The Tyranny of the Majority

“k”

Are you angry?

“sure”

Are you being sarcastic?

“love you”

Are you being sincere?

Gone are the days where words held breath, held power, held certainty. Where writers touched lives, held hands, and ruffled the feathers of issues blue and black.

We blame the young, blame gen z, blame those whom we think perpetuate this vicious cycle. Yet have we thought, could there be more?

The answer is yes.

It goes back months, years, decades, to a time where facebook was taking its first steps, and instagram was but a figment of imagination.

And suddenly, like out of the flames, it burst out with a cry. No one expected it, really. No one anticipated it, certainly. But people flocked, nonetheless, hid under its wings and took refuge in the comfort of the undisputable. For that was the power of the majority, the fervent thirst to belong. And slowly, writers followed suit. For fear of exposure, or the lack thereof, no one really knew. What we knew, though, was that slowly, writing descended into an abyss of conformity, simplicity and unoriginality.

And that thus laid the bedrock and built the cornerstone of our imminent destruction, of our dismal dismay, and of our perpetual dissatisfaction.

But is this the end? i think not. Humans are not as weak as portrayed, and hope is not lost. For akin to the phoenix rising from the ashes, perhaps one can take heart that like an act of catharsis, an act of purgatory, and an act of purification, the binary opposites of destruction and restoration merely precede change, and destruction and loss will pave the way for rebuilding and redemption.

And perhaps, someday, we might find ourselves no longer merely skimming through words, but once again find pause in the social issues and heartfelt emotives that books portray. And then we might realise, that good writers? Good writers make up the cornerstone of our reborne civilisation; they teach us to empathise, to envision, to empower. They are the voices speaking what has not been, but has to be said. And this, this is what will secure our survival in a world so ambiguous, so lost, and yet so hopeful.