Most of us do not concern ourselves with ideological questions. That is to say, interrogating the positive (what is) definitions of social realities and offering an alternative normative (what ought to be) working mechanism for a saner world to dwell in. Tell a student to do a certain act to obtain high marks in exams, and he/she would jump to the bandwagon rather than suspecting the utility and preference of marks over learning. Tell an "artist" to perform a unique act of taking off his shirt (which would be a heresy in certain cultural contexts) for a 15-seconds reel, and it's unlikely that he would suspect the moral dimensions of his act and would "go for it". The world is "progressing" without a moral foundation, and as if it were some commandments, we are "going with the flow". This scenario amplifies the relevance of Herbert Marcuse, a critical theorist, more than ever, who posited that the modern man is "one-dimensional", he moves and adjusts with the time rather than questioning the paradigm.
However, although in pockets, any hegemonic order has always evidenced a subversive element that critiques and challenges the status quo. That is not to imply that every "progress" is impregnated with negative connotations, but rather, every act of "progress" gives and takes away. Every innovation has its protagonists and antagonists. It is never an "either-or", but a "this-that". And if one was to err, it is better to err on the sceptic side than the majority opinion.
Human beings have, since inception, tested and invented a variety of modes of communication with each having certain characteristics that creates ripples in the existing ecology. At first, they communicated in the form of face-to-face interactions. This medium has the virtue of presenting, to a huge extent, a projection of true version of one's self. One would need no transmitter save for air to convey their message. With the sprint of history, as humans invented alphabets, a revolution was observed in communication. Now the distant ones could be communicated to without being present physically there. This new medium, the first attempt to conquer space, carried its own characteristics. It hosted contemplation and patience since immediate response was not an obligation upon the receiver. The invention of alphabets or writing as a medium of communication has the virtue of being pioneer to humankind's greatest inventions and discoveries. It was the written word, not the spoken word that, invited sagacity and made us call ourselves "sapiens", the wise ones.
In an effort to conquer both time and space, we first invented the telegraph, followed by television. These devices, as others, had strings of characteristics attached since both of them preferred "speed-of-light" transmission of information. But this efficiency came with a price. Sagacity, or slow reflection, embarked on a downwards trajectory of vanishing, since speed of light transmission of news were in consistent need of being updated, which invited less relevant news and information to the mainstream discourses.
As if we weren't cognizant of the roles these aforementioned technologies performed in our lives, a new, and perhaps the most revolutionary mode of "communication" was brought into existence, i.e. social media. If bought at face value, the platform democratized information and eased access to a "global community". But clandestinely, this ease of access erected unprecedented problems. On one hand, constant scrolling made us passive consumer of information packaged as entertainment rather than active thinkers; and on the other, we pushed towards the pursuit of an inhumane "value", a pursuit totally dissonant to human core of fallibility, the pursuit of perfectionism.
When we post something on social media, or least, even join it, we enter a "global community" of billions of people. With a huge magnitude of populace eyeing you, one is tempted to project an image of themselves in contradiction with, and unconnected from, the reality at hand. Users are in a consistent pursuit of perfecting themselves to be the best available version of themselves and accumulate followers and likes. At this precise point, one is perhaps sitting on a stove, by deceiving his true authentic self and escaping from facing his true self, which is certainly, a tough task to "perform". In the parallel, the user creates a sense of incompetency in the viewer, who himself is a fallible human, and perceives this performative spectacle as a projection of reality and begins self-doubt.
This performative spectacle, unfortunately, doesn't limit itself and dilutes the ecology altogether. I take a pause here and bring a personal experience of mine that occurred to me recently and is one of the push factors for me to write this piece. Recently, in a project with a local NGO on promoting interfaith harmony, I met a student who, in his introduction, mentioned that he is working as a coordinator for a students' organization that promotes liberal and free market. I asked him the purpose of joining this very body, to which he responded with straight attacks on Marxism, which happens to be an alternative to free market. Confronted by some very desiccated arguments from his side where he boasted about the free market, I was tempted to ask a series of questions and complemented them with a chain of criticism on liberal democracy. When left with no more justifications for the aforementioned political system, he sheltered himself in the sentence "I'm doing [joining this organization] for CV enhancement, like many others". A few seconds of silence followed, and I smiled. I suspect within, why join something you aren't enthusiastic about for a mere addition to CV? The answer generated within was rather swift. Perform, don't contribute since a surreal CV has more substance than a real and raw skill and talent.
After the completion of workshop, I evidenced the participants posting their pictures on LinkedIn with captions "delighted to attend this workshop", "Happy to learn about the topic", "great to interact with diverse people" etc. Upon the observation of this sight, I was again tempted to suspect the curation of "LinkedIn spectacle", an act of performativity that lends you job. This is not intended to offend any of the participants but the contribution to discourse on peaceful co-existence, approached almost zero. The real and surreal stood in dissonance again.
Resuming from where I paused, this mundaneness of performative spectacles is pervasive enough to negotiate the mental health of individuals, with Gen-Z being the most affected constituency. Born into a temporal dimension of cosmetic display, a Gen-Z is consistently exposed to curated perfections of fellow humans and dangerously, to "influencers" who carry such an aura of actuality that convinces the viewers on social media of their inferiority, hence in the process, precipitating a downward spiral of mental health and neural resources consumption on productive exercises.
Regardless of how "progressed" humanity becomes, we can't escape our human core, an algorithm that drives our life subconsciously, "to err is human". No amount of cosmetic appearance or performative spectacles can perfect an individual. There is a dire need of constructing definitions of social realities on moral and ethical normative frameworks rather than negotiating with the "flow" and using substance as a bargaining chip with "progress", because only dead fishes go with the flow. Interrogating this climate of cosmetics makes us humans. No thinker better than Pascal has encapsulated the fallibility of humans with his quote:
"Even if the universe has crushed him, man would still be less noble than what has killed him. For he knows that he is dying, and of its victory, the universe is uncertain."