Aristotle ingeniously claimed that ‘man is a rational animal’. This also means that rationality should be the qualifying trait to define a man. A slight deviation could result in sliding back to the square one – the tailed one. In recent times, we are particularly fascinated by the life in a zoo. The developed civilization had embraced reason two millennia back, for the sake of advancement and development. And it is acceptable for a few to be swayed away from rationality and committing something hazardous, or, on the other hand astonishingly divine actions. But imitating the pig, or a hyena, on how they eat is like jumping in a pit intentionally in an attempt to reach the top.
That being the case, each person, these days, is being internally chased by some external influences, haunting them to the last minute before they submit themselves to the chaser. The virtual world aggravates the haunting by supplying more apparitions. For instance, people also term themselves as ‘influencer’ just because they are presenting themselves on a screen, and doing something or acting on a particular note, which they felt that those actions will somehow convince the audiences, or viewers, to take their side and support them. Now the very act of influencing is becoming exceptionally effective. Two three decades ago, anything that appeared on the screen, even if it was a serious news items, we all termed it as entertainment programs. But these days, it is all about searching, like a mission, a group of people who find the content convincing and entertaining at the same time. When one finds the content, somehow, is linked with his or her dopamine, and if the functioning AI of the system recognised that he or she is linked to this particular content, one is being swayed, and the campaign is successful. Now, who is responsible for the content that is being created, and the audiences or viewers wholly or partially convinced by such contents?
There are certain moral responsibilities which are associated with any kinds of activities involving the masses or the public. The academic world is aware of the broad studies in the field of business ethics, or professional ethics. This does not mean that there are hard and fast rules that one must mandatorily abide, and morality, by its very nature, is confined to the human will, which again is the product of human reasoning. No one wants to demoralize the emerging content creators, or influencers by dragging in the boring academic dialogues and discourses. But, at the same time, serious peoples are also aware of the fact that, despite their(the content creators) ignorance in the domain of ethical or moral theories, one must be rational enough to intuitively realize and recognise a small degree of moral responsibilities that underlies their work, through their conscience, and simply through their love of fellow human beings. On the contrary, most have sequenced their actions and its corresponding outcomes favouring the owner or the creator. Bluntly speaking, when you sabotage the social etiquettes, you are also creating and projecting a path where everyone can take, and achieve certain things, which most find pleasurable, but sinister and cheap in relation to the sublime and disciplined social fabrics.
Society, which is composed by the people in general, had never really have the time to think of themselves. This is in the sense that most of their times are being occupied by the survival activities. Their innocence and simplicity were, first manipulated and harnessed by the people involved in power race, and second, the so-called influencers are trying to find a room within them, and persuade them to watch their contents. These persuasions will always be accompanied by strong justifications. Now, if you justify your actions as being entertaining and relieving, by sedating us with some kind of substances, then we also have the right to express our scepticisms. An artist, or a student of art, instead of excelling in their field, is being seduced by the unskilled fame and riches. Should we categorize the gulping down of a kilogram of pork in twenty minutes as some kind of skill? If that is the case, we can put multiple animals in our list.
The previous generation has always dreamed of making the future generation into something more developed and advanced. They don’t like their children attempt to create autonomous sensory meridian response of what they eat and what they do in their bathroom, in return of some silver or golden credits. Most people don’t have the time to debate in such topic, but if persuasions begin to drive the emerging generations into something which disjoin themselves from socio-moral responsibilities, then it will get its deserving backlashes in time. These backlashes will be not in the form of action-reaction, but in the form of a scenario where the living-dead(s) will be crawling at your own premise.
The writer is Assistant Professor, Imphal College
