The online space has become polluted – but shouting about it achieves nothing. This article is meant for mature readers. Those who fail to grasp the issue in its social context, or insist on judging everything purely through religious absolutism, may wish to look away.
Let us begin.
Human beings are cultural creatures. Culture is what distinguishes us from animals. This culture may consist of social customs, entertainment, or religious practices.
Poverty, however, deprives people of access to culture and entertainment. It even hinders regular religious observance. It suppresses the hunger for personal identity and recognition. When people finally get the chance to shrug off the burden of poverty, these instincts begin to reawaken.
Over the past 15 years, this reawakening has occurred across a significant portion of the population. Compared to earlier decades, more people have come under a degree of financial security. And with that, we’ve seen certain transformations:
- In nearly every village, new mosques have been built. Older mosques have become more ornate. The number of worshippers has at least doubled.
- Tea stalls have tripled in number. So have the number of people gathering there to drink tea and chat.
- Nearly every individual now owns a personal entertainment device: a smartphone.
We have addressed their economic development. But we have not adequately addressed the other forms of hunger that this development has stirred. We left it to run on autopilot.
People have tried to satisfy these new hungers through the most basic forms of religion, entertainment, and culture. In doing so, they are drawn first and foremost to the displayable elements – things that offer quick ego boosts, a recognisable identity, some instant gratification, and often a kind of moral indemnity.
For example:
- By criticising someone else’s religion, one can claim a more devout image for oneself.
- By harshly judging a form of art or cultural expression, one can appear more refined or intellectually superior.
- Through this performance, people can quickly form groups, generate noise, and stir a commotion.
Those who follow this path rarely devote time to sincere practice. Instead, they invest their time in self-promotion. Hence, they are always loud and heated.
But if one wants to improve one’s life through religion, culture, or any similar domain, it requires deep and sustained practice – an investment of mental energy and time. And how many are willing to make that investment?
Instead, people prefer to engage where there are clear worldly incentives. For instance:
- If someone dresses the part of a devout person yet takes bribes, they often receive a basic level of social protection due to appearances alone. In contrast, a truly honest, God-fearing person who refuses bribes receives no worldly reward – not even extra respect.
- To be appointed to political, administrative, or academic positions, one does not need to be culturally refined. Even if one is, there is little to no incentive for it.
By this logic, being truly religious or truly cultured offers little in the way of tangible benefits. In fact, there is more social reward for performing piety or culture than for genuinely living it.
In such a societal environment, crying out that “the online space is polluted” is useless.
We must acknowledge the problem and take concrete steps to deal with it.
We must ensure social incentives for genuinely religious individuals, not just those who perform religiosity for show.
We must provide both social and state incentives for cultivating cultural refinement, not just for mimicking it.
Otherwise, this darkness will continue to spread – it will not diminish.
In any large-scale development effort, change management is a crucial component. It’s high time we gave serious thought to that.