Dear Zoomers,
If you find some of my opinions shocking, you have probably not met many people who are different from you. And it is not surprising, since we live in a society which is 99% right-wing. Naturally, the only opinions you’ll hear are in a very narrow range.
Of course, what’s acceptable in terms of thought and speech varies from person to person. Some people want to be politically or culturally correct. Many value groupthink over individuality. Some are too lazy to consciously update their opinions. A fraction is afraid of reprisals. But everyone benefits from getting cotton wool out of their ears. You, as young people need to defend and expand that space or acceptance zone, not shrink it further because of … umm … feelings. After all, real nastiness is in trying to silence all dissenting voices, and not really in people making unpopular statements.
You will, in your lives, come across opinions that you don’t agree with and which quite possibly offend you. It’s alright! The world is full of ideas and viewpoints that will mock or challenge your beliefs. Hearing them can be devastating at first because the beliefs that you picked up from your friends and family and now call your own, can be a part of your identity and you might have invested a lot of time and effort chasing those ideals. But you are still young so how can you settle on who you are, without being exposed to much at all? It’s actually called Identity Foreclosure 🤓. Google that.
In progressive societies, we would usually start discussions where we go in with intellectual curiosity, not moral certitude. This allows our thoughts to mature. Good ideas can stay because they can be backed up and unsound ideas get filtered away. We may also realize that a lot of what we hold dear is dogma and superstition, that’s best discarded. For my part, I will defend a person’s right to drink cow piss if they believe in its medicinal properties, but I will also exercise my right to say: like, seriously!!! (See, I have already self-censored by giving an example that wouldn’t offend many from my country, but I do want you to extrapolate 👀).
Also, just because you identify with a particular faith, or a particular political party, or a particular ideology, it doesn’t mean you have to agree with every opinion or policy or action or representative, within that affiliation. For example, I can be a Muslim, and still call out the sexism in Islam. I can be liberal without being a Protestant, even though John Locke was. I can also acknowledge that the PTI govt has handled this pandemic reasonably well, while still thinking that IK is an unreliable, self-involved, bigoted, populist. Phew! The point is, it doesn’t have to be an all-or-none subscription. I don’t see why I have to make my or your life miserable over opinions and interpretations from thinkers who lived hundreds of years ago, because this is a different age, and a different place, and we are more evolved humans, or are we?
Empirically, the more a country lags socially or economically, the higher its religiousity index. That’s how people cope with chaos and adversity! Hence, no surprise that with every passing year, Pakistanis get more and more conservative and paranoid. Looking at the opposite end of the spectrum, eg., in Scandinavia, where there’s guaranteed basic income, free education, healthcare and a baseline living standard, people aren’t really looking towards God to meet their needs, so their faith doesn’t hijack their lives. Sure, religiosity can be good if it solves more problems than it creates, but too much of it can backfire and keep us chained to the past, like it has in Pakistan. Often times, it also takes the focus away from the here and now to a distant hereafter, robbing people of agency and instead giving them a fatalistic attitude towards life. If we have learnt anything from history and by observing the rise and fall of other countries, it is this: people who create knowledge own the world. Those who consume it, may be able to improve their condition, those who waste time on retrofitting it to suit their beliefs end up at the bottom of the food chain.
To sum up:
1. You as humans deserve dignity and respect. But your ideas and beliefs must stand or fall on their own merit. They’re not automatically entitled to respect.
2. You will become a critical thinker when you get rid of the no-go zones in your mind. So, loosen up, come out of your echo-chambers, pick any one idea that you are absolutely sure of and research what its critics say. Then bounce it off friends. Discomfort often leads to growth.
Higher education (assuming you did get it) is supposed to make you lean left and liberal, sociopolitically speaking.
So go ahead, claim that space. Be you!
Peace, N
Someone's Gotta Say It! 