THE CONFRONTATION TRAP
The world in general and India in particular are being consumed by the confrontation trap. A distraction that neither can afford. EPISODE #24
Dear Reader,
A very happy Monday to you.
The worst of the second wave of covid-19 seems behind us. At least that is what the data suggests at the national level with new infections dropping from the peaks of 4 lakh-plus. However, this masks the threat lurking at the regional level. States like West Bengal, Kerala are still in the red zone. Unfortunately most media reporting glosses over this fact. The underlying danger of buying into this is that we lower our guard—like it happened after the end of the first wave last year. So fingers crossed.
Meanwhile the spat between the union government and some opposition-ruled states over the roll-out plan for vaccines continues. The worst kept secret of India’s jab project is that at this stage there aren’t enough supplies; it will start easing towards the end of the year. Yet the government, both centre and states, jumped the gun and announced vaccines for all. With reality hitting home states are beginning to suspend the roll-out for those between 18-45 years; bizarre, because some in this cohort have already taken their first jab (while Covishield allows for a delay of upto three months for the second jab, the same is not true for Covaxin). The end result: even more chaos. And sadly, yet again, this was avoidable.
This brings me to the subject of this week’s newsletter. The blame game we are witnessing is a fallout of this problem of perennial confrontation. The noise that such confrontations generate bury the basic facts—in this instance that there are just not enough supplies to go around. Falling prey to the confrontation trap is not just true for politicians—it is just that we see their spats play out in public gaze thanks to the saturation coverage it gets from TRP/eyeball hungry media. It is an unfortunate fact of the new social reality. The consequence of living in a binary world. So this week I try to look under the hood as it were and explore the cause and consequences of the confrontation trap.
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THE OUTRAGE OVERLOAD
If you were to peruse the headlines of newspapers or for that matter eyeball the trending conversation in the ubiquitous virtual rooms like WhatsApp you would be struck by the tone: confrontation.
It is the characteristic defining most conversations, online or offline, whether it be in India or the world.
Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Outrage has been the single biggest trend dominating our conversations forever.
It is just that the rapid evolution of social media and the resulting democratisation has provided everyone with a platform—often anonymously and thereby the perfect cover to indulge freely in verbal toxicity. Isn’t it ironic that the rapid improvement in communication—from snail-mail to email—has only stoked even more confusion and confrontation. Intuitively the diverse points of view should actually steer solutions towards the middle. One reason this has not happened is the convergence of fact and fiction in the business of fake news—the weapon of mass disinformation. Something that enables masking prejudice as an argument.
The prevailing mantra is ‘my way or the highway’. What these echo chambers have done is to shrink the space for moderates—who normally provide the platform for debate. And the outcome is a binary discourse.
Is there an end to this overdose of outrage?
If you ask me, the answer is in our hands. We have to create the circumstances for moderates to reclaim their space in a democracy like India.
The Reality
You may recall that I had previously mentioned how unbridled acrimony forced me to retreat from several WhatsApp groups. Trust me, it was a worthwhile decision. While I have retained bilateral connections my daily life is free of the ill effects of bellicosity which inevitably accompanies group conversations.
What is true for individuals holds up even more starkly in the political domain.
The just concluded state elections—especially in West Bengal—was a confrontation spectacle. I had believed the tonality of the 2019 general election was the worst; the West Bengal poll struck a new low with neither the incumbent nor the challenger holding back their punches. The funny thing is that this acrimony continues even after the incumbent, Trinamool Congress, recorded a landslide win.
Exactly the point I wish to make. The business of confrontation is like a URL search—never ending. Adversaries get locked into a long term face off. It becomes more damaging when it involves political groupings or countries—like right now the western nations led by the United States are risking a long term confrontation with China; like it did with the erstwhile Soviet Union.
The danger of this is that it is distracting and will force wrong decisions and disastrous outcomes. Let us take the example of India’s jab project. It was no secret that there are limited supplies of vaccines—the very fact that even this quantity is available in such short time is a tribute to our scientists. According to data compiled by the United Nations the total supplies of jabs worldwide at the end of June is projected at 7.2 billion—this capacity will more than double to 15.2 billion by December. The developed world led by the United States has pre-empted the first batch of these supplies. Exactly why everyone else has had to triage.
