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Wednesday 14 October 2020

The fight for truth

 In the recent times, people have become touchy about everything. I keep wondering, why have we become so fragile. A simple ad, a stray remark is enough to drive us crazy. And it's not just religious sentiments. Though all throughout the world, religion does remain the most sensitive issue, it's not the only one. We have become sensitive about history, geography, science, and everything else. Industries bond together to fight against a few rude remarks. We all hate any criticism directed at us. We have become arrogant. Any idea which is contrary to our own thinking must be wrong. Because of course, we are always right. We are the only intelligent people who can't be manipulated. The rest are all fools. This confidence in our ability hasn't made us stronger. Instead, it has turned us into a mass of insecurity.

Our sense of self worth is so unstable, that any contrary remark can trigger it. And not just that. We may not like people criticising us, but we reserve the right to criticize everyone. Instead of ideological debates, people hurl abuses. Twitter seems like a battle arena. We talk about stopping hatred, but we are not above hating others. Derogatory name-calling has become the norm. In fact, an argument is started with an insult, and ends with insults without both sides making any valid points in between the two insults.

It's not that people have become evil, it's the opposite. Everyone claims to be fighting for good. It's just that definition of good is different for everyone.

And I don't blame us, humans. I blame the truth. Truth has a wicked habit of showing its different aspects to different people.  So, everyone fighting believes they have truth on their side, so of course they feel the other side must be lying.

In this insane battle for the truth, will human race survive? Will we realize the folly of fighting for abstract ideas? That people matter more than anything else? Or will we all perish to preserve something which might be an illusion? A real philosopher might argue that, we, ourselves are a part of a big illusion, Maya. But what do I know? I'm not a real philosopher. Just someone, who scribbles her thoughts.

 

4 comments:

  1. There is essence in your assertion Kiran Ji. Personally I feel that truth has (and always had) lost the battle to untruth. We are not likely to perish to preserve that thing which is definitely an illusion, limited to (old-fashioned) books. People don't matter for us (the other ones), ourselves and our vested interests only matter to (most of) us. The world will go on the way it's going on. It won't perish. However truth (and phenomena like justice and ethical values) will continue to get defeated even when not perished. Human-beings will survive, humanity may not.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Human beings without humanity aren't worth anything.

      Delete
  2. You raise very pertinent questions. People are losing sense and sensibility, let alone sensitivity.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. When people start thinking as a group, they never retain sensibility, but I wish they would at the least try to retain sensitivity.

      Delete

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