WE, THE PEOPLE ... 1
Society today is getting divided into polarised compartments, often inimical to each other. Let patriotism be the unifying link of all, though. Else, ideological divides will weaken the nation instead of bolstering democracy through divergent opinion.
Posturing as patriots will not do. Genuine patriotism demands service and sacrifice for the common weal which the clamorous critics of our nation's seminal figures do not think it necessary to possess themselves but think it their birthright to indulge in corrosive criticism, nonetheless. This degeneracy of social interaction is lending support to roguish behaviour in many and threatening the civic discourse in no uncertain terms. Culture is being consequently lowered and civilisation regressing to medieval mode in the name of all such grand ideas and institutions as nationalism, religion, caste and its ilk with no bearing to their inner essence or sublimity of highest conception. That which divides society is now deemed the force of unification, that which is patently anti-human is now termed aggressive nationalism.
In an age of universal education this is bound to happen, for the proliferation of education by way of fact-dispersal, unaccompanied by the diffusion of culture, is bound to boomerang by empowering the masses with an arsenal of ideas which they will shoot indiscriminately to keep up the Conservation Principle in a decadent way, though. But the process must be gone through, for evolution entails such meandering motion, such mountainous detour en route to the summit of social advancement.
But must we sit pretty and watch proceedings while culture plummets to its nadir in our country of hoary heritage? Or ought we to act by way of arresting this progressive degeneracy that seeks sanction in pretentious spiritual quotes and historical heresies that this country has suffered from? If we care for our country, we must act now.
What then is the way out, what the method that we must adopt to combat the current corruption of civic conversation that is shaping the attitudes and aims of a vast mass of men with oscillating convictions between contrary ends?
Well, if social conversation is tainted by intolerant irrational verbal thrusts, if communication is corrupted by articulate assumptions unfounded in fact and based on biased distorted narratives, then civilised discourse based on reason and evidence must counter it.
Democracy demands debates on contentious social issues and rational engagement in such ought to be the way of combating conversational cultural corruption. If thousands of sane people join in the crusade to set the social discourse right by initiating civil conversation in real life and in the virtual one online, this proliferating infra-rational and uncultured interaction that pollutes the social environment can be beaten back. To this end we must devote our energy and we must persist at this endeavour irrespective of the reverses that we may suffer. Victory shall be ours in the long run -- this ought to be our conviction. The rest, let history unfold.
Written by Sugata Bose
Society today is getting divided into polarised compartments, often inimical to each other. Let patriotism be the unifying link of all, though. Else, ideological divides will weaken the nation instead of bolstering democracy through divergent opinion.
Posturing as patriots will not do. Genuine patriotism demands service and sacrifice for the common weal which the clamorous critics of our nation's seminal figures do not think it necessary to possess themselves but think it their birthright to indulge in corrosive criticism, nonetheless. This degeneracy of social interaction is lending support to roguish behaviour in many and threatening the civic discourse in no uncertain terms. Culture is being consequently lowered and civilisation regressing to medieval mode in the name of all such grand ideas and institutions as nationalism, religion, caste and its ilk with no bearing to their inner essence or sublimity of highest conception. That which divides society is now deemed the force of unification, that which is patently anti-human is now termed aggressive nationalism.
In an age of universal education this is bound to happen, for the proliferation of education by way of fact-dispersal, unaccompanied by the diffusion of culture, is bound to boomerang by empowering the masses with an arsenal of ideas which they will shoot indiscriminately to keep up the Conservation Principle in a decadent way, though. But the process must be gone through, for evolution entails such meandering motion, such mountainous detour en route to the summit of social advancement.
But must we sit pretty and watch proceedings while culture plummets to its nadir in our country of hoary heritage? Or ought we to act by way of arresting this progressive degeneracy that seeks sanction in pretentious spiritual quotes and historical heresies that this country has suffered from? If we care for our country, we must act now.
What then is the way out, what the method that we must adopt to combat the current corruption of civic conversation that is shaping the attitudes and aims of a vast mass of men with oscillating convictions between contrary ends?
Well, if social conversation is tainted by intolerant irrational verbal thrusts, if communication is corrupted by articulate assumptions unfounded in fact and based on biased distorted narratives, then civilised discourse based on reason and evidence must counter it.
Democracy demands debates on contentious social issues and rational engagement in such ought to be the way of combating conversational cultural corruption. If thousands of sane people join in the crusade to set the social discourse right by initiating civil conversation in real life and in the virtual one online, this proliferating infra-rational and uncultured interaction that pollutes the social environment can be beaten back. To this end we must devote our energy and we must persist at this endeavour irrespective of the reverses that we may suffer. Victory shall be ours in the long run -- this ought to be our conviction. The rest, let history unfold.
Written by Sugata Bose
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