Values or virus?

I remember my childhood days in Charsadda. One rich man started a flour mill and a number of other rich people followed suit. The trend continued for many many years until the business was no longer profitable or so I heard. Then came the CNG station frenzy. Nowadays, it is land development or plotting as it is locally called. Toyota Corolla 1968 and 1973 are still the most favourite cars of those in Charsadda who want to be viewed as rich and cultural. I personally know people who prefer a Toyota Corolla 1968 to any other vehicle. They can afford the price of the brand new Corolla or Civic but that is not what their social standing — or as they understand their social standing to be — allows.

Viruses replicate through genetic information units called genes. Culture replicates through the replication of cultural information units called memes. It is called Memetics. The postmodernist scholars disagree and make the point that it is the discourses rather than memes that propagate culture. Pakistani TV channels started airing morning shows. Every other channel decided they wouldn’t be left behind in catching up with the trend. It didn’t matter what the trend was, what rather mattered was to be a part of it. And that is where the problem lies.

When a virus replicates, it destroys its host in the process. Memes are no less cruel. They also replicate and they also destroy their host, only the host for the most part doesn’t appear to feel the symptoms. For example, morning shows take away from a society any semblance of decency and the most genuine human need for creativity. Just like the virus spreads while the host is damaged, the memes also spread at the cost of the host, which in this case is the caliber of Pakistani broadcast shows. The virus and the meme only benefit themselves by spreading further. It is also a classic case of chicken and egg. The low caliber of the broadcast lowers the expectation for better content and in reverse the audience or consumers expect to be entertained by the same mediocrity. The continued airing of the low quality content reinforces the desire for it.

I am a frequent traveler between Pakistan and the US. Every time I travel to Pakistan, I see the vivid impact of the memes on the Pakistani psyche. The success of Pakistan’s economy is tied to the dollar rate. Cellphone service ads market late night talks between young boys and girls. Tea ad is about impressing potential in-laws. So much for women’s power. My friends and relatives who live in Pakistan are completely blind and senseless to the symptoms of the sickness caused by memes. Sometimes it takes a person coming from the outside to sense the odour. No wonder a great series of movies and shows have been made about the sarcasm and the depravity of one’s own culture by an imaginary character who came from Mars or another planet.

The most successful cultures were not beneficial to human beings. For example, we advocate and fight for nationalism, which almost always comes at the cost of lives lost and a tremendous amount of potential unrealised in many young people because they devoted their lives and strengths to the defence of a nation state. If patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, meme cuddling might be the outward and blatant proclamation of the intellectually bankrupt. By compartmentalising humanity with a lot of other conflicting imagined realities, we fail to appreciate the truth as it is.

All the important lessons for the advancement of humanity are present in the simple things but we have to be bold enough in our thoughts to see the other side. The boy in Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist and the two boys in Neeli Jheel by Shafiq-ur-Rehman were in the same dilemma. They, however, crossed to the other side and returned with wisdom. Can we?

Published in The Express Tribune, November 11^th, 2021.

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