On Talking About People Talking About People Talking

The Intolerance Debate: Make it a war of ideas and ideals, not of slang and rancor, says Jayaprakash Satyamurthy.

‘Zounds! I was never so bethump’d with words/Since I first call’d my brother’s father, dad.’

William Shakespeare, The Life and Death of King John

Online dialogue in India has become a self-sustaining ecosystem of recursive metacommentary, orbiting around handy talking points provided in the form of quick soundbytes picked out for our pleasure by the media, or by wingnuts of either or any stripe.

Consider the events of this week: an actor speaks about his wife’s momentary anxieties over remaining in India, when the level of intolerance seems to be increasing. As if on cue, kneejerk patriots and political partisans construe this as an attack on their country, their government, their culture and even on the little boy who lives next door and goes to cricket practice every Saturday at 7 AM.

Offers are made of airline tickets to various majority Islamic countries. Fake memes are created attributing words that were never said to people who never said them. Apps are uninstalled and boycott calls are issued against brands. And in the other corner, self-proclaimed liberals score easy points quoting notable humanist thinkers, pointing out logical fallacies in their foes’ rants and creating dubious memes of their own.

Meanwhile, away from the screens where this parody of punditry unfolds, the real world carries on being real.

Which is not to say that online dialogue is somehow unreal, or that it needs to be shut down. Quite to the contrary. It is only by speaking out about the issues that matter and collectively trying to arrive at understanding, and perhaps even solutions, that we can grow as a society. As a friend of mine pointed out, the issues facing us are not just systemic but also personal, and talking about it is meaningful, or can be.

Activists, celebrities and journalists who bring the problems facing our nation to light are performing a useful service, no matter how easy it is to dismiss them for being shrill, biased, selective or simply craving the limelight. Because the limelight is where our collective woes belong. Exposed to light and fresh air, we may find them easier to understand and to cut down to size.

What isn’t helping is the growing obsession with talking about people talking about people; with the cycle of badinage and repartee that takes on its own momentum and takes us into its own cul-de-sac of punitive rhetoric for its own sake.

I am sensible of the irony of critiquing metacommentary in the form of metacomment like this.

Still, I hope my point is clear: let’s fight out the things that matter on our new digital platforms, by all means. Social media only gives people a clearer, louder voice in their own national dialogue. Let’s use that voice meaningfully and incisively.

Let’s talk about what is wrong, and what is right, how we can know the difference and how we can right wrongs.

But the seduction of engaging in scoring points off the worst, stupidest things people say, and they say a lot of terrible, stupid things, concedes the field to them, even if we win occasional logical or rhetorical battles.

Make it a war of ideas and ideals, not of slang and rancor. And then maybe, just maybe, we’ll start to collectively make some sense of it all.