The world today is a fundamentally broken place. Every institution that gave it a semblance of functionality has failed its purpose or is broken. Our economic systems disproportionately favour the rich, our social institutions have turned into tools for petty politics and hate-mongering, and our culture is becoming less inclusive. It’s impossible not to see the parallels between Europe in the early 20th century and today across the world – with demagogues rising to power, a surge of far-right nationalism and the collapse of liberal democracy.
The pandemic has ripped the veil off these societal defects, and whatever confidence we had in our institutions has eroded. Governments fail to protect the people who placed their faith in them, the press fails to question those in power, and the courts fail to protect the oppressed. Democracy dies as truth itself loses value and is questioned. Just decades after the most devastating war in human history, we find ourselves in what seems like a farcical parody of the events that preceded it. And it leads to an urgent question: how did we, as a society, fail so badly?
Edward R. Murrow once said, “A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves”. The ‘sheep’ is an Orwellian metaphor for the deceived citizens of a despotic state, who are swayed by propaganda and cannot think for themselves. It is an appropriate trope for society today, where rabble-rousers sway us using misinformation and hatred. Like Orwell’s sheep, we consume information that suits our perspective without objectively thinking and repeat it elsewhere. And the despots use this to their advantage.
With the advent of the internet, misinformation has become mainstream. The most divisive and hateful viewpoints are the loudest. Normally, society would quell such views, through alienation and other tools, but is unable to. The internet provides people with a mask to hide behind, and the promise of anonymity. In a 1984-esque situation, demagogues rewrite truth as it suits them, using misinformation to their advantage. Their position of power lends them legitimacy, and misinformation becomes truth to the ignorant.
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The Latin phrase ‘divide et impera‘ holds meaning to all of us. Rulers, whether emperors or colonialists, have conquered nations by dividing them. It serves the purpose of modern-day despots to divide et impera as well. They spread misinformation laced with hatred and with the purpose of division, for it allows them to seize or remain in power. They find a scapegoat for their failures and spread fear against the weaker sections of society. Fear inevitably leads to hatred, and hatred to persecution. Society fails to protect its weaker sections, and instead, turns against them. Thus the wolves divide the sheep and pick them off one by one.
Therein lies the most consequential problem faced by modern society: our inability to find and uphold the truth, and our ability to be divided and deceived by lies. Society has slipped into postmodernity, where we reject truth and reason for ideology and devolve into scepticism.
The worst products of these defects currently rule us through hate, lies and division. And we have been complicit in their rise. We let our worst sentiments prevail and elected them into power. Modernity has inevitably failed us. But is all really lost?
A Lutheran pastor, Martin Niemöller, in the aftermath of the fall of Nazi Germany, wrote:
“First they came for the socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me.”
No matter how flawed, society has worked for the greater cause of humanity. But, we are yet again at a crossroads. Do we give in to fear and hatred again, or do we rise against those who divide? As Karl Marx once said, “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.”
History is repeating itself, but we, as a society, need to rise to the farce and prevent another tragedy.
Abhyuday Shahi is a political science student and a vocal activist. You can find him on Instagram @a_weird_juxtaposition.
Featured image credit: Pariplab Chakraborty