The World is getting Crazier, and there is a reason for it

While in the background humans are constantly destroying nature and slowly getting destroyed in the process, conflicts are on the rise more than ever. Not international conflicts or regional conflicts but conflicts of ideas that are radically so different that they are polarising societies from the inside. There are some words which people utter nowadays which no one could think of a decade ago. If you can, just time travel a decade behind and tell your younger self how societies and people have changed. I am sure that your younger self would find it as absurd as believing that there is a long pandemic in the 2020s. So, what has changed in these years? Your tolerance levels.

A person drinks for the first time and just two pegs make the person tipsy. The third one makes the person a drunk. But slowly, as the body’s tolerance level develops the person is able to drink four pegs and still feel fine. Now, if the person really wants to feel drunk, more alcohol is required. The same thing applies to other things in life. This is why reality shows get crazier in the succeeding seasons, and this is why people find web series sequels disappointing as the expectations are higher due to increased tolerance levels.

Now, this also applies to social media messaging and propaganda. Every ideology is trying to gather support by spreading hatred by creating a threat perception. As this is being done simultaneously by opposing ideologies, the perceptions get complimentary corroborative ratification. Whether it is Nationalist or Religious Right-wing, Capitalism, Socialism or ‘Woke’ culture, this applies to all ideologies.

From Getaway drug to Crossing the border

It all begins with a noble cause. This cause makes perfect sense and gets the person to join the cause. To keep the person consistently for the cause, there is a lot of social media messaging. Pointing out what is wrong, and how it can be made right. Pointing out the crimes, injustices happening somewhere, to someone and blaming a person, an ideology or a system for it. Till now it is fine. But this has been your getaway drug.

Then, it amplifies. When we see a lot of the same kind of sad news, again and again, we become numb to it. We develop tolerance towards it, and we get used to it. So, now if the social messenger or propagandist wants you to root for the cause they need to tell you something worse. Or extend the sphere of problems existing in society. Here, the problem begins. Slowly you begin crossing a border that you don’t recognise.

For a conservative person, it begins from a call to preserve culture, then moves towards puritan principles. Every foreign influence must be erased.

For a feminist, it begins with gender equality, and ending patriarchy, then move towards misandry. All rules of society were made by men, and hence everything should be defied and rejected.

For capitalists, it begins with supporting the free market and reducing business barriers, then moves towards contempt for all that is socialist. These Communists want to give away wealth generated by people to those who don’t work for it.

Now it gets worse, each fraction begins labelling the other fraction as something insidious and demonising anyone who supports it.

These right-wingers are Fascist/Terrorists.

These left-wingers are Urban Naxal/Anti-national.

While they (under the influence of social media) coin offensive terms for their opponents, they develop intolerance towards words that were till now normal. Hence, we move towards a politically correct culture.

Political Correctness

Political correctness was invented to take out words and phrases which are offensive to a certain kind of people. It was indeed a good move when it had just begun. Racial slurs, gender-based swear words etc. were the ones that got termed incorrect. But as social media moral policing took over, even normal grammatically correct words like woman or mankind became offensive for some so-called feminists. Okay, humankind is a more apt word to replace, but getting offended and losing cool at mankind is really unnecessary.

The right-wing has issues with certain kinds of words, the left-wing has issues with some other kinds. The ‘woke’ have come up with a completely new set of words. But unlike a dictionary, there aren’t clear rules for what is politically correct and what is incorrect. The human race will never reach a consensus. Definitely not because of the following two.

Echo Chamber and Cancel Culture

Now you are bombarded with a certain kind of messaging, and you develop loyalty towards it. These various propagandas develop a strong social, political and ideological bias in the receiver. These social, political and ideological biases take over the psyche of a person or group of people, wishing them to be trapped in their echo chamber. Meaning, they only want to interact with people they ideologically agree with. Meaning, they are scared of disagreements on ideas they think is right. So, they end up becoming a snowflake (defined as overly emotional, easily offended, and unable to deal with opposing opinions) and ‘cancel’ the person as they are unable to discuss or debate with logical reasoning. Cancel culture begins.

Hence, you have a society divided into tribes hating the other kind of people. They don’t like to interact with them because they might get into an ideological disagreement. This can lead to two situations. Either the other person will prove a point and make you feel that you were wrong all along, or it will confirm your bias deeper causing more outrage at the opponent’s views.

But living in a bubble, without questioning your own thoughts curbs personal development. It can also cause social conflicts both at an individual level and also at a mass level. These ideologies are becoming more of new age religions, and intolerance levels are getting as high as crusades. Politicians, religious zealots and capitalists are backing on it. Capitalist more than the other two. Because, now they can sell feminism, nationalism, wokism, and culturalism wrapped in their products to loyal followers.

What if, social media messaging has always been part of their larger plan all along.