The Tragedy of Moving On
A year and a half ago, the entire nation turned vigilant once we knew about the depraved and horrific incident at R.G. Kar Hospital in Kolkata. Every (sane) person raised their voice about the issue. One of the perpetrators was held accountable while every other co-perpetrator and those whose negligence led to this was never even considered. People rallied for justice and the movement… just fizzled out in thin air.
Our nation undergoes a thousand issues. Some trivial and some important, but the end result of these issues are always the same. Everything fizzles out of our collective conscience after a said time. Sure, we ‘move on’ but this poses an uncomfortable question for everyone: Are we fatigued by our search for the truth?
As humans, our cranial faculty surpasses all animals. We are able to reason and even have the ability to search for the ultimate, quintessential truth. On the flip side, the corollary is also true. Having the largest brains also means that we are the best liars!
If you have an antagonistic attitude towards street dogs, the dogs would steer clear from your path. A human, on the other hand, might weigh its pros and cons. He might even consider your disgust as an elixir from heaven if you were his boss and he was on a fat paycheck since he is a subordinate at the end of the day! This sort of layered behaviour seeps into our everyday life. We lie much more often than we realise. In the book Lying, authored by journalist and global atheist proponent Sam Harris, we discover that we say almost ten to fifteen white lies every day. White lies are those lies that are considered socially acceptable. An example could be your friend asking “How are you doing?”. Without a single thought, you say that you are fine but are you really fine? However, “fine” in this context would mean “life goes on despite everything” and for conversational ease. It’s an unintentional and socially acceptable lie but still, a lie.
Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein called these examples ‘Language Games’ wherein the meaning of words comes from how people use the word in day-to-day lives and not strictly dictionary definitions. Idioms like “raining cats and dogs” also fall under this definition. What Wittgenstein proposed is that language, as a tool of communication, can sometimes have its limits. Even literal sentences can be based upon context. ‘It’s warm’ may mean a lot of things even if the meaning is ‘the temperature is hotter than usual’. From a request to close a window, to a request in a scientific experiment where a scientist is asking another to reduce the temperature, it can have various meanings.
While this flexibility of language is observed, it also makes language an ambiguous phenomenon. To understand this, we need to learn about the ‘Power of Suggestion’ In psychology, suggestion refers to the process by which one can guide others or their own thoughts, feelings and behaviours. In 1974, psychologists Elizabeth Loftus and John Palmer did an experiment where they used ‘suggestive words’ to influence the responses. They separated two groups and conveyed the same information to both groups. Group A was asked “How fast was the car going when they smashed into each other?”. Group B was asked the same with a minor difference. Instead of ‘smashed’, the psychologists used the word ‘hit’. Both groups were asked to guess the speed of the car and as a result was striking. People in Group A who heard the word ‘smashed’ reported higher speeds than those in Group B.
Certain issues do not require interpretations but rather empathy and conscience. By framing them as opinions, media narratives unknowingly (and more often than not, knowingly) shape public perception of a certain situation. This not only dilutes the issue but makes it more polarised. No sensible person would say there might be an ‘opinion’ on a black-and-white situation such as money laundering or scam or any public grievance. However, if they are framed like one, people are more likely to react with hostility.
‘Who are these kinds of people?’ would be our reaction. As a viewer, we are constantly bombarded with such suggestions. This serves two purposes: generating emotional outrage and getting on top of the trend. Every outrage is driven by a cycle rather than a sustained and empathetic concern and whenever such outrage happens, people consider talking about those reactions rather than the actual event – whether those extreme reactions were justified or not. For example, it is very common to note bizzare and victim-blaming comments by certain politicians when it comes to women’s safety. This causes us to shift our focus from the topic at hand to ‘whether the comment from a certain person was right?’ The faster the topic changes, the faster we move on to a broader and more different topic.
Second and most important. When a society behaves prematurely and out of instinct, it has vicious consequences. What if someone was scapegoated in a public frenzy and was later proved to be innocent? Which person in ‘the crowd’ would take the responsibility if the falsely accused continued to be falsely accused despite the forgiveness of law? The answer is none.
Large-scale tragedies command more opinions. After the 2013 Uttarakhand landslide, the state was also rocked by minor landslides later on but it’s human tendency to not pay attention to ‘lesser fatalities’. Shockingly enough, our collective memory is often shaped by our selective emotions so when we move on, we do not do it voluntarily. We tend to move towards issues that evoke a similarly shocking reaction.
When similar shocking reactions are regurgitated on a societal level, it gradually contributes to sensitisation. For example, the Jeffrey Epstein case was regurgitated with so many angles that people now consider it a joke or ‘meme material’ rather than having their hearts go out to the women who had survived the trafficking. Over time, such incidents lead to apathy – a state where even significant injustices wouldn’t elicit action. The incident of Jeffrey Epstein, as described, was horrific but today, it isn’t so shocking anymore. If a billionaire is found delving in depraved activities, people wouldn’t be surprised. Worse, people wouldn’t even mobilise like they did the first time. Our attention spans have shortened due to rapid consumption of information in the social media age. The sheer volume of information leaves no stone unturned for observing any phenomenon carefully, and with rigour. The depth is then forgone for immediacy. Perpetrators of injustice with manipulative and psychopathic tendencies exploit this exact nature of human psyche.
How to combat such issues, then? The answer is neither simple nor absolute. At the end of the day, we all have our own lives and troubles. Being a constant societal vigil is unrealistic. Emotional exhaustion is real and regurgitating problematic issues put a toll on our mental health. Verifying sources, learning about the sources and sometimes even questioning them and resisting the urge to share anything we find interesting are the first steps. Emotional responses are natural, but they should be complemented with reason in the very next step. A rational culture is very much required in the modern day and age. While it may be impossible to latch on to every issue at hand, we must be committed to the principles of justice, accountability and truth.
[Authored by Shreyan Laha]
Photo by: On Harsh Realities And Moving On by Teakisi | Sep 3, 2015