Google and Facebook are the tech giants that are ruling the technical world. Their responsibilities are increasing multifold in shaping the conscience of the global citizen. With their progress, the information age is also developing at a faster rate, and so is our foolishness in perceiving things happening around us.
Why is Facebook receiving flak when it remained mute on Trump’s misuse of its platform? Facebook doesn’t have any obligation to cater to the ideologies of its audience, instead, it is intended to help its audience to share and propagate one’s ideology. If Trump and his PR team use Facebook to go ahead and share their personal views for their professional benefits, few people getting offended signifies the extent of irrationality we possess.
We inhale the nonsense and exhale utter nonsense, thereby rendering the entire social media platform utterly useless. Why couldn’t we, at least for a minute, analyze and ponder over the intent of the other person and decide on the benefits we could get from their viral messages, posts and tweets.
Nationalism levels would see a sudden spike when our soldiers are martyred, but not when the various health indicators of the economy and human development are rapidly going down. There are hundreds of lives lost every day due to various man-made reasons and no one seems to be bothering about them.
Patriotism and Nationalism are two different things.
Loving, being loyal and working for the development of one’s nation can be called patriotism whereas showing the same tendencies at the cost of another nation’s wellbeing can be defined as Nationalism, particularly in today’s context of unfortunate happenings.
We are not patriots, but only nationalists fed by the rhetoric from electronic media, instead of pondering with commonsense.
Boycott Chinese goods. This is not as easy as boycotting classes of the professor whom you don’t like or boycotting Karan Johar’s movies for his blatant leaning towards nepotism.
Chinese and Indian soldiers went into physical fights at the border and several casualties were inflicted on both sides. Following this unfortunate event, Boycott Chinese was heard loud.
Many of us know that China has a one-child policy, and no Indian mourner gave a damn about the parents of Chinese soldiers who lost their only son. We have to blame the leaders from both sides for not resolving the decades-old conflict, instead of bashing the Chinese army and its innocent soldiers for any loss of ours. This type of behavior indicates a profound immaturity in our thought process.
There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people. – Howard Zinn.
And there was one wonderful nationalist slogan to boycott Chinese food. Really? Our farmers are growing rice, cauliflowers and mushrooms to cook noodles, momos and Gobi Manchurian. We are not importing them from China. This is a typical example of nationalism gone overboard. If this has to be logic, we shouldn’t be using English, and wearing on suits, shirts and trousers to appear like an English gentleman only because the British ruled and looted us for two centuries. This kind of stupidity has been becoming so deeply entrenched into the conscience of society.
I couldn’t keep myself away from the nonsense happening in society. How much ever I try hard to keep intellectual distancing, the stupidity is always in the air.
While Indian culture has been promoting the idea of Vasudhaiva Kutumbam (All the world is a family), modern and half-baked Nationalism is lurking behind to destroy the fabric of the Indian glory.
Boycotting Chinese goods by Indians and suspending foreign visas by Trump to help American workers are the thoughts born out of Nationalism. One way, the thought of caring and respecting one’s nation and its citizen’s interests is appreciated but the dream of an ideal society will not happen if this kind of Nationalism brews on.
Using research and knowledge to form an opinion is valued, whereas an opinion developed after listening to or reading a baseless social media post should be sent to trash.
Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay
Feature Image by David Mark from Pixabay
