Cheap sentimentality leading us to stupidity and cruelty
(Naseer Ahmed)
This combination of cheap sentimentality and modern technological progress leads us to stupidity and cruelty. We have become stupid enough not to figure out a hoax, miss a joke and are cruel enough to persecute whoever does not fit in.
I remember reading something about an essay published in a prestigious journal in the late 90s. It received so many favourable reviews from some famous experts for its brilliant insight into the nature of being. Later,the author of that article showed it was a hoax, just an arrangement of the long words meaning nothing.
I also remember reading a satirical piece about Malala Yousaf Zai. It was received as an undeniable evidence of an ‘invisible hand’ by so many people two or three years ago.
Then, there was a news story about a Korean scientist who falsely claimed to have discovered a major break through in stem cell research. He was hailed as a pioneer in the stem cell research for long time. Later on, he was proven guilty by a committee.
I saw end of history landing us into new beginning. I also saw this belief on the permanency of boom was quite widespread until It was busted quite badly.
There were claims the demons of racism, nationalism, religious persecution, unjust wars, genocide and all kind of evils have been sorted out and a paradise is a few clicks away. It was just around the corner. And a few heaves and ho, we would be right into eternal bliss.
Now, it seems all that talk was something akin to a hoax, a joke and plain fraud. With a bang, all these demons started to come back.
How could that happen? There are many reasons and factors such as denial of objectivity with a strong belief in the power of creativity. But creativity without insight is nothing but fraud. It worked because we have been dumbed down for a decade or two. Our stupidity is even quite surprising to the people who hooked us on it.
In Pakistan, Ziaul Haq hired loads of people to fashion people of our country to fit into his evil designs. You know all those middle class reactionaries. Most of them are billionaires now, though.These days all those ideologues are quite puzzled about the evil, they fashioned themselves.
That kind of stuff happened with the planners of the modern version of free market. They brought back Nietzsche, Hegel and loads of mumbo jumbo in order to weaken the citizens. This weakening was necessary for promotion of consumers. And to brain wash consumers, they focused on strong passions.This sexing up was quite necessary to distract people from the hoax and fraud.
Everything became a business of selling the strong passions such as greed, fear, horror, loathing and dismissal. At the heart of everything, reality was just a perception or a point of view which demanded a kind of aggressive attitude to prevail, not the facts. And aggression was quite unkind to disagreement. It said to disagreement’ you are fired.’
It was so frenetic where people interacted with mediums, danced madly, roared like cannons and hated their best friends. And there were nice people who were too nice to ask any uncomfortable questions to their money superiors but too rude to their money inferiors that asking tough questions was a kind of blasphemy.
And money itself was a hoax. It was not about real things. It was about big dreams and great projects. It was tough to keep up with it. Therefore it was tough to track it where it came from and where it went. For example, you could see it in Pakistani investigations into its ruling family ‘s wealth.
Money was a Mafioso’s buffers, one accountant to another accountant to this company to that company.You never knew who really owned it. Besides, you had your people everywhere, in the parliament, in the media, in the stock exchange, name any place.
Like God, nobody knew money, but it was everywhere and it was everything. Most of us earned a bit of it as working for a buffer or a ghost or an agent. We never questioned those buffers, ghosts and agents. That means we had no access to the board of executives, us common folks.
And every bad news was a collateral damage. Long and boring shifts in China. What could we do about that? They have a government. Let us watch slum dog millionaire. We would cry for hours over this absolute poverty. Thousands of Iraqis were killed. You know these people.They go tribal the moment you give them freedom. Let us watch House of Saddam to figure out the cruelty in the tribal mentality.
You know our Nancy gave a wonderful review to our Farzana on her post modernistic landscaping of regions of poetic dildos.Yes dear,’ the amity that wisdom knits not, folly may easily unite’. What is that crap? that is the bard dear. Damn the bard, you are jealous of her lovely poetic lumps. Go get a life or see a vet. My gut feelings say our Farzana is the best poet ever and my lips never lied.
Then, their were gadgets and apps which unfortunately did not help us to separate our sheep from our wolves. Our failure to figure this stuff lead us to Modi, Trump, Erdogan and many other such people. Now our hopes are all about them rogues seeing sense. Ya Rab Brezhnev Ko Muslaman ker ( Dear God, please make this horrible general secretary of the Communist Party to embrace Islam in order to relieve us) kind of stuff. It is actually us rogues who need to see a bit of sense.
There is this talk of designer babies too. Well, so far, technological progress has not made us wise. It has made us dependent upon it too much for key decisions. There was this plane accident because pilots were too late to figure out whether it was going up or down. It was due to their heavy reliance upon their gadgets. They could not refer to their actual experience of piloting on time. I hope we see where our world is going before it is too late.
