Talking Shop: Debilitating morality

“Your time is limited, so don’t

waste it living someone else’s

life. Don’t be trapped by

dogma—which is living with

the results of others’ thinking.”

―Steve Jobs

Similar to Steve Jobs, I was a happy baby and life was total fun. Unlike him, my Campa Cola, barely affordable once a month, was a festival. If I managed a plate of chhole bhature or vegetable chowmein, life was bliss. Va-va-voom it was. I sauntered around like a prince—since me, the eat-dom of khatoons, had arrived. Times have changed. We are turning obnoxious and self-centred. Yesterday, I knew my neighbour and his uncle’s name. Today, I realized that my neighbour’s Beagle baby I have been calling Diva for two years is actually Elsa. Sorry, Elsa. We humans have changed, inured and hardened to the new realities of life, to the things that matter to us. Popsicle, Elsa?

What has gone wrong? I have and you have, for we are getting battle-hardened beyond the pale. What has made us turn thus, you ask? Simply, it is the environment around us, which is getting vitiated on all the peripherals that impact and affect us, and impale our lives. Communities are fragmented, people are increasingly distant and a feeble economic outlook for the middle and lower classes is hitting everyone where it really matters. The powerful remain unconcerned, the lower echelons indulge in subservience and the masses are left with little option but to monitor fuel and tomato prices, as also their own nuts. The majority finds it rough to be gracious as times are tough and the calls we have to make to survive tougher. But we have to learn to remain human(e).

Worldwide phenomenon

This bleak outlook is not limited to India. Look at China, which is increasingly hiding data on its soaring youth joblessness rate, a clear and chilling sign that the country is restricting fragile information, more so when it is uncomplimentary to its stuttering economy. The unemployment rate of the youth in the 16-24 years’ category has now hit the danger mark, after hitting a record of 21.3 per cent in June. That one-fifth of young people are out of work is worrying for a ruling Communist Party obsessed with manipulating its global standing and highlighting social stability. As China faces threats and its stated economic targets for 2023 turn into a joke, more data is being kept away.

The Netherlands is worse-off; it has slid into recession. The Dutch economy has slithered for the second straight quarter, says an estimate by the National Statistics Bureau. The fall recorded over the second quarter was 0.3 per cent, after the first three months of 2023 showed a slide of 0.4 per cent. A decline in household consumption was a major contributor to the contraction in the last quarter, as Dutchmen (and women) bought less as pockets began to pinch.

The US is no better off. While ‘Bidenomics’ sounds good, the reality on the ground is worrisome. Federal Reserve officials warn of a possible rise in inflation, triggering rate hikes. This terser-than-expected tone from the Fed is prompting market fears that it may continue its tough monetary tightening moves after a pause. Further rate hikes will not just pose risks to the embattled US banking sector, but also represent a grave threat to the global economy itself.

Antsy and pantsy

In the process, people are globally getting antsy and pantsy. Unrest is at a high, bonhomie and patience is a thing of the past, communities are crumbling and riots are breaking out. The world as a whole seems to be heading for a societal faceoff. Anger over growing social inequality and the cost of living, sinking faith in Governments and institutions, polarized politics, together with a rise in activism and environmental concerns, are key factors fuelling incidents of strikes, riots and civil commotion, according to a report earlier this year by Allianz Global.

Since that report was published, things have gotten worse. Strikes, riots and commotion worldwide have not just increased; they are becoming more severe and catastrophic, making today’s era one of uncertainty. Get a load of this—since 2017, more than 400 significant anti-Government protests have erupted globally, with the Ukraine war being a key factor. Ironically, the influx of social media into our lives is a cause for this depredation and degradation. The same instant communication tools that saw the world ride out the COVID-19 storm are catalyzing global societal cataclysms, ratcheting up economic damages of $12 billion from just six incidents between 2018 and 2023.

An irony of life; the pandemic helped reduce unrest. Prior to COVID-19, social turbulence increased worldwide—the most prominent was the wave of protests that began in Chile and lanced through parts of Latin America in October and November 2019. Bloody clashes occurred in the Middle East; in Algeria, Iran, Iraq and Lebanon. The unrest declined sharply at the start of the pandemic amid an increase in social distancing, voluntary and mandatory. What a palpable saving grace.

What is the answer?

If I knew that, I would be King (since I don’t, am I Queen?). Jest apart, the world is going through a phase of intense re-alignment, not necessarily well-intentioned. A few leaders are conspiring to (and almost succeeding in) creating their personal empires at the cost of the masses. If a million or two or more perish in the process, so be it. Remember Adolf Hitler’s statement in the mid-1930s—“The next 1,000 years will not witness another revolution in Germany. The National Socialist movement is absolute master of the Reich and its leadership rests in the hands of its best men.”

Pooh and boo, for life and history are great levellers. Hitler committed suicide along with his brand-new wife and long-term mistress Eva Braun on April 30, 1945, barely 10 years later, as the British and Americans closed in on Germany from the west, the Soviets from the east, with Hitler holed up like a rat in a bunker under the Chancellery in Berlin, still denying defeat. That’s chutzpah served true justice, for such comes the end of all dictators. Saddam Hussein. Osama Bin Laden. Many more.

At the end of this discourse, my advice to my friends and fellow humans is this—every day, sing like no one is listening, love like you have never been hurt, dance like nobody is watching and live like it is heaven on Earth. It is, if you care to make it happen. There shall be impediments, but that is a test of your resilience. There’s no second quote in this column today, only me, so bear with this one.

PS: Incidentally, this is my 200th consecutive column on these pages and I thank the Editors and the support staff for persevering and putting up with my rambling. God bless us all.

The writer is a veteran journalist and communications specialist. He can be reached on narayanrajeev2006@gmail.com. Views expressed are personal