Patricia Mukhim
In this age of massive technological advancement it is common for scholars and writers to lean heavily on internet content instead of struggling to think through a problem that they wish to offer solutions to. The other day we received an article from a young man who is a local but studying in a foreign university whose name he proudly cited. The article was on millennials and their sense of entitlement. Unfortunately that article was a copy-paste version of Simon Sinek’s YouTube video on ‘Millennials in the workplace.’ Sinek cites case studies of millennials who find it hard to fit in the workplace because of their exaggerated sense of entitlement. This video can be watched on YouTube. Anyone who hears this talk for the first time is sure to be bowled over. Sinek is obviously speaking from experience. He cogitates on the mindset and worldview of millennials (people born after 1984 or after the baby boomer era).
Sinek says millennials grow up with a sense of entitlement because their parents make them believe so. Hence even educational institutions are expected to reward them even if they don’t perform well enough because someone has to constantly pat their backs for they can’t accept failure. But when those millennials step into the real world they lose their bearings because their social skills for accepting failure and dealing with hardships were not adequately honed.
But let me not digress. This article is not about millennials. It’s about the propensity of writers, researchers, scholars et al to rely too heavily on the internet; so much so that they have ceased to think for themselves. On a daily basis newspapers gets articles from different writers. From experience one is immediately able to detect with is a product of an original thought process and which isn’t because there will be one whole perfectly written paragraph followed by another which is replete with grammatical errors and sentences that make no sense. Writers basically share experiences and cite from case studies they have observed from close quarters and based on which they form their opinions. People who allow someone else’s speech or writings to pass off as their own without attributing what they have downloaded to the original author/speaker are actually plagiarising. And plagiarism has a cost. You can be sued. It’s a different matter that a lot of research material one reads today, especially in this country, is plagiarised.
As editor for a decade and a columnist since 1987 one has developed that in-built radar that triggers warning signals to the brain the moment one connects the writer with the article he/she has sent. I would much prefer to read a piece that is rustic and rough yet authentic and grounded even if the syntax is imperfect, so long as it is a compendium of personal experiences. Wannabe writers ought to know that writing is no cakewalk. It takes a lot to produce a piece based on one’s experiences and one’s thoughts because that’s what matters. Writers must necessarily have a sense of history in order to place their writing in proper context. It is true that we have to rely on government/institutional documents and on the internet for statistics because those are based on primary or secondary data. But we need to cite those sources which we have relied on.
Writers are in a sense public intellectuals because they inform and mould public opinion. But they need not always be right or only partially right in the views they expound. A piece of writing in a newspaper is important because it informs and educates readers and enables them to have an informed view on an issue. Hence a writer is in some sense also an educator and is therefore expected to have done sufficient research on what he/she writes about. Writers do not peddle half-baked views. But what is most offensive is to see an article that’s cut and pasted from the Internet. Our reliance on the internet and Google for almost everything is dangerous because we have stopped thinking and consequently stopped having a view of our own. It is true that writers read a lot to enlighten themselves and quote from great writers. That is fine as long as we attribute those quotes to the original thinker/author.
Most of us have a view on issues. Others may not concur with those views and need not do so. Hence those who know better and are familiar with alternative facts need to correct those views vide a rejoinder. This is how meaningful debates happen. That is what social media is supposed to be. It’s meant to facilitate enlightened debate; not used for swear words and shaming people you don’t agree with. When people indulge in abuse and slander it shows they have nothing of substance to offer to the discourse but simply want to bulldoze their own ideologically hardened stances, irrespective of whether those views stand the test of reason and logic and above all, whether they are legally and /or socially tenable.
Every progressive community ought to produce public intellectuals who come forward and offer their informed views especially at times of societal crises such as the one we are passing through vis-a-vis the Khasi Lineage Amendment Bill and the LGBTQIA+ debate. Add to that the Supreme Court ruling of Thursday (Sep 27) which has decriminalized adultery by striking down Section 497, calling it unconstitutional. These are issues that will occupy our mindspace in the coming days. We need to find answers that people here can relate to and resonate with. There’s no point borrowing western ideas to solve local problems. Indeed to place an occidental (western) viewpoint and experience in an oriental context and to offer solutions based on those imported views is bound to antagonise the concerned audience that is genuinely looking for solutions. What for instance is the Khasi viewpoint vis-a-vis the LGBTQIA+ issue? Are we to rely entirely on the Bible? What about non-Christians? Isn’t there any non-sectarian public intellectual to enlighten us, apart from those holding religious views? The LGBTQIA+ issue is a human behavioural issue and not, as some would like to believe – a borrowed lifestyle. Hence we need enlightened and non-rigid, non-binary answers.
As far as Meghalaya is concerned, adultery becomes an issue for a Christian. Non-Christians and indeed even some Christian men and noteworthy ones at that, are known to keep three, four or five wives and provide for all of them. Society does not bat an eyelid. That is not even an issue during elections. So as a community we are quite kosher about a lot of things and have no rigid views. Perhaps Christianity with its sacrosanct views on marriage and the LGBTQIA+ issue is what confuses the Khasi today.
Society does need space to air its views but that space is hardly available. Most of us have retreated into the virtual world when we need answers to pressing questions. But is that helpful? There is need to think, reason, argue and dialogue but we are hard- pressed to find anyone willing to come to such platforms with the spirit of engaging and not of lecturing others down. Hence many prefer to air their views on social media, but with no online moderator we are left hurling abuses at each other.
The internet has deprived us of our social skills of easy conversation and dialoguing without getting into abuse. Many young people are afraid to ask questions they have no answers to and recede into a cocoon. Most of our educators too are not familiar with the LGBTQ issue and would rather not discuss it in the classroom. So where do we go from here? The Internet is only a tool. It cannot replace human interface and individual thinking.
The fact that we have stopped thinking is evident from the WhatsApp forwards we get and unthinkingly forward to others on a daily basis. While some forwards are humorous others on health etc are not backed by scientific evidence. It’s time we use our brains before it takes leave of us. Anything that is not used over a long period of time tends to rust. So too our brains. The internet can never replace the dynamic human mind. But if we choose to do so then we are no better than robots. The choice is ours.