Collective Knowledge, Community Care

In this digimodern world, where is postmodern enquiry? We have outsourced our lives to metrics. Digital culture rewards those with the highest social currency. If you have burned more calories and taken more steps than others in a day, and this information garners likes and comments, your day may be considered successful. This kind of quantified success must be virtually validated. We feel compelled to maintain a digital ledger of worth. So many of us crave to be algorithmically worthy.

Did the postmodern world of relentless enquiry lose itself in dashboard analytics and the gamification of life? Is our branded self-worth and consumption-driven selfhood the be-all and end-all of life?

Nowadays, social media algorithms reward herd mentality. The voices that are amplified are those of people with better networking, and greater power and resources. Their views are circulated widely, drowning out the opinions of the weaker who need to be heard. These people are privileged enough to pay for their ideas to be thrust forward. Soon, the masses begin echoing them without due analysis.

Harmful ideas are packaged into ideologies people swear to live by. Some of these, despite being illogical and detrimental, may be slotted as irrefutable. If someone offers a nuanced counterpoint that pricks the bubble of the shaky foundation of such ideas, they may be trolled and shooed away by the online mob.

The world now seems to stand in opposition to postmodernism, which believed that there is no fixed way of viewing the world. It challenged the very idea of one truth and a monolithic way of comprehending life.

We often pride ourselves on being superior and more knowledgeable than others. Let us instead be involved in interactive knowledge creation. That will take us away from self-care, self-interest and individualism, and help create a pluralistic world of community care, co-operation, mutual understanding, love, peace and harmony.

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