The Psyche of Inventors, Creators and Entrepreneurs:

From researchers like Han Zhao, who have published in “The Journal of Psychology” on the mindset of successful men and entrepreneurs,  to authors like Napoleon Hill who have looked into the brains of inventors and creators, there is a consensus among the scientific community that men who have brought meaningful impact to society are more likely to deviate from societal norms in their adolescent adulthoods and then normalise in mid-life. Their behaviours are erratic, personalities highly bi-polar and have a high sensitivity to the subject matter they aim on improving and creating. For example, famous cryptographer and founder of modern computing Alan Turing was by societal standards an outcast in terms of identifying keys to break ciphers in his teens. Similarly, most of the 88 most successful men who ever made an impact according to Napoleon Hill, deviated from societal norms. Their way of thinking, walking, eating, writing and basic logical deduction was alien to whom they explained, and henceforth the exclusion. Now, this is not applicable to very few exceptions. Maybe, one might assume these deviations are more likely to be tolerated in Western nations, since the West has produced original thinkers and inventors consistently for the past 200 years with moderate contribution from the rest of the world. But it is safe to assume, that deviation from societal norms is a pre-requisite to originality of thought and thus bringing about meaningful change.

The Psyche of the Privileged Adolescent Young Men in Pakistan:

Respect, honour and perception are very important to Eastern cultures, generally. But sometimes, there seems to be an element of hypocrisy when these 3 values are hard to attain in the current semi-conservative culture of Pakistan, coupled with the Reaganized economic system with pinches of an Islamic Welfare state. If toxic masculinity and patriarchal dominance in all spheres of life wasn’t enough, pop-culture introduced something else to the lives of young men.

One thing to be noted about the young men in Pakistan is the consistent idolisation of Western protagonists in TV Shows or movies. A personal observation states that Western men are less likely to idolise and adopt traits of their favourite protagonists relative to their South-East Asian counterparts. An overlooked cause for this might be the glorification of white men, and the insecurity of the sub-continent 70 years after the partition. But that is not up for discussion. The consistent idolisation of protagonists in TV shows like Narcos and films like The Godfather, who have given characters like Pablo Escobar and Vito Corleone, has lead to hundreds and thousands of young men in Pakistan modifying their personalities in some way or another to mimic the lives of these characters.

For example, from hyper-masculine photos with guns on Instagram to men lined in a clique representing uniformity and strength (a presumed sign of respect by young men) in their khakis and Polo Shirts (with everyone either having a thick beard or a strong moustache) men mimic their idols in all sorts of ways. The additional element is that they have induced the societal expectation to be humble and religious all in one go. The conventional V8 Cruiser is seen as the a group of 5 young men in Polo Shirts and Khakis head to a golf and country club with their female peers (in chest high jeans and fake accents), take a couple of bougie photos for the gram, and exchange Salam with the conventional saying “Sir! Bas aap ki duaein hain” and “Sir! Bas Allah jaanta hai”. They talk about politics in cafes with overpriced coffee, rant about their dark past to give the experienced vibe and fade off into the mountains by the end of the year. The whole thing is a beautiful spectacle for the common eye.

The problem with most economic systems is that the proletariat mimics the  lifestyle of bourgeoisie. Socio-Economic Class A (Atchisonian 24 year old son of a senator) pretends to be a respected Pakistani version of Pablo Escobar described in the above paragraph. Socio Economic Class B (Iqra University’s 22 year old) aims to have the lifestyle of the SEC A guy. Similarly, this extends to the all the below classes, and what is started is known as the “Identity Perception Race”, similar to the arms race in the Cold War, between thousands of men in Peshawar, Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore and Quetta.

The problem with the “Identity Perception Race” is that most of these men love the idea of being respected, being humble and being the Pakistani version of Pablo Escobar, rather than actually putting an effort to do the things that create men like Vito Corleone (Even though he is a fictional character). They love the idea of it because they know they can never achieve it as long as they work as a data analyst at U-fone or Branch Manager at Askari Bank (There is nothing wrong in that. These are really good positions). The point, however is that this limits originality in any culture and hinders innovation as a result of such a dysfunctional attribute of the Pakistani semi-conservative status quo.

Economic Scarring:

This is why in most of the projects funded by the Ministry of IT, in the research labs of renewable energy, incubation centres and other projects, you are more likely to find men with personalities that are non compliant to the norms set by the status quo.

Economic prosperity of any nation is dependent on the cerebral capacity of it’s youth in relation to the economic viability. In third world countries like Pakistan, where around 100 million people are under the age of 30, and where the gap between the rich and poor might mirror the same as many Latin American countries, the societal construct and the demographic spread is representative of it’s mixed economic system, ranging the golden 60s as the highest purchasing power parity to the mismanagement of the fiscal policy in the 70s and 80s.

More recently, Pakistan has been ranked 126 out of 137 countries in terms of Global Entrepreneurship Index (whose credibility might be a bit shaky) but overall underestimated due to the exclusion of the new SMEDA projects geared towards SMEs providing 80% of employment to the non-agricultural workforce, much of which is made up the adolescent adult males mentioned above.  National Financial Inclusion Policy, and the start-up boom around 2008 with incubators like NIC, Plan 9, Plan X and HEC verified  the establishment of on campus incubation centres. But these incubation centres can not produce a fruitful outcome if the men are consistently concerned with the idea of success rather than actually doing the things to attain it. But, one can only ponder about the feasibility of these projects and long term projections, and always leave out the class divide into the factorisation of these projections.

The problem is many SMEs and start-ups fail to produce equitable returns in proportion to the youth population and the amount of new projects that have been started. Basic assumption would be the proletariat doesn’t have access to resources, and the elite mis-manages the resources. But that assumption would be impartially incorrect and unfair to everyone, at least. But if one has to be unfair, let’s be unfair to the young men for the purpose of discussion.