I always felt that voicing my opinion is important. That is how you tell other people what you think, what you feel. If you stay quiet, then that can be assumed to be your agreement. It most likely is. If this post is not commented upon by people disagreeing with me, I will assume they agree with me. Governments, Institutions do this all the time. They publish a circular, some kind of notice, publish it in some newspapers, do a press release, but those who do not speak up are naturally assumed to agree with them. No one will come to your door, ask if you agree with the new GST bill they are planning to launch, or the firecrackers ban they want to enforce. We have given them this power, to make decisions for us, by electing them directly or indirectly. Some people, who want to lead the voice for those who disagree, stand protesting on the streets, on social media, write letters to the offices of those in-charge. That is how we have structured our society.
An important role here is of those who do not have opinions. They are unable to gauge the impact of any change on them, they believe they are fine in their own bubbles. These people appear to be of two types. First are those who are ready to accept the changes, adapt to them, suffer without protest or enjoy the benefits they start receiving. Like when municipal bodies enforce that the litter/garbage needs to be segregated into biodegradable and recyclable, I adapted to it, not by force, but by acceptance that this does make sense. When my Election Voter ID card was no longer acceptable as a valid proof of identity and only Aadhaar card was acceptable, I accepted it with a pinch of salt, but I did adapt to it. However, the Second kind are the ones I am really talking about. The ones, who only react to a change in their society when it impacts them, maybe far later, when debating the change itself is too difficult, when it is hard to find people who share your opinion. Like when airport lounges stopped taking my Discover credit card to allow entry inside, I was alarmed. But I did find an email in my inbox from a month back announcing the change. This is what I would term as ignorance, a neat way to believe you are part of the society, but you are really just a consumer. You believe in some on-demand fast, easy solutions that will take you to the next corner. But they do not exist. They only appear to exist, but it is a complicated mesh of serious things stacked together that keeps the show running.
I know a few people who use social media to criticise organisations, people, ideas. Some of them do want their voices to be heard, in a relentless effort to push the conversations, the opinion exchanges, in some productive direction which they are comfortable in, where they can gain a moral high ground. See, social media is not just about voicing your opinion, it also is about making sure others listen. It will be hard for someone to keep posting on facebook without anyone liking or commenting. It is important for people to criticise what a lot of people would feel is wrong or is bad. That gives them a sense of belonging to the majority of the community, also shows leadership qualities for taking the stand. Such people I respect, really, for they have good intentions. It is an entirely different debate to identify if there are any logical limitations in this approach, but at least these people have objectives they want to fulfill. Another pool of people in the criticisers are those who want to have the last laugh. They use only logic, with no global (holistic) agendas, but just to tickle their funny bone. You see, we have not invented a bullet-proof language or vocabulary system yet to not leave room for ambiguity that can be exploited to shame people for the morally ambiguous posts they made. And this is just an issue on the superficial level, not in the underlying purpose of the statements or the chain of thought that brought the poster there. That simply hurts, when a facebook post is considered the person’s ultimate agenda in the universe, which can be used to capture, try and execute the person. The likers are the jury. The commentators are the attorneys. Ironically, this is only a one way journey.
I remember, once in college, I had posted a note on facebook regarding a friend who was as narcissistic as anyone could possibly be. A small criticism on him was widely accepted by the public in general (some of them were maybe from the pool of people who wanted to join the bandwagon of subscribing to see what will happen next on the post), but this was immediately reported by the said person using the newly released Report Abuse feature. I would have probably done the same in his position, but that sort of makes me think, then and now in retrospect, that I would definitely like to be in a position where no one criticises me, but I can voice my opinion whenever I want. Always take the moral high ground, but whenever you have to criticise someone by taking a lower path, enjoy the immediate spoils, then claim to have been kidding all along. Make fun of people for having believed you at all, given the jovial/humorous nature you have.
But, the larger topic of reflection is not about people. It is about introspection. Does it matter to me if an XYZ person thinks ABC about a PQR topic? Does it really make any difference to me? Why do I have to get involved at all? Am I feeling obliged to fulfill a goal, contribute to the society in some way, by making my point as well? Did we have this feeling earlier or we do now because we have social media to make my opinion public from the comfort of my bed? Do I only voice my opinion if I feel offended or joyous from the other person’s opinion? Do I care why the other person has that opinion?
I am hopeful, of people asking these questions to themselves, to identify how their response to social stimuli works. It is like understand a piece of code, to identify its nitty-gritty behaviours, its subtlety. If you were to join a company as an engineer, they ask you to take ownership of a particular module which sends invoices to the customers. You clone the repository, see how the product is used in production, talk to some customers. But you also need to know how the code works. Without that, you do not own it, you manage it. Are we managing our brains, beating the bush around it, but do not own it? Is my behaviour too predictable because I have only N number of things to do anything out of, or do I understand the complexities, the flow of data, the handling of unacceptable situations so that I can make anything possible?
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