In the Indian context the union government decided, rightly so, to begin with our frontline covid warriors. And then extended it to those above 60 years and later expanded it to those above 45 years. Mysteriously however there was a sudden frenzy of public opinion, inspired by political colours, that this needs to be opened up immediately to everyone above 18 years of age.
In theory absolutely yes. But in practice a big No.
Now not only are states suspending their plans for the cohort of 18-45 years, worse they are creating a crowding effect by chasing the same limited global supplies of jabs. If indeed the centre and states had not got absorbed in a needless confrontation this chaos could have been avoided. More importantly these energies could have been deployed in saving lives and livelihoods.
Dialogue Central
In my earlier experience of suffering vitriolic conversations on WhatsApp I had realised the problem was that most of us had stopped listening to each other. Ironic because our entire effort at an individual level was to ensure the other side heard us out. Obviously if all of us did so at the same time then we forgot one crucial fact: Who is listening?
The tragedy is that this has not happened overnight. It has long been coming.
Academics and experts have been flagging this for a long time. I had, in my previous avatar, stumbled upon the work of David Bohm, a physicist, who argued this point very compellingly in his book, Dialogue.
And he made this point when television became a part of our lives in the last century; another step that brought communication to people. Yet it achieved the exact opposite outcome.
“The very attempt to improve communication leads frequently to yet more confusion, and the consequent sense of frustration inclines people ever further toward aggression and violence, rather than toward mutual understanding and trust.”
Bohm was very prescient.
As media has evolved with newer improvements—the acceleration has been most visible in the Internet era—the quality of discourse has plummeted. In fact social media has turned into mediums to channelise anger and frustrations. Very often this is the outcome of some kind of manipulation. Either by misrepresenting facts or simply generating fake news—the business model of outrage. As Bohm put it:
“In spite of this worldwide system of linkages, there is, at this very moment, a general feeling that communication is breaking down everywhere, on an unparalleled scale. What appears is generally at best a collection of trivial and almost unrelated fragments, while at worst, it can often be a really harmful source of confusion and misinformation.”
Clearly social media inspired echo chambers eschew dialogue and discourage us from listening to each other.
Now we know what is the problem, the solution is obvious: create the space for dialogue. This is exactly why moderates have to shed their diffidence and reclaim their space usurped by the extremists on the Left and Right of the political spectrum.
Indeed it is a tall task. But doable.
Recall the roll out of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) which required political consensus. It is probably the biggest piece of reform ever, wherein states and the union government pooled their sovereignty (the power to tax) to create the powerful idea of ‘One Nation, One Tax’. States gave up on their powers to tax and Parliament conceded this right to the GST Council headed by the union finance minister. Exactly why it took over two decades to productionise.
But it did get done, right.
And the key to achieving this was just one reason: dialogue.
Recommended Viewing
Keeping with the theme for this week I am sharing a clip from Ted Talks by Julia Galef, who self describes herself as “an author, podcaster, and speaker with a passion for good reasoning”. In this episode Galef examines why we continue to think we are right even when we know we are wrong. Listen in.
Till we meet again next week. Stay safe.
I wish that the maximum number of people would read this article. The people who run this government, the opposition party members who have a say and especially the people who run the 24×7 news channels, that survive on hosting "discussions" where the participants are "listening", while in the process of deciding on their next reply in the heated verbal brawl passed off as "debate". The pressure created by the spokespersons of the opposition parties and an assortment of other knowledgeable persons, resulted in the government declaring vaccination of all adults from 1st May. The opposition has grabbed this offer gleefully and are going all guns blazing in the castigation of the failureofthe government. It seems that rather than treating the snake bite, so to say, it has now become more important to find out whose snake it is. In this ongoing confrontation the Indian people are liable to suffer more, than was necessary. In the end truth usually is revealed; saner heads could preach the virtues of patience.
Cannot agree more Anil. Somehow, most of us rather talk than listen and it is pretty evident in our WhatsApp groups. They'd rather believe a fake news on face value, than analyze it, talk to people and use google to form an informed opinion. It has to change. Few years ago, I took it upon myself to improve the youtube recommendations of people I care. I forwarded them videos of TedTalks or authentic youtube channels bringing out informative videos. This not only improved their youtube feeds, but also changed their viewing habits. It came to an end with me deleting WhatsApp for good a year ago. So, as you said, moderates need to reclaim the space of the extremes.
The image of flowers added is pretty. I follow your pot gardening on twitter. It's cool. Good day!!