Of individuals, communities and countries

In the past 5 years I have put a lot of efforts to avoid writing. Not that I was a great writer and my decision has put the whole world at loss, but I consciously never gave it a shot. I even avoided posting things on Facebook and engaged in lots of 1-on-1 chats on topics of my concerns with a handful of close friends of mine. I discovered a few people in my friend list also have taken this route. Then things changed slightly when I recently started posting posts related to the socio-politics of my country. I didn’t attract that lot of attention but something funny happened. Few friends pinged me to mention this change of my trend, and few friends and strangers who never were in touch with me tried engaging with longer discussions. Overall I don’t mind it but then it made me leisurely analyze a few things and articulate my hypothesis and choices around this cross disciplinary topic.

I will try to structure the rest of my article in 3 sections:

1: The burden of talents

2: The falling benchmarks on social media

3: The rise of illiberal democracy

1: The burden of talents

Let me start with my personal actions. Why did I suddenly start posting on Facebook on topics which are not related to my professions or personal life?

I call this “burden of talents”.

Before that let me explain who I consider “talents”. Well, anyone who thinks oneself to be a talent, is a talent. As soon as one starts viewing himself differently than the masses and is ready to put efforts to bring more than average results to more than average plans. The logic works on the following hypothesis: Past decisions influence our future circumstances which define the overall course of our plans. So if one is ready to put up and work towards a plan, realistic yet non-traditional in nature, then it’s fair to label her/him as talent.

And why there’s a burden attached?

Well, many of you will disagree with me, but to change the vectors of the masses (bring a better public policy, innovate a solution, raise voice against something etc), by definition will initially require conscious efforts of the few individuals in the beginning. Corporates, governments, and revolutions has to be led by certain persons who are ready to lead and define the definite course of actions. And the trigger can only, logically, come from the conscious individuals who fit the definitions of “talents”.

Now considering myself as someone who often criticizes and have opinions about public matter, and who displays ego by self-considering to be a “talent”, I think it’s only hypocrisy and shameful to not come forward and voice the concerns.

Now in the past few years, I was personally disappointed by the work government was doing, despite its popularity and everything. Even if things may not be bad and majority of citizens seem to like what’s happening, it doesn't mean one has to accept and keep mum. And then I saw the people who I follow slowly raise their voice. Initially they were being too anal, but then situations got worse enough to trigger me, who could be viewed as being anal by other set of people. But the whole idea was to start with one’s own social network. If you have got something which you think is better for the community, then not sharing with the community can be disastrous.

Such logic can be inapplicable on introverts, but then the aloofness and apathy can never be justified and an introverted talent can be potentially declared guilty if she/he regularly posts updates on her/his dinners, or professionally image enhancing ideas, or general party/re union pics, or memes which are targeted to a particular niche group of friends. So in order to qualify myself as someone who deserves to retain the right to criticize public affairs, I thought in the light of raising communal activities, religiously influenced blame games of the recent rape-and-murders, disastrous financial plans, shameful court hearings, biased media etc. etc. I thought one must share one’s concerns in public forum.

Which brings us to our next section:

2: The falling benchmarks on social media

Back in 2012, one of my close friends suddenly earned a lot of attention and personal brand identity on social media. She almost became popular overnight and started taking her new friends and following latest trends as a duty. I on the other hand wanted to withdraw from writing my personal blog. It was already featuring as top 3 youth blogs in India in the past 6 months and I was getting uncomfortable about the lack of creative freedom I was experiencing.

I could very well see that there are certain expectations the crowd has one from someone performing in the social media. Suddenly I can see what kind of humors was appreciated by my audience and what topics will interest them more. These things always stay in my consciousness while writing a post. Very well one can predict without much error which post have the potential to be accepted by one’s audience. Here I saw 3 flaws:

1: Audience: Unless one is sure about one’s agenda, it can be a risk to engage and please a massive audience who doesn’t belong to one’s social network/community. While an entrepreneur can use it effectively to launch one’s path breaking beta innovation, a naïve person can be very well fooled into believing that their work is making a difference. Well, from my personal experience, after I have limited my ideas to a closed known community, I can very well assure you that one merely attracts like-minded people when not holding a position of power/authority.

