A student, 22, shot dead a popular, far-Right commentator in America. Said Conservative was notorious for his bigoted views, infuriating millions with his racist opinions. Mercifully, guns aren’t as easily available in India, so politicians are at the receiving end of considerably milder ire, like hurled slippers and exploding vegetables. Footwear was thrown at the PM’s convoy in 2024 and former Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik was pelted with mango kernels while campaigning in 2001. His close aide was attacked with tomatoes last year. Irrespective of where one stands on the ideological spectrum — and God knows people everywhere have reason to be angry — there’s something sinister about a righteous, vigilante mentality that’s gone mainstream. It’s fuelled and sanctioned by social media, where you’re guaranteed a peculiar kind of profitable infamy for acts of heinous violence.
Sympathy for cold-blooded murderers doesn’t augur well in general because, for most of history, human life has been arranged towards doing what’s best for everyone. To live in a community, means, in some form, to fit in with the herd. Aristotle’s concept of eudaimonia, a set of values for human flourishing, involved living a life of rational activity to achieve mental and physical well-being. Our society is still loosely based on these principles, part striving and part patience, the Utopic goal being an efficiently functioning system. Don’t we all play various roles throughout our lives? We adjust our expectations and demeanour based on whether we’re interacting with the boss in the office or dealing with a crying child. Unknowingly, we apply practical wisdom to daily life, instinctively aware that it’s the best way to get on with it. Today, self-indulgent virtues are trumping conventional ideas about right and wrong that have survived thousands of years.
A mere half hour on Instagram or LinkedIn reveals Gen-Z has moved far away from eudaemonic thought; everything is about “authenticity”. And “vulnerability”. Self care is big. Taking care of your “inner child” is bigger. Of course, other than the insufferable triteness of self-help speak, they’re all worthy ideals to aim for but what does chasing #selfrealisation offer in terms of moral guidance as a whole? The grandiose sounding #mytruth should send us all into panic mode because someone validating their own choices while disregarding #thetruth is a recipe for disaster. No one’s knocking anyone’s inward turn to transcend the self, but it’s worth noting, our own awakenings don’t automatically translate into universal enlightenments. One can only wonder if the culture’s current insistence of being “true to yourself” is precisely what motivated a 22-year-old to kill someone just for “being sick of his hate”. There is an alarming premium placed on being unique and distinctive; being merely well-adjusted and law-abiding doesn’t quite cut it anymore.
Examples of performative authenticity abound all around us. Standing apart means choosing sourdough over regular bread; I notice, nobody eats the Amul cheese of my youth anymore, the discerning having rejected its salty tanginess for Gouda and Gruyère. Appropriate self-representation in the digital era also means ditching Zara for handloom, having an Indie dog not a Shih-Tzu, and there’s no absolutely no point in having this richly examined life if it’s not affirmed by a quietly admiring audience. Unfortunately, “being yourself” today involves a painstaking effort to project. To begin with, the idea of “authenticity” was liberating; instead of deriving purpose only from religion and tradition, we were free to find our own meaning. But too much tiresome navel gazing has led to the mistaken notion that our need to be “real” overrides our obligations to others. Perhaps it’s time to rest the idea that authenticity is a God given divine right to “live your truth”. And turn back, to celebrate compromise, tact and maturity instead.
The writer is director, Hutkay Films
