There are people hiding their sadistic tendencies behind the garb of religion. There is no religion that talks about intolerance or violence, and yet we are fighting, hurting, killing and brutalising the innocent. The irony is always this; it is the innocent that will eventually suffer, and it is them who stand to lose it all.
What happens when emotions are converted into numbers? The feel element is removed. When this occurs, all we are left with is the ‘so what’ attitude.
Was life always this brutal? That’s the thought that got the ink flowing as I penned this piece down. Just a quick skim through the daily newspaper can actually bring forth an extremely sick feeling in the pit of one’s stomach. The extent to which people are hurting each other is shocking. Rape, murder, war and the list just goes on and on. This is the reality of our day. The extent to which people are violating basic rights of another is alarming. Each story seems to be getting more violent and much more brutal than the last. We thought we heard the worst when the ‘Nirbhaya’ case broke. Little did we know, years down the line, people would re-enact and step up the brutality in hordes.
Yes, there has been a ton of research done on the minds of people who are violent and a lot of them point towards horrible pasts, biological predispositions and situational factors. How do we explain what is happening today? Do all people committing these atrocities have a ‘genuine’ reason for the same? I quote unquote the word genuine because there is no real true excuse for causing harm to anyone or any living thing. When incidences like these occur, in certain populations, cultural liberties beg a mention. Humanity is dwindling away at disquieting rate. What must be the psyche of someone who would violate another human’s right to live? How messed up does someone have to be to actually be able to take a life? Looking at the current scenario, it is quite likely that a lot of our behaviours are stemming from learnt behaviour. Learning by watching others, learning from the lack of response or conversely a response that is positive, could also be contributing factors to the craziness that we see around us.
There are people hiding their sadistic tendencies behind the garb of religion. There is no religion that talks about intolerance or violence, and yet we are fighting, hurting, killing and brutalising the innocent. The irony is always this; it is the innocent that will eventually suffer, and it is them who stand to lose it all. There is this trend of mass idiocy that is actually taking over the world. One person says something, and the world will follow. Sadly, the one loud voice, very seldom turns out to be the voice of reason. This bandwagon effect that we all find ourselves in is a real problem. When looking at the crimes being committed in every corner of this globe, a lot of the perpetrators did what they did because those around them were doing it. Recent studies have pointed to something known as the ‘dark triad’. According to ‘Psychology Today’, it is defined as a ‘set of traits that include the tendency to seek admiration and special treatment (otherwise known as narcissism), to be callous and insensitive (psychopathy) and to manipulate others (Machiavellianism)’. These traits are stumbled upon more often now than ever before and that is a researched fact.
The way we speak and the things we allow ourselves to say also contribute greatly to the brutal mindset. Yes, things that some people do might not align to your own belief system, but being fanatical about your views and imposing it on others is not correct. Then, going out among the masses and proclaiming things like people should be hanged for eating a certain thing, adds more volatile feelings to an already hyped up crowd. Sadly, people in power are inciting this violent streak instead of curbing it.
The other end of my musings is the complete neutrality we seem to be showing. Every brutal act is turning into a statistic. What happens when emotions are converted into numbers? The feel element is removed. When this occurs, all we are left with is the ‘so what’ attitude. Why is this wrong? One would ask… I work with children and a rising trend I see is apathy. It is not the present generation that is wrong or messed up, but it is us, the generation before. The ones who turned brutal and taught our kids to be the same. By our actions, we have shown this current generation that they don’t really need to care. When we decided to be complacent and let things happen around us, we taught them not to respond. When we allowed ourselves to turn away from helping others and standing up for what is right, we taught them to give up hope for a better tomorrow. Neutrality is something only the media should exert as it is their duty to give us unbiased information. Our duty is to process that information and decipher right from wrong, to understand where things are going and to do something about it. As a part of the human race, we have a lot of reflection to do today, maybe not for ourselves, but for the generations to come.
