With the election season in India over, I have a few thoughts. During this election, I observed a few things with myself as well as others. A few things about what kind of people we generally tend to follow, what kind of people influence us, why do we get influenced by the people we do.
This election was all about people being either pro Modi or anti Modi. A few people said this is a dictatorship, a few people were completely in love with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Mainstream media was either treating Modi like a God or a tyrant (I am including big youtubers in mainstream media, because nowadays they are). I observed a few interesting things with people who choose to follow one or the other. People are generally very stubborn in changing their beliefs. The people who view Modi as God won’t get convinced against their opinion no matter how much you try. Even clear facts and statistics won’t convince them against Narendra Modi. People who view him as a dictator have the same story. They always tend to agree with something that is in favour of their opinion and disagree with something that is against, no matter how valid the opposite arguments are or how dumb the supporting arguments are. This is called confirmation bias in psychology.
There is another separate group of people who follow some influencers or politcians and just because that influencer says something, no matter how invalid or half baked those arguments are, these followers don’t seem to have any problem with them. They are convinced that whatever their favourite influencer or politician says is absolutely true. Adding fuel to the fire, social media algorithms keep on feeding you content that further polarizes your thought.
This is not just true with politics. People have very strong opinions on a lot of things. I have seen a lot of people so convinced that people of some other religion are evil. People have strong opinions on whether to settle abroad or not. There are communities in India where it is seen as a matter of pride if you go to the US to study or work and a matter of shame if you don’t. There are people who are completely against people of a different race. There are vegetarians and vegans who think non vegetarian people are evil. There are theists who think atheists are dumb and vice versa. Polarizing movies and social media further exacerbate the situation. Polarization is everywhere.
I also feel a lot of this polarization also comes from branding and marketing. There are companies which have built a cult like following and people just want the brand name without even having a look at the actual product. There are people in India who are completely brainwashed by this marketing that foreign countries are so much better than India.
Now don’t get me wrong. Not everyone is trying to polarize. There are some genuinely good people who are doing great work out there. Only thing we have to do is to follow the right people. Don’t get influenced by false or incomplete arguments that are polarizing. Try to follow people who are neutral, who show you both the positives and the negatives of something or someone. Try to get opposite viewpoints on everything and then form your opinion. Critical thinking is really important in this social media age.
It is really easy to get into the trap of these people because they generally try to exploit an emotion within you. That emotion could be related to something you have experienced in the past. It could be something you are currently experiencing. The things you experience in your childhood matter a lot. Those experiences shape your opinions, your beliefs, your likes and dislikes. The places where you stop thinking rationally and start thinking emotionally are the places where confirmation bias or authoritative bias can take over. It is really difficult to get out of it.
As always, introspection is a really good way to get out of it. As the famous quote goes.
Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.
-Aristotle
To know more on introspection, check out one of my previous blogs.
So that was today’s blog. This was a short one. Just wanted to share my observations based on the elections. Hope you enjoyed it and found value. Thankyou for reading and stay tuned for more!