Who Decides Right And Wrong — We
Limits are crucial.
It’s a trend now to abstract the judgement of effects. By the atavistic trick to misapply impartiality, the collective conviction is blurred for personal gains. If a statement does not fit the narrative, credibility is questioned. If it does, anyone can be considered an expert. I must talk about this problem because it is viral on social media currently.
Social media is useful for us. But it is also a deft tool to shepherd ideologies for political and economic advantages. The trends shift thoughts, hence actions. But how can media do this? Because we do not take it seriously. Ideas can be inculcated more through entertainment than serious content. We think we don’t pay attention on the trends but they do drain our focus. We want to believe we are busy with our work while keeping an eye on the social media. No matter how innocent are the intentions our mind records all of it. These subconscious recordings influence our conviction.
By declaring on media something is right or wrong, a choice is provided. Choice to think, and then make a conviction if needed. Not every statement needs a conviction but we do make one. In most of the cases by agreeing with majority. We rob ourselves of the choice and there is no one to blame. But when the choice is smothered by the abstractions like ‘who decides right and wrong’, an inspection is crucial.
Let me show an example —
“A — You have plagiarized the content without giving credit to the creator.
B — Hey, it is very easy to blame and cancel people on internet. Who gets to decide what is right and what is wrong?
A — We. Right now, it is you and I. Not you or I, but you and I. You are trying to defend by contriving the ‘who’ in your question to be singular when it is plural. It is not the phantom-arbiter ‘who’ but the breathing you-and-I ‘who’. If you’ve used the content out of admiration, giving credit or asking for permission shouldn’t affect you. If you thought it’s okay to copy, accepting that it is copied should not affect you either. You are just veneering your action because you yourself believe it is not right. Remember, this is not a retribution but a correction.”
These abstractions are misemployed ideologies. Manipulating the process of inspection to veneer an action. Before applying a knowledge, we must also know how and where to apply it. Half knowledge is forced to fit in the situation by such abstractions. Then further patched by popular narratives. It works well for the nonce but not for good. In these arguments, the purpose is not to solve the problem but to shift attention.
This dicey hack worked well in old times because it was used less. Now it’s being overused. Specially, on internet. When the focus is on proving the knowledge not knowing it, abstraction is misused. We need constraints to understand a thing. Without constraint there is no shape. Without shape we cannot recognize. Before jumping to the abstraction, we need to know the shape. Without the grasp of limits wrong-or-right stays vague.
Rules create limits. The old rules have dire issues. They must be changed. But we need to understand that every rule in not wrong. Rules are dated hence they must be reformed not obsoleted. For that they need to be examined. But we’ve learned only to either conform or defy. Both are wrong processes if done before examining. It’s our responsibility to decide whether to modify the rule, reject the rule, keep the rule or create new rules.
We are so used to of having someone else to decide wrong and right for us that now we ask such inert questions — ‘who gets to decide…’ This is abusing liberty. Liberty is not abstract. Limitlessness is not liberty. Owning our limits is liberty. We do not need another person to decide right and wrong but we can decide it on our own by seeing the problem as a problem to solve.
When the power to choose our limits is given to us, due to inexperience, we start abstracting everything. Because it takes a huge amount of effort to be free and none to be ruled. One needs to keep standing for themselves alone against the world. Nobody is willing to make this effort but everybody wants to be free, apparently by using abstractions.
Authenticity is not abstract. It might seem abstract to people who have not experienced it. If a child has not seen one authentic adult around, authenticity remains obscure to them. This is proclaimed to be a complex systematic problem but it is more of a behavioral issue. It is a procrastination not inability.
My purpose for writing this article is to encourage authenticity. By knowing our truth, we create and learn our limits, and understand and accept other’s. Without this interactive perception we cannot establish wellbeing. There can be lots of reasons for one to be unethical but no reason for them to still be. No matter what was your thought process, you can always choose the one that’s healthy, in the now.
It is time that we start practicing being authentic to ourselves. Not to prove authenticity but to simply be. With this you are not only changing yourself but also the world. By such actions we can make the world the better place we want to be.
