There was a stone age, medieval age and the age of renaissance. If I had to give a name to make the current age sound cooler than it actually is, I would call it the age of critical thinking and failing emotions.
We live in the age of social media, which, as we speak, is influencing millions of users to believe a certain thing which perhaps is a kind of fakery or it doesn’t exist at all. This has resulted in the inception of a new group of rational thinkers who are aggressively spreading the message to critically think—like the Christian missionaries spread their religion back in the day. The difference here is that they are the rational thinkers; the saviors of the society which otherwise is a pool of mess.
What Is Critical Thinking After All?
According to Google, it is: “the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgment.”
As a society, we have always been judgemental about everything. We even judge a person’s death. It is not new to us—but what is striking—is the objective analysis. A society, even the most progressive one, cannot function with only the objective thinkers. The society has always been taken forward by the subjective thinkers, but the direction they have taken or continue to take may not be the ideal one.
Critical thinking is a must and the only way a society can be sane in an ideal world, but neither we are sane nor we live in an ideal world. The messengers of critical thinking have met a certain amount of success after the 2016 and 2019 elections of USA and India respectively. The outcome, according to them, is a product of the voters not having the skill sets or the awareness of critical thinking.
For a certain section and for a given time it works, but as a whole, it fails to make an impact on the civilization, which has historically banked upon love, hate, and rage.
On the flipside, the times are changing, the emotions are failing and so has humanity.
With the rise in fame and ambition, the emotions are forced to take a back seat. Fame is a problem to have. Earlier, the association of not more than few thousands had to deal with it but now, with Instagram and Twitter being the platform to measure fame, everyone seems to be obsessed with it. As a result, love, hate, and rage is replaced by ego, pride, and anger.
This is not a phenomenon post the social media invasion. A work in progress for years has finally come to the foreground. The ones who have been influenced by the concept of critical thinking have been objectively looking at love and hate. As a result, for them, every feeling which exists out there seems fake and shallow which also might be true. Love has never been looked at a way, which it has been subjected to today.
For most, it is a bygone feeling, a thing of nostalgia but in the true sense, for the first time, people are looking to define love objectively. There hasn’t been a definition of love up until today—because you can’t define something—which differs from person to person. You can’t box a thing which is subjective, but as we move along in the direction of objectivity, we might find the definition of love ultimately. A definition which would be quoted in class, in homes by parents and our crushes when they discredit our love.
So, what does this mean?
If you are one of the critical thinkers, like the one I’m trying to be, it is an ideal time for you to exist— as the fail in emotion is a rise in objective thinking. If you are the one who craves and preserves emotions, like the one I’m trying to be, hold onto your emotions as the ride ahead will be a bumpy one.