Truth, context and keyboard warriors

In a world often riddled with devastations, much of it are misunderstandings dressed up by the persistence of ambition to declare the reality of a situation, or what reality ought to be.

More often than not, we seem to take our beliefs for granted until they are dragged into the limelight, challenged frequently and then later, assaulted to reveal undesirable sentiments.

In fact, I find that one of the most used phrases to convince someone else of the argument of their case is to conclude confidently, “This is the truth!”

However, in making such declaration that begs us to trust and not dispute, there might be little evidence or explanation as to how one arrives at their conclusion.

This leaves room for misguidance, misinformation and worst of all, ignorance.

It might be difficult to comprehend why such a phenomenon occurs. From a philosophical standpoint, we might just be able to grasp it.

Perhaps it would be easier if we started off with the fundamental question to this – what is “truth”?

Some weeks ago, my friends and I from Universiti Kaki Lima sought to explore the answers to the question.

We conducted a public session called “Kopi, Kebenaran dan Konteks” (Coffee, Truth and Context) in conjunction with "Buy Nothing Day" held in Medan Pasar, Kuala Lumpur.

Ideally, we wanted to discuss the philosophy of truth and the relevance of contexts in its influence on “truth” (without forgetting the perks of free food and drinks).

Our minds undergo a process of assimilating knowledge that lets us have our convictions. This is because truth is the “precondition of knowledge”.

We have knowledge only when we have justifications and propositions that seem to “add-up” to being true to what we believe in.

In that case, it obviously seems that the truth is rather narrow and exclusive in its nature. Hence, that would imply that we should also be prepared to accept that the “truth” may not be based on our beliefs. 

By understanding this, we are able to acknowledge that our upbringing, culture and educational exposure shapes the context for our opinions. It comes from the reflections based on the lenses of experience, or as you can put it, our “worldview”.

Sometimes, we may see current affairs from a political perspective or even a historical one, and to others, they might look at it based on an awareness of gender and race.

All in all, it will produce a diversity of views on the same situation and to each one, this might be the only way to look at it.

As a further matter, the propagation and loyalty to our “truths” in life are very much affected by our emotions.

The more relatable whatever situation or object within our reality is, the more likely we are to accept it to be true.

In being able to have a sense of connection and relationship to a subject matter, it must be inevitable that feelings govern our sensitivities towards our belief system.

Which is why in many occasions, the utterances of some can sometimes be deemed as insensitive or inconsiderate, mostly due to a certain amount of detachment and inability to relate to the situation.

This might explain why people get rather defensive when we challenge their stance on issues.

In explaining these concepts during the session, we illustrated them through a couple of case studies in today’s global epidemics.

For example, the refugee crisis in Europe.

Some believe that their governments have a humanitarian duty to spare resources for Syrian refugees to liberate themselves from persecution and war. On the other hand, there are people who also consider the negative prospects an influx of Muslim refugees would create in their country.

Fears of Islamization, unfair economic competitiveness and nationalist rhetoric of anti-immigration happen to be commonly founded bitterness among them.

Much of the hostility is an evident detachment that makes us empathetically unavailable. Unfortunately, even this attitude seems to be escalating rather quickly as reflected in social media today.

In a study by the authors of the best-seller, “Crucial Conversations”, they discovered that there is a rising trend of incivility on social media sites.

Their online survey concluded that – 76% have witnessed an argument over social media, 19% have decreased in-person contact with someone because of something they said online, 88% believe people are less polite on social media than in person, and 81% say the difficult or emotionally charged conversations they have held over social media remain unresolved.

“Social media platforms allow us to connect with others and strengthen relationships in ways that weren’t possible before.

Sadly, they have also become the default forums for holding high-stakes conversations, blasting polarizing opinions and making statements with little regard for those within screen shot,” says co-author Joseph Grenny in a report by VitalSmarts.com.

“Social media platforms aren’t the problem, it’s how people are using them that is causing a degradation of dialogue that has potential to destroy our most meaningful personal relationships.”

Truly enough, such behaviour is prevalent in the Twitterjaya community.

So much so, the proponents of such sentiments are labelled “keyboard warriors” or the more Malaysian term, “cybertrooper”.

Although the latter is derivative of the Star Wars Stormtrooper, these terms share a common definition of illustrating online users berating blindly and on most occasions, pretty much ‘miss’ the point when shooting in a frenzy.

It is indeed a dangerous phenomenon not only because it is unhealthily unproductive, but it is central in the modern day crisis of cyberbullying that is tearing our social fabric apart.

Nevertheless, are social media users the only ones to be blamed for the degradation of our civility? Or do the media distortions and “spin masters” take a responsibility as well?

Is it a symptom of radicalized escapism from oppression?

For the longest time, we seem to make an excuse that cyberspace is not part of our reality but with the detrimental effects of misinformation spreading – it is about time we accepted virtual space as a new dimension to our realities and the dynamics of our society.

With such evils being normalized and continuously plaguing our society, perhaps we need to promote a greater sense of awareness about the abuse of social media spaces.

Sometimes I think that is it as simple as reminding of the true, noble intentions that can be explored.

While it is vital to uphold individual liberty through the freedom of expression, we also need to keep in mind that its preservation depends on our own willingness to accept those “truths” that are not always ours.

More importantly, it can never be at the expense of others.

Only then, are we able to expand our horizons, defeat anti-intellectualism and promote more beneficial discourse for societal development. – December 10, 2015.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.