Why do we let them!

A friend and I sat down a few days ago, to discuss a pont of view I had expressed rather publicly. He said he was in complete agreement with it but would never say it out loud, for fear of offending some people. This was a few hours after I had had another discussion on the same content where another person had agreed with the content entirely. But I know he would not put that opinion out for fear of retribution.

I have reflected upon the same and realized that quite sensible, open minded and thoughtful, positive people have been silenced by exactly the opposite kind; the narrow minded, dishonest, disingenuous and rather destructive people using the most important virtues that the first group prided themselves in. In other words their own goodness has been turned against them to silence and neutralize their opinion on matters of critical importance in our social framework. If we do not recognize this and come out of our artificially crafted shells, we risk pushing the society backwards rather than forward.

Any thinking person recognizes that society moves forward when there is honest and open debate and discussion. No one person, group or philosophy can possibly have a stranglehold on truth of all kind, forever. Diversity of thought therefore brings worthy opinions out in the arena of discussions and a healthy debate on ideas, provided it is done with good intent, allows the best ideas to percolate up and capture the imagination of society. 

In reality though it seems that we have relinquished that role of discussion to talking heads on television, who more often than not are paid hacks driving the agenda of their masters. They invite guests who validate their “opinions” and the opposite point of view rarely if ever gets a chance to weigh in without interference. The audience either gets suckered in by the constant drumbeat of the same opinion hammered into their skulls or get jaded and lose interest in the matter. 

Then of course the most egregious invention to polarize and dumb down society, the social media driven by their algorithms creating a bubble of information of a certain kind, even if one accidentally visited a certain news report/video or what have you. 

All these are known travails of our times but the silencing of good men, by weaponizing the men’s own virtues of sensitivity, kindness etc., which the mob does by launching word grenades against them, socially marginalizing them or worse for even expressing thoughtful opinions are matters of real concern. We all can push back against this monstrosity starting today, by expressing ourselves cogently, assertively and fully. Some of our opinions will get refined in the hearth of discussions, others may give power to those who also hold those opinions but are too fearful of expressing them. Some will get engaged in debates drawing out others who are causing great harm to society, our freedoms and values and need to be called out. 

Let not good men and women stay silent. Need we be reminded that, The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men Do Nothing!!