attitudes, values, principles, their behaviors, actions, activities, and their ways of living etc. I thought that will give me enough clues which might enable me to identify the reasons why the West was able to develop while the third world was not, ending up as today’s third world.

And comparative analysis is exactly what I did. This comparative analysis made it clear to me that there were major differences between how folks in the West thought, behaved, acted, and lived, and how folks in the third world thought, behaved, acted, and lived. My next job was to figure out what was causing these differences. I felt that if I could identify what was causing human thinking, conduct, behaviors, actions, ways of living, to be different in the West and in the third world, then I will have found the true, correct causes why only the West succeeded in developing while the third world failed. With this in mind, to work out what caused the West to develop while preventing the third world from doing the same, I decided to do some reverse engineering.

To do this I had to figure out what was shaping human conduct, behaviors, actions, and how such conduct, behaviors, actions, shaped how humans lived, in other words, their way of life – developed or third world type. After all, development or third worldism is merely a description of man’s way of life – how he performs his living. I had to figure out what was driving, directing, influencing, shaping, determining, what form of conduct, behaviors, actions, ways of living humans end up performing, how much of that was under the control of his own conscious will, desire, decision, choice, and how much was beyond his conscious control, and more importantly who or what was controlling that bit. In short, what made humans do things they did, the way they did them, and more to the point, what prevented them from doing things they did not do.

To work this out I had to figure out from where, or from what, or from whom do humans receive instructions, messages, guidance which aid them in making their decisions, choices, in matters of determining, concluding that a particular way of performing their conduct, behaviors, actions, living, was the most appropriate, most correct, most proper way. These directives, instructions, messages were therefore instrumental in determining how humans behaved, acted, lived. These therefore ultimately determined how humans behaved, and what way of life they practiced – whether it was to take the form of a developed way of life, or a third world way of life.

It was becoming clear to me that I had to focus on these following areas of human functioning:

What was the nature and source of those instructions, directives?

What processes help humans in making judgements, conclusions, decisions, choices that a particular way of behaving, acting, and living is the most appropriate, most correct way?

How do humans come to a decision that something is Normal?

All these processes have a bearing on the final shape and form of a human’s behaviors, conduct, actions, and therefore how he lives – his way of life, whether it will be of a developed or a third world type. These are the processes that determine whether humans develop or end up as the third world. It therefore logically follows that if the West could develop, but the third world could not, then it MUST mean that these processes involved in making judgements, reasoning, arriving at conclusions, justification, decision making, choosing things like what is appropriate, what is not, what is right, what is wrong, what is normal, what is not, MUST be different in Western folks and third world folks.

Upon considering these aspects of human functioning, it was possible for me to come to the conclusion that what shapes, determines, what form of conduct, behaviors, ways of living a human ends up performing – whether it is a developed or third world type – is determined by those forces, those processes that lead him to conclude that in his opinion his chosen way of performing them is the most correct, most appropriate way. In other words, his opinion about what is normal is what drives him to conclude that his choices, decisions about what are the correct ways of behaving, acting, and living are the correct ones. And the beauty of all this is, these forces, these processes are not some mysterious, shadowy, unknowable processes. They are very real, very material, very physical processes. We know them well and we can group them all under this one simple heading: Man’s own thoughts!

It was now becoming clear to me that man’s own thoughts, his ways of thinking, his thinking style, how he thinks, what thoughts he is able to generate, experience, hold, their quality, quantity, composition, simplicity and complexity, are the factors that have a direct bearing on what forms of conduct, behaviors, actions, ways of living he will end up performing, practicing: whether they will take the form of a developed type living, or a third world type living. In short, man’s own thoughts, thinking, determine whether he develops or becomes the third world.

The quality, quantity, complexity or simplicity of thoughts he is able to generate, thinking he can perform, how efficient are his logical thinking processes like reasoning, making judgements, making decisions, arriving at conclusions, making choices, are all factors that will determine whether he succeeds in developing or fails, resulting in him being left in the third world state. These thought processes, thinking processes will determine what ideas, concepts, beliefs, worldviews he will generate, hold, what meaning, what sense he will be able to make of the world around him, a world in which he is expected to make a success of his living, how well he is able to know that world, how he arrives at conclusions about what is right, what is wrong, what is true, what is false, what is good, what is bad, what is real, what is unreal. These are all critical factors that will ultimately determine whether his behaviors, actions, his way of life take the form of a developed type or a third world type. All these thought processes will determine whether he gets things right and develops or gets them all wrong and he flops—fails to develop,