The Severing Of The Social Contract

This weekend, it was three weeks since the commencement of the atrocities in Gaza. In these days, which are also traditionally the buildup to some of the holiest days of the year in Jewish, Christian and Hindu faiths, we are being told about and shown some horrifying video footage of human suffering and cruelty inflicted on vulnerable people.

In Sri Lanka, we are geographically removed from the current theatre of war. But anxiety is high that this conflict, if not contained, will explode outwards to encompass the entire world. Do we watch, while schoolyard bullies duke it out? Like every viewer of a thriller action movie which contains scenes of extreme violence asks themselves, who do we identify with, in the scenes we see on the screen?

How is World War 3, which appears to have started, different from the previous two? For a start, in 2023, citizens with the aid of personalized technology have the power to document and broadcast and interview people at the frontlines without the intervention of mainstream media.

We have mobile phones, WhatsApp, Instagram, Tik Tok, and Facebook, all with video and audio capability. Until the governments shut down the internet, as they did in Gaza over the weekend, people could tell their stories and show the world outside what their situation was like, and generate insight and empathy.

To see a person in the rubble of their home, injured and bereaved, the life they had built in shards and ribbons, is a powerful contrast to the self-justifying framing narrative of perpetrators of violence against them, calling them ‘animals’ and not human beings. Every human being wants to live: to survive and if possible thrive, and flourish. We can all recognise the devastation of other human beings and the destruction of their dreams and hopes when we see it.

The problem with viewing events via digital media today is the prevalence of falsification: are we sure that what we are seeing is actually real, or is it augmented via technology, and photo shopped, in some way? Is it happening in real time, to real people? Or is it old footage from a couple of years ago, or footage taken from another context? Is reality being misrepresented to us? Not in error, but deliberately, in order to spur us into rage, or an emotional state in which we are easy to herd? Are our real emotions being cynically manipulated, by the use of triggering images and incendiary statements which are then subsequently ‘walked back’ by news commentators? Where do our feelings come from? Where do they land?

What on earth is ‘proportionate response’ to mass murder? How is it defined? How is it measured? How is it being justified?

The second major difference in this conflict is that the citizens of many countries are openly expressing their disagreement with the policies and actions of their own governments. 14 countries voted to continue the conflict, and 120 countries (Sri Lanka amongst them) against. Of the 14 countries whose leaders want to pursue genocidal aggression, although it is described by its perpetrators and apologists as ‘self defence’, huge rallies of citizens can be seen forming in their capital cities, protesting that the ordinary citizens caught in this conflict have human rights which must be recognised and protected.

 
As the countries in which these protests are forming call themselves ‘Democratic’, to shoot down these protestors, to silence or gag or otherwise interfere with their civil rights would expose them as hypocrites.

Thirdly, it is important to note that social media is a huge factor in forming public opinion. What began 15 years ago supposedly to enable the creation of community through technology, to enable communication and the dissemination of information, is now exposed as operating in opposition to those ideals through its frequent misuse.

Misinformation is deliberately put forward through mainstream media channels, and amplified intensely by social media commentary and the way it has been constructed to inflame and weaponise human reaction. It is far easier to react than to think and evaluate, and we have as a species begun some time ago to respond to this coercive manipulation: to offer ourselves up to be tracked and formed into voting blocs, via our viewing preferences, and our likes and shares.

Critical thinking is not taught in schools, colleges and universities, and as it is not possible for us to be physically present at all events in the world, we rely on the media reporters and commentators to represent the events to us, as they occur. Bias and prejudice have tainted these representations, and hardly any media platform is truly objective in its presentation of world events. Selection of content and exclusion of content and deliberate diminishing of some aspects and heightening of others, omission and distortion of facts, and conflation of unrelated events, and false/forced analogies and equivalencies have all eroded our direct relationship with the reality of the world in which we live.

We are living in a state of perpetual cognitive dissonance which is volatile, distressing and uncomfortable. We increasingly see events done in our name to which we have not given our consent, and which we feel powerless to stop. And this feeling of powerlessness leads to disengagement and passive resignation. It is dangerous, to be relegated to the status of a sightseer in the world today.

Governments who act in brazen dismissal and arrogant contempt of the wishes of the citizens who elected them and still call themselves ‘Democratic’ are clearly exploiting the theory of the Social Contract on which democratic governance is based. They seem to treat the voting citizens as a group of people to be lied to, flattered with false promises at times of election, and blatantly ignored between elections, once the numbers of votes have delivered the mandate they need to rule.

It is notable that countries who loudly call themselves ‘beacons of democracy’ and valorise people’s rights in theory are the ones who most aggressively violate people’s rights if they conflict with their own pursuit of power. It is not enough to ask leaders of countries like this to recognise the rights of their voting citizens, and to actually represent their true beliefs honestly and accurately.

It’s a contract. To ensure that democratic systems operate well, the citizens of these countries must educate themselves, using the resources available to them, and look at the difference between the actions of their leaders and the words on the slogan boards and the promotional advertisements. We must look for our information beyond the comments threads on social media.

Only then can the contract be made more functional. Effort is required. To see what is happening around us, past the spin and below the surface, to think and to act accordingly. What we think is what informs our actions. It is a form of protest. It can help to save the world.