Media, a bane-infested boon.
We have many boons that are bane infested. Media is one.
Just to drive home this point, I attach two articles, published in the Hindustan Daily dated 27th October.
One is authored by Harsh Mander, Director, Centre For Equity Studies; and the other by Rob Leech, a documentary film producer. The two articles are respectively captioned , "Pahle Mun Saaf Kijiye, Phir Sadak" , and "Yeh Naujawan Jehadi Kaise Ban Gaye". The former is obliquely critical about Modi's Swachch Bharat Abhiyan; wheteas the latter purports to analyse an issue which led author's cousin into straying away from the social mainstream and joining Al Quida.
These two contemporary issues, like several such others, are like fast food, ready to move out of the store and get consumed. Getting space in news paper columns is not like a walk in interview. Fast food-like stuff makes it efficacious for getting a ready entry, irrespective of its content value, for the desk that is supposed to examine contents happens to be like a bus stop that ill affords delay by the boarding passengers, else 'miss the bus'.
In this kind of haste, junk food gets consumed, yielding consequences that are well understood, rather broadly decried.
What is more, the intellectual rubbish that gets continually dished out has readers who might not have the requisite discerning sense. The idea conveyed thus infects. The result remains un-manifest, brewing , that which a term in Hindi would be most appropriate, of which an exact equivalent in English might require a dedicated search, as opposed to that which is in usage. The said apt term is, 'Avidya', which is an antonym of the term 'Enlightenment'. Avidya is intellectual darkness. To dispel Avidya, peripheral learning or literacy is not adequate, unless experiential supplements accompany. This is not an easy task. To appreciate this, one may adopt an easy exercise. Just take up any modern gadget. Be that a smart phone, or an internet device or a computer system or any system with advanced technology in general use but alien to the user who is a first timer. The system would put up firewalls, rendering it unusable, despite volumes of user manuals or oral guidance that are bereft of experiential aid.
Human kind is already under countless sets of complexities inundated in the above said antonym of the term 'Enlightenment', to dispel which scores of institutional and non-institutional efforts are afoot , the world over. Any contribution from any source, that augments this dark area in the human psyche, is best to avoid. To deplore is to begin to avoid. The present effort is, accordingly, a humble effort, but what is worth noticing is the fact that the deprecation is addressed against the Media which is misconceived by many to be an instrument for dispelling darkness, rather than sizing it up rightly as a junk food dispenser, doing less good than harm at the psychic level.
It is in this premise that the above said two articles are under test herein, which test would be pursued in respect of other materials that ate dished out in a junk food style.
(To be continued ...)
We have many boons that are bane infested. Media is one.
Just to drive home this point, I attach two articles, published in the Hindustan Daily dated 27th October.
One is authored by Harsh Mander, Director, Centre For Equity Studies; and the other by Rob Leech, a documentary film producer. The two articles are respectively captioned , "Pahle Mun Saaf Kijiye, Phir Sadak" , and "Yeh Naujawan Jehadi Kaise Ban Gaye". The former is obliquely critical about Modi's Swachch Bharat Abhiyan; wheteas the latter purports to analyse an issue which led author's cousin into straying away from the social mainstream and joining Al Quida.
These two contemporary issues, like several such others, are like fast food, ready to move out of the store and get consumed. Getting space in news paper columns is not like a walk in interview. Fast food-like stuff makes it efficacious for getting a ready entry, irrespective of its content value, for the desk that is supposed to examine contents happens to be like a bus stop that ill affords delay by the boarding passengers, else 'miss the bus'.
In this kind of haste, junk food gets consumed, yielding consequences that are well understood, rather broadly decried.
What is more, the intellectual rubbish that gets continually dished out has readers who might not have the requisite discerning sense. The idea conveyed thus infects. The result remains un-manifest, brewing , that which a term in Hindi would be most appropriate, of which an exact equivalent in English might require a dedicated search, as opposed to that which is in usage. The said apt term is, 'Avidya', which is an antonym of the term 'Enlightenment'. Avidya is intellectual darkness. To dispel Avidya, peripheral learning or literacy is not adequate, unless experiential supplements accompany. This is not an easy task. To appreciate this, one may adopt an easy exercise. Just take up any modern gadget. Be that a smart phone, or an internet device or a computer system or any system with advanced technology in general use but alien to the user who is a first timer. The system would put up firewalls, rendering it unusable, despite volumes of user manuals or oral guidance that are bereft of experiential aid.
Human kind is already under countless sets of complexities inundated in the above said antonym of the term 'Enlightenment', to dispel which scores of institutional and non-institutional efforts are afoot , the world over. Any contribution from any source, that augments this dark area in the human psyche, is best to avoid. To deplore is to begin to avoid. The present effort is, accordingly, a humble effort, but what is worth noticing is the fact that the deprecation is addressed against the Media which is misconceived by many to be an instrument for dispelling darkness, rather than sizing it up rightly as a junk food dispenser, doing less good than harm at the psychic level.
It is in this premise that the above said two articles are under test herein, which test would be pursued in respect of other materials that ate dished out in a junk food style.
(To be continued ...)
No comments:
Post a Comment