Saturday 12 April 2014

In the country of the blind the one eyed man is not king


I loved the reading The Country of the Blind. Not that I am an expert on Mass Media or Communication, but it shows how hard it is for and individual to convince the masses of a truth. To the cattle widely accepted truth is the truth. For an individual to propagate the truth, however obvious it maybe, is close to impossible.

Take a look at Galileo or the various other astronomers who tried to prove that the earth wasn't the centre of the universe, or even that the world was round. Christianity shunned them as being members of the Illuminati. The Church shunned the very idea of free thinking, as does any other religion. Preachers going "Nooo, I will not let you prove that there is no God!” Religion after all was a tool to control the masses. If there was a God I don't think he would've gone "Hmm....I'll create 10 different races, each with their own god and religion. Over the centuries they'd fight over their one true God and this would be fun to watch! Yo Gabriel! Get me some popcorn would you!” We humans like to believe that that everything in the universe revolves around us so much that even after Carl Sagan told the world that we are nothing but an insignificant speck in the universe, that we still like to believe that it was our very own God who created the universe. Now, try telling them religious folks this.

I know what you're thinking. Being the unpopular voice in a group isn't a comfortable place to be at. Depending on how receptive/hostile people are there is the risk of people developing negative impressions or enmity towards you, or even declaring you a social outcast.

This time the BJP-Congress war was as unfair as that between Christianity and Paganism. If Guy Ritchie were to make a movie on Modi he'd name it The Real Rocknrolla; his movies fit clever, scheming, conniving, corrupt, smooth talking sleaze bags. He has proved that to become the PM of the biggest democracy requires you to have the stronger PR, from flooding feeds on social networks mocking Manmohan to now reinforcing his established strong public identity. Now you can find just about any cow on social networks going "....ab ki baar modi sarkar". Public opinion, being an abstract of fast food news, is shallow.