I got a posting on my Facebook wall, criticizing a
particular professor in the philosophy faculty of a well known university. The
reason was that she had pointed out a few ethical problems with the recent
changes in the admission policy of the university by the Deanery.
I thought that the new admission policy did treat the
rich overseas candidates preferentially over the home students but it might
have been necessary for economic reasons. I wrote that in my comment. There
were a few more comments, some for and some against. It was mostly from other
faculty members.
A week later pretty viscous comments started appearing
both against and for the professor, mostly against. Judging by their language
these commentators did not seem to have completed even their primary education.
Certainly, I thought, they cannot be university students or staff members. Many
people posted some extreme right wing or left wing quotes and pictures. The
commentators started vilifying and threatening other commentators, primary
discussion completely forgotten. From a
civilized discussion it had turned into inflammatory rhetoric. The most lamentable fact was that I did
recognise a few commentators; they were from my own circle of friends and
acquaintances!
This
extreme polarisation is evident on every platform of social media and even on
the television and in broad-sheet newspapers. It is not just limited to media
but is now spilling in the streets and in the corridors of power all over the
world. We are happy to post increasingly offensive jokes and hateful cartoons
about people with opposing views but turn obnoxious if someone posts even an
innocuous joke about our favourite leaders or idols. Every point of contention rapidly transforms
into “you are either with us or against us”. People are ready to maim or kill
for even trivial differences.
Why have we become so aggressively confrontational that
there is no place left for civilized discussions and rational arguments?
I think the reason is our ever persistent old enemy:
Confirmation Bias. We all are somewhat preferential to one or the other view
depending on our personal past experiences and knowledge. When various views
are expressed we are likely to favour the one that is nearer to our own view
and think that it is the correct view. This is confirmation bias. It easily
distorts any conclusion if one is not careful.
Listening to the opposing argument and rigorously evaluating it on its
merit with awareness of our own possible bias is the only way to get to the
truth.
Kabir, an eminent 15th century Indian mystic poet put this
more succinctly: निंदक नियरे राखिए, ऑंगन कुटी छवाय,
बिन पानी, साबुन बिना, निर्मल करे सुभाय।
(Keep your critic
close by; shelter him in your courtyard, Without soap, without water, it will clean
your character)
With instantaneousness of internet social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp etc there is little time for evaluation of contradictory views and reflection. We readily tend to like the people whose views are similar to us and befriend them and ignore or unfriend the people with opposing views. The giant internet companies collect a vast amount of data about our likes and dislikes and then bombard us with recommendations from other institutions and people who happened to have similar views and biases. Our fancy is tickled and we are flattered. We are drawn towards these sites and follow them. The internet algorithms send us more of the same, gradually we only watch the channels which
support our biases, only read
the books, papers and magazines which
support our views. It removes the
natural randomness of our encounter with other points of view in all aspect of
life. This homophily and inbreeding turns the public spaces into echo
chambers. It results in intolerant
societies and dictatorial governments.
The biggest
challenge for humanity in 21st century is to stop this increasing polarisation
of views and dangerous potentiation of biases by taming the big beast, THE
INTERNET.
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