On Postmodernism, Youth and Celebration of Mediocrity

As John Locke famously coined, an individual born is akin to Tabula Rasa: a clean slate. Only as he grows up, he gains experiences, interacts and learns; and such elements in turn shape his thinking and ideology. Especially in a middle class Indian setting, parents have a huge role in shaping the young individual. It is his home, where he is fed with axiomatic ideals and ideas that he is supposed to imbibe. In other words, he is nourished by the experiences of his parents, or at least they feel so. Such ideas may be about religion, free thinking, sense of morality, ethics, and distinction between good and evil. However, when the kids grow up into young adults, seldom do we find them standing by the same ideals were once inked on their clean slates by their parents and the society. Speaking for myself, it is rather terrible to born in such an era when one stands at the cusp of conflicting ideologies, and even more so to find an answer to the question; to be or not to be!

A question had continuously puzzled the great philosophers of the past: what is the right way to figure out the world? Empiricism or rationalism? Through sense-experiences of the world, or through the instrument of pure reason alone? Indeed, the life of Immanuel Kant was spent as a struggle conflicting between the two paths, while Plato mocked upon the empiricists as 'lovers of sounds and spectacles'. The quest for enlightenment has come a long way from those days as we find ourselves in an era which lives along postmodern lines that look at rationalism with a skeptical eye; declaring reality not to be absolute but subjective: a simulacra, a form of hyper reality which are carried to our perception by its vectors like media. This, in turn, makes me wonder if the postmodern ideas are in themselves a complete paradigm shift in thinking, or merely inferences drawn on empiricist observations! Such conclusions register themselves once we observe the contemporary young with a keen eye.

Like a maddened, unbridled horse, the youth are galloping unrestricted by dearth of choices. Almost everyone of our age was taught by our parents about the ills of tobacco, alcohol and other forms of intoxication; but today it has become merely a matter of choice for the young. Bars and pubs are overcrowded on weekends by members of both the genders. Girls who grew up no differently than rest of us did are freely experimenting with marijuana and seeking pleasure in getting 'high'. Intoxication has been labelled as a readily acceptable form of recreation, and to question it would bring volleys of derisive rants from all quarters, ranging from feminist assertions of gender equality to free will. A classic postmodernist trait: availability of innumerable choices. There is no one right path but many right paths; each man to himself! Blatant rejection of grand narratives like morality and ethics, another tenet of postmodernism, has seen us experimenting with relationships and sexuality in such ways that would brings gasps of horror from the people belonging to the previous generation. Another interesting observation would be the way individuals shape their identities. Uploading trial room selfies on social media, tattoos, choices of food and apparel, we witness a rising postmodernist trend of favoring style over substance. All meanings seem to be constructed socially and hence are as easily absorbed as they are rejected. When everyone is free to what they do, where good and evil are merely subjective; it is as fascinating as it is appalling in its resemblance to anarchy. As I said, it is terrible to be at the cusp of ideologies, and disconcerting for me to stomach the fact that the fine line between fantasy and reality has faded to such a degree.

Among all such personal choices, we have also availed ourselves of the choice to be mediocre. Excellence, too, has been shoved into subjective cesspools. Everyone is special in his own way. Everyone is excellent. Look at the posters being uploaded on social media and you'll find a plethora of random half baked philosophy tossed about. To be happy is the goal of life. Live life your own way. Live to the fullest. Is this the thinking of an age which realizes the gravity of the words it utters, or it is merely an excuse to escape it demons catching up with it? It reminds me of the nihilists who disregarded meaning from life and ascribed it to mere chance, existence for the sake of existing. But even Nietzsche had his idea of the Superman which was the perfect individual; he denounced values but all for the sake of perfection. However, today everyone has settled mutually for the notion that perfection is a Utopian concept and needs little attention. People are losing their individuality into hero worship, following sitcoms blindly and even relating to the mediocrity they show. The world is turning into a raging carnival of the ordinary. It is very confusing. Postmodernism, thus, isn't entirely a new school of thought, but perhaps a euphemistic synonym for the advancing din of the tumults of anarchy. 

The most important question to ask would be, where will it lead us? Will the fairy of globalization rush to save the young of the middle class, if they fall from riding high on the edge of her dainty wings? Keeping in mind the roots we have come from, we have brazenly climbed up to sickening heights, seeking the stars that we believed the older generation could never see. May we find the stars that we have dreamed about while we have ascended, or the fall is to leave a cruel dent on the Tabula Rasa that we have taken the liberty to paint so vividly.