We're Suffering from Extreme Mediocrity Syndrome
By
Sumit Paul, New Age Islam
5 February
2024
"In the future, everyone will be
world-famous for 15 minutes."
(Mis)attributed to Andy Warhol
"Stooping to an act of extreme frivolity
with a view to promoting a noble cause always results in the dilution of the
cause."
Naguib Mahfouz in ' The Beginning and the End,'
Egyptian writer and Nobel laureate in Literature (1988)
The
narcissistic Poonam Pandey hogged the limelight for 15 minutes, thanks to her
well-orchestrated 'death' to promote cervical cancer. In this way, she
belittled the enormity of cancer. This is symptomatic