Intellectual confusion

Dr Maleeha Lodhi
Several aspects of the present public discourse merit attention because of the way they are influencing national attitudes and shaping the country’s intellectual environment. Certain tendencies of thought seem to be especially prominent in discussions on television talk shows and feature frequently in public pronouncements by officials as well as in the narrative of several opinion makers. 

Some of these tendencies seem to have become habits in thinking that are contributing to the intellectual confusion prevailing in the country today. This is not to suggest that all those who influence or participate in the public debate think this way but to identify the features that represent a worrying phenomenon.

From this perspective five related aspects of the present public discourse are noteworthy. The first is an excessive preoccupation with diagnosing the country’s condition. Diagnosis is of course a good thing provided it moves the discourse to the next necessary stage to produce constructive outcomes – finding solutions to problems, and acting as a spur to action.

If the debate or discourse is only about diagnosing and bemoaning what is wrong with the country, then that becomes little more than a rant, a constant cacophony of complaints with scant purpose. Whining has never been a winning strategy for a country negotiating so many challenges. It provides no means to resolve problems or propose answers to the challenges at hand. On the contrary this attitude fosters a culture of self-pity, which drains national self-confidence and impedes the search for solutions.

The “what-have-we-come-to” refrain is perhaps more frequently heard among Pakistan’s chattering classes. This attitude absolves ‘complainants’ of the need to do anything and dodge the responsibility of thinking about how to resolve problems or generate ideas about this. It is almost as if diagnosing the country’s well-known ailments and hand-wringing is sufficient to fulfil their obligation as citizens.

Another aspect of this are endless discussions about what ‘could have been’ rather than ‘what can be’ accomplished. This is also evidenced in an obsessive concern with the past, and who did what, rather than the future. This habit of living in the past rather than learning from it is apparent in many debates at public forums, where the past is dissected, often from a partisan perspective, but rarely are pathways delineated to the future.

A related tendency is to shift blame for the country’s predicament to everyone other than ourselves. This is evidenced in the proclivity of almost every group, party or institution to blame the other rather than look dispassionately for real causes and thus ways of fixing problems. The narrative that emerges is pivoted to serve a certain interest rather than reflect reality. Worse, this distorts the national debate and encourages the general public to think we are incapable of solving our problems, which of course is far from being true.

Conspiracy theories flourish in such a ‘blame culture’ and so does the habit of finding external causes for domestic ills. The outside world is held responsible for the country’s problems. And with several opinion leaders eager to play to the gallery, groupthink takes over and few pause to question the premise of conspiracy theories. Again, shifting the blame for a problem becomes a way of escaping responsibility and fleeing from reality – and an excuse for inaction.

A culture of victimhood is also engendered. Victimhood produces a sense of impotence and the misbelief that someone else is in control of our destiny, whether as a nation or an individual. Conspiracy theories, in fact, nurture hopelessness about the future because they take away the incentive to do anything about a problem or challenge. If almost everything is someone else’s fault, it is easy to slip into a passive state and pretend there is little we can do to change that.

A third, and perhaps overarching, aspect of the public discourse is the lack of rational arguments or thinking. If rationality is the deployment of logic and reasoning to produce arguments based on facts rather than emotion, it is apparent how little of this is found, for example in comments of familiar participants in television talk shows. There are of course notable exceptions to this trend, but much too often a shallow conversation passes as debate and informed and reasoned arguments are hard to come by. 

The most egregious example of this phenomenon was the media attention given to a man who claimed to have ‘discovered’ how to run a car on water. He was paraded on television and his invention nationally celebrated until the truth inevitably prevailed – that his claim was a hoax. Yet for weeks that claim mesmerised a non-trivial section of the people, signalling – at least in that period – the triumph of irrationality.

This may be an extreme example of a tendency, which nevertheless exhibits itself in lax, unsubstantiated argumentation and non-rigorous thinking. Another aspect of this is the ease with which definitive statements or judgements are made – indicating a habit of not weighing words before speaking in public, and attaching little importance to the veracity of words that are spoken. 

This may be a reflection of intellectual laziness but words have consequences and can leave a lasting impression on the public mind. Uttered without careful thought, they compound the intellectual muddle around us. It also produces the unfortunate tendency of casually branding people unpatriotic or ‘agents’ of somebody or the other. 

A fourth aspect of the public discourse is how much it seems to be dominated by platitudes. Trite and banal statements also represent intellectual laziness. Often public officials mouth platitudes – for example “education is essential for progress” or “our sacrifices will not go in vain”– as if they are self-enforcing and simply making such declarations will convince people that is about to happen. Vacuous statements are also heard in television debates, with participants making bumper-sticker comments, devoid of any meaning and doing little to illuminate the issue under discussion.

Finally, there is the frequent propensity in the public discourse of making overstated and exaggerated claims on an issue. For example, the oft-repeated statement that Pakistan is “maal-a-maal” (abundant) with resources indicates a desire to create a make-believe world because those who state this rarely care to specify on what basis they have made this evaluation or how such assets can be leveraged. 

It is one thing to say that Pakistan’s many natural and human resources need to be exploited and to suggest credible ways to do this. It is quite another when the claim is not accompanied by data or facts to support or substantiate it and the language is so exaggerated as to lose meaning.

At times ostensibly well-educated people are heard arguing in public forums that there is a ‘foreign conspiracy’ to keep Pakistan weak and prevent it from exploring and exploiting its abundant natural resources. This utterly unsubstantiated proposition fails to answer the question of what is stopping the country from thwarting that conspiracy and taking its destiny – and its abundant resources – into its own hands.

Distorted and misleading narratives emerge from these inter- related elements of the current discourse, which do nothing to chart or illuminate the path – and policies – the country needs to follow to escape its present predicament. 

It doesn't have to be this way. The country’s leaders, including opinion leaders, have a national responsibility to find ways to steer the debate in a more positive and constructive direction and encourage discussion of options and solutions to Pakistan’s problems rather than join a collective lament about them. 

Such a discourse should aim to help construct a better future rather than mourn an unedifying past and, above all, encourage people – and themselves – to believe that we can take charge of our own destiny and that we possess the capacity to overcome challenges by our own efforts.

The writer is special adviser to the Jang Group/Geo and a former envoy to the US and the UK.