Jargogled Impressions.

Even as the embers of Covid-19 continue to simmer in the aftermath, the sentiment on the streets have turned cold. Some fear a second wave, while others are warier of staying locked inside. There’s always a dichotomy in the playground of sociological matters. We are all the same and yet vastly different. Our views are informed by the foundational drivers of human emotion. But they affect different people differently. What makes our behaviors so vastly different? What causes some people to disregard social mores in the name of personal liberty, while others to follow the dictum to the core even at the cost of personal upliftment? What causes us humans to follow social selection instead of a fight to flight?
These are matters which have no answers other than the fact that they exist – these divergent viewpoints. And we must deal with them because in this diversity lies the key to our success as a species. Much as diversity in the workplace, in your social circle, in your life has been known to impart advantages when it comes to opening your aperture. So does the divergent viewpoints keep our political realms healthy and brimming with life and energy. How easy would it be otherwise, to slip into the prison of mono-thinking?
In agriculture, mono-culture is the practice of growing a single crop, plant, or livestock species in a field of farming ecology at a time. Versus poly-culture, this practice imparts efficiency with the production process resulting in higher yields while at the same time increasing the risk of diseases and pest infestations. The trade-off becomes between producing more of the same versus having a lower probability of total crop failure.
A similar trade-off emerges in the political arena. Between mono-culture (single ideology, totalitarian) to poly-culture (vibrant, messy democracy) the advantages get split with no hard answer to the right approach. As we have started questioning capitalism (and by liberal extension democracy) to address the inequalities in the world, there is no respite from this constant tussle between the competing ideologies.
Is mono-culture evil?
To me, a mono-culture symbolizes reliance on a single species, a single gene, a single trait, a single race, a single variety, a single dominant view point. And that is, by essence evil, because I don’t see nature around me putting the same reliance on that single entity. In fact, if you let nature take control, it is bound to bring in as diversity wherever possible. Also, I find the idea of “history is written by the winners” as dangerously sycophantic and a sort of mono-culture-ish view around how events conspired in the past to bring us to where we are today. In short, there are a number of ways in which mono-culture gets exhibited in the universe around us:

– Personal lawns or biodiversity in the backyard: people are revolting against the idea of those single grass lawns that we see in the front or back yards of your typical homes. Lending a semblance of fake control and uniformity, the idea behind this protest is to let more of nature get reflected in the places we live instead of controlling it by way of lawns. People are undergoing transformations of their yards to bring out the best of the diversity of natural world and lie in the cocoon of the lush diversity that they provide.
– Mono-culture crops: mono-culture crops is prone to diseases and attacks by pests. Like how the excessive reliance on single suppliers or manufacturers result in a sort of fragility in the global supply chains, the excessive reliance on single crops growing in acres and acres of land is tantamount to putting all your eggs in one basket. While efficient and partially responsible for the green revolution that ended poverty as it existed 40 years back, the over reliance on mono-culture crops is dangerous.
– Mono-culture television series: mono-culture television series are, by definition, single cultural constructs that sci-fiction television series develop to target nerds and aficionados with a sort of world building that does attract a lot of people. Series like Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, West World, Marvel cinematic universe, etc. are examples of these “mono-cultural” cultures.
– Mono-culture consumerism: we live in an increasingly inter-connected world where our demands get affected by what we see around us and what we observe people around us doing. While there are diversities and hetero-genization of these demands through individualistic tastes and fashion statements, especially when it comes to certain products, for a large variety of other products we are driven by the advertisements that the ad-men put out. Also, we don’t realize the impact these subtle and not-so-subtle ads do to our internal psychological balance with the result, an artificial sense of scarcity is created, driving us to consume things we did not necessarily want.
– Mono-culture of linear time – the idea that history has unique and well-known meaning and direction (a critique of lazy reason). This is the idea that history, the way it’s written, relies too much on linear time at the expense of chance encounters, simultaneous occurrences, and disjointed stories that don’t make sense unless looked at in hindsight.

To the question, is mono-culture evil, I find the answer to be a mixed bag. For some, this mono-culture is a way to bring people together and share common strands of perception and feeling that is often lacking in the fragmented world we live in today. Think of it as the 80s and 90s era when everyone watched Seinfeld together and knew that everyone is watching for those water-cooler discussions. Today, with increased heterogeneity, we don’t know who is watching what given the on-demand aspect of television that has taken over in our generation. That’s why many people called Game of Thrones the last great mono-culture of yore when friends and family gathered together to watch the series. It did happen!
For more on this, read here an interesting (and long) piece by Kale Chyka in the Vox. I do particularly like the title “Can mono-culture survive the algorithm” and then the subtle sub-text “and should it?”