Know Thyself - An Essay

Reflect!

An Indian actor commends an Army officer for using a human shield and in fact recommends using an author he disagrees with as a human shield. A (now powerful) deranged 70 something lecher tweets inanities from the White House. Elections are swayed by industrial strength trolling. A vacuous polity hides behind sensationalist rhetoric.

This leaks into day to day interactions in real life too. I was shocked the other day when speaking to a friend casually she suddenly offered "I really hate Gandhi. Something about him just makes you hate him". Really - hatred? Is there no room for nuance? Can you not support whatever politics and historical narrative you believe in and still have room in your mind to say Gandhi might've had a good thought or two? When did it become fashionable to spit on the man who stood for non-violence?

Every day, each one of us stares at the empty "What's on your mind?" box on Facebook or "What's happening" boxes on Twitter and proceed to either up the vitriol. score a cheap laugh, or like and re-tweet our opinion to the world, regardless of whether it really is worthwhile. That I am doing so now adds to the irony. :)

Everything always has to have two sides - no more, no less! The minute an event takes place a narrative and a counter-narrative is crafted, and "fake news" or "presstitutes" or some such over-generalization becomes the battle-cry for *both* sides! Talking heads and champions for each side sprout so fast TV screens run out of real estate accommodating them, and the average viewer's glazed eyes go in search of the volume reduction or mute buttons on remotes. They do not however, switch channels...

Forgotten is the fact that "with us or against us" used to be (correctly) looked at as a naive world-view. Surely we can admit to the fact that Kashmir is an absolute shit-show for all its people, that they have crappy lives, and still say it is Indian territory?! Surely my patriotism is not put in question because I feel like that Major was perpetrating a crime against humanity and this was a heinous act? Is morality one-sided - they ask - why don't you preach to the stone-pelters. Well yes absolutely morality is one-sided! We can never force another person to be moral; the choice always is whether or not we will do the right thing regardless of the cost? Anything else would be moral relativism of the highest order!

There was a time when everyone did not have a voice. If you were outraged by something the only way to react was taking to the streets. A privileged few had access to the media to air their views and they would drive the conversation. Things did not change until they reached a boiling point, and there are always those who take advantage of the confusion of revolutions large and small and perpetuate their agendae.

I would not wish a return to such times and I do not think we have really left those times completely; but I don't think we've reached the next step either. I don't think the world is ready for everyone to have a voice. I think participation in polity is strengthening mobs, not enlightening souls. And mobs are easily manipulated.

The world-stream - that ineffable aggregation of TV, radio, the web, and social media - is a fire hose and we drink from it at the cost of sanity.

So please - the next time you feel like expressing yourself, sleep on it. I did, before I wrote this. Let your expression not be reactive or a search for the next hundred likes, thousand followers, or fifty re-tweets. That is the way to join a mob. Let your expression be considered, deliberate, and tempered by deep thought.

The urge to win the argument at the cost of the cause, the urge to escalate the hysteria, scoring points by going viral - these things are ruining public discourse.

They call it going viral for a reason you know - these gotchas are an infection in the polity. It is time to find a vaccine. Inoculate yourself.

Know thyself.