Sunday, June 12, 2016

Does social media make us more stupid?

For us, of a certain age, the entire social media seems extremely stupid. Why would you post your second marriage on Facebook where it maybe discovered by your wife? Human beings are born inside walls, we grow up surrounded by walls, at home, in school and at work, and most people, except Hindus, are buried in caskets after death. Why then do we expose ourselves naked, sometimes literally, on social media? Are all human beings either exhibitionists or voyeurs? Weird behavior attracts weird people. Trolls are those who write threatening, hateful or abusive messages, protected by the anonymity of social media. Why is there so much anger? It maybe because people feel that no one listens to them. A study in Britain found that 55% of journalists saw themselves as Leftists, while only 18% are to the Right. In the US 4 times as many journalists are Democrats as there are Republicans. In India it seems that over 90% of journalists are Leftist, anti-BJP, minority-loving fanatics, completely intolerant of any other opinion. Sonia Gandhi can abuse Modi, calling him 'maut ka saudagar', which means 'one who deals in death', but a cartoon of Rahul Gandhi, showing him hiding from Modi, is removed. It is this lack of power or control that infuriates people. Messages on social media have to be brief. You cannot write an essay on the pros and cons of any issue whereas a few choice words of abuse immediately convey the anger. There is no excuse for threatening rape or violence but if you believe in freedom of expression you have to allow others to have their say. It seems that political correctness has become so extreme that it has become an intellectual prison. We have every right to dislike someone, and try to avoid that person, but even that dislike is being described as 'microaggression'. The tendency of liberals to label people as racist, sexist or nationalist is also abuse. If we say that feminism is a form of sexism we will be immediately labeled as misogynist. When suffragettes started agitating for the right to vote all politicians were men so it was men who voted to change constitutions to allow women to vote. Racism is bad but is tribalism in Africa not a form of racism? There seems to be a movement to make everyone uniform, regardless of gender, intellectual capability or cultural differences. Communism was an experiment in making everyone economically and socially equal. It failed spectacularly. People are different. Politics must include everyone and respect difference of opinion without being politically correct. Perhaps, people just need to have acknowledgement that their grievances have been respectfully considered. In the UK the Prime Minister is facing abuse on migration. In India, we will be in prison if we raise our voices against politicians. Hence the abuse on social media.

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