Eg one may think one is trying to propagate the liberal ideas, but one is merely reaching out to a larger mass of people and hence is aggregating the already similar liberal minds. In fact, very recently I was surprised to find someone who claimed and was seen by my friends and myself to be a “liberal” held very conservative views on LGBT community. She, then also I suspect under some pressure, deemed gay relationships as an “OK”. What!?

2: Benchmarks: Is one ready with sufficient wisdom to engage with an audience? Is one is very surely of one’s values? Pivoting a lot of times from one’s values and coming out in public each time to be labeled as a “brave person” can be bought by the public, but you will be harming yourself too. It’s actually stupid and suddenly you will be left out people less smart than you, affecting your own growth. You also run the risk of being abandoned by your own audience which, as I have seen with few, can put you into a phase of serious depression. In short, earn wisdom and discover your values before taking responsibilities exceeding your abilities.

3: Implicit benchmarks: This one is more interesting for me. Before everything, let’s start with a case study. Please read this Quoraanswer.

This is exactly what’s wrong with us. We dodge the important things of life and try to play ostriches in sands. In simple words, the above answer means: as long as you can pick up some cool adult toys, one totally deserve admiration. It also means failures doesn't deserve admirations and assumes every success is a non-function of accidents/lucks.

Earlier to give wisdom one had to earn certain credibility. Media resources were limited so there was no almost zero positions for amateurs. Eg one had to earn a PhD in economics in to be able to share one’s own opinions on the economic policies.

Was it elitist? Perhaps.

But what did it implied? Well, focus on education. Rest things will fall in place where one is ready.

So what did it encourage? Public respected educated politicians and demanded better educational infrastructure. Accidental and less qualified heroes were almost unheard of.

This changed after social media.

Earlier the public had the benchmarks of highly qualified experts. These high quality benchmarks need not reflect the popular stand of the society, and hence was a driving factor in steering the society towards a better community. A lot of average people (who are obviously more in number) cannot come together to propagate average ideas and lower down the overall progress benchmarks.

Well, social media did exactly that, more or less. Which brings us to the next section:

3: The rise of illiberal democracy

I will try to be very brief here.

Currently, populist ideas have massive political advantages. Political parties supporting populist ideas over laws are massively figured all around the world.

Populist ideas, by definition, put massive amount if personal risks on the minorities. It also propagates an anti-movement of meritocracy.

Suddenly democracy was merely reduced to “rule by the majority/popular”.

If you are one who thinks democracy has no flaw, then you should be already hating me.

If you think democracy should be abandoned, then I have my fears and concerns for your alternative ideas.

And if you are confused, and want to pin point what’s wrong with our present democracy, well then I may have something to tell you -

To understand it I went back to read the ancient societies of Athens where it all started. I pin pointed two conditions which existed there but are lacking with our present societies.

1: The society was based on arguments and counter arguments. It held assemblies and matters were discussed openly. Everyone was free to put their thoughts on taxation as well as reflecting on what world was made up of. This kind of space is seen to be lacking in our present societies. Even the media houses have turned into mere corporates and to believe otherwise is nothing but delusional.

2: Popular rulers who won votes but seized powers or abandoned the advisors etc, were essentially seen as tyrants. These people were expelled in the next election and took better care next time. This led to a practice of abandoning the politicians who gained too much popularity. The present societies reflect the exact opposite trend, don’t they?

For further readings on illiberal democracy, here is an essay and an opinion piece.

So this brings us to the conclusion of this essay. I am not very sure about the social media, but I am very much interested in my social network and observing the reactions, arguments and impressions of the ones with who I try sharing my opinions.