In Greek and Indian mythology, the Gods are not
perfect. They suffer from hubris and bend the rules they expect others to
follow. Today’s leaders are similar and they enjoy fanatic support even when
caught in their lies. Denial is a great weapon to perfect polarization, to cast
the villain as a victim and propagate conspiracies that are easier to believe
than facing up to our own culpability.
We find ourselves in a polarized world, where there
is a need to choose sides and then stick to them blindly. There must be total
faith and support, no questioning one’s idols. Whether it is Narendra Modi or
Donald Trump, one must either believe in the myth of their perfection or be
aligned totally against it.
We can believe Michael Jackson is either a great
artist or a pedophile, Julian Assange is either a sexual predator or an icon
for press freedom, after all a person cannot possibly be both! We need to love
or hate with absolute fervour, avoiding the ambiguity of sometimes liking and
other times disliking the same person. It makes life difficult to think it
through each time so it’s easier to just align once and never cross the
imaginary line to the other side.
It’s better to shout our beliefs than to listen and
have a fair conversation. Admitting to mistakes is a weakness we can’t afford
just as we cannot give any due credit to the opposition. Without dialogue, we
can believe in our imaginary perfection and not truly know how much of it is
true. We can fall for the propaganda and PR with a disregard for facts, develop
a lack of compassion for anyone else and lose all sense of direction and
proportion.
What we’re losing most in this forced polarization
is an essential ingredient to human progress: accountability. There is no
provision to fairly evaluate, recognize and correct mistakes. Pretending
they’re not there, covering them up or recasting them as “the right thing to
do” leads to loss of learning opportunities. Progress is not possible without
these precious lessons.
Human beings are fallible. None of us know
everything about everything: as right as we may be about some things, we are
bound to be wrong about others. Yet, the myth of perfection prevails. We like
to idolize people and put them up on pedestals, where the slightest fault could
lead to a perilous fall.
We do this to ourselves and our loved ones too.
Every time there is a doubt, we seek to hide rather than question, confront
and learn. The myth of perfection is a heavy burden to carry, more so when we
believe we are already there. The illusion takes more work to maintain than if
we were to let it go and admit to our vulnerability and weakness.
It is not our fallibility that holds us back but our
inability to admit to mistakes, never seeking to correct them. We may find our
idols to be less worthy than we thought but in recognizing this, we may push
them to be better. We may find our opponents to be more worthy than we thought
and we can seek a meeting point for the sake of human progress. We can find true acceptance in admitting to
our failings and seeking support to overcome them, and offering support to
others instead of condemning them.
We are in this together, we are more alike than we
think and we can do better if we choose to live in reality rather than an
imagined perfection.
