Educated, Not Informed

This morning when I got up, I was looking for my phone before even I wiped off the beads of saliva dripping from one end of the lips. But if I sit back and recall, this isn't the scene of one morning. It is every single morning going on a loop since the day I got hands on smartphone. Random conversation over tea with friends disclosed that I wasn't the only one to start mornings like this. We all, in a way, have gotten used to it. Instead of taking a proper yawn and fetch newspaper from the porch, we all want to know how much the world changed in the last 8 hours or how our favourite celebrity woke up this morning. We have become so much consumed by social media platforms that we aren't aware of happenings around us. Well, Congratulations!! we have just initiated the process of going back to being the ape we used to be. But how did this happen, it was just some centuries that we realized we had transformed into humans and were really enjoying the perks of it.

Aldous Huxley has one explanation in his book, Brave New World (1932). It is about a society consumed by meaningless distractions such as sports, pornography, casual sex and drugs. Huxley feared those who would give us so much information that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. This is called Totalitarian regime. Totalitarianism is a system of government that is centralized and dictatorial and requires complete submissiveness to the state. In other words, the government forms a system and wants you to follow like a meek sheep, and did I forgot to mention, dissent to this will just make you a traitor. Sounds familiar, Right? So, next time you don't like a movie ban discussed on National TV over other significant issues, or the colour orange, or the idea of cow being the national animal, just keep it to yourself or get ready to be tagged as a 'Traitor'. 

George Orwell's book 1984 (1949) shares the same idea. It depicts a world dominated by an invasive surveillance system, where your every move is monitored and if anyone who expresses a hint of dissent, is routinely arrested and killed. Everyone worships Big Brother, their fictional dictator, and historical records are constantly changed. Now, it would be ironic to notice how the words like, 'Nationalism', 'Patriotism' have just started to echo in our heads in the past 3 years. And how a few days back, there were reports of disorientation of facts in a Class 10 History book. It wouldn't be wise to explain the point I am trying to make. If you have read this far (for which you deserve a standing ovation), then you've got a pretty fair idea of what's been happening around lately. 

What, we as people, can do? 

If you are the second son of a middle-class family and your surname is not 'Ambani', then you my friend, are screwed and can't do much. The government can only create a totalitarian society by controlling media and by extension: art. So, the best a random citizen like us can do is start reading books. It has been rightly said that books make us smart. But who I am to tell you that. Just pick up a book and find out for yourself. A part of you will permanently change till the time you reach the last page. 

Excerpts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K-_ccYsBI0&t=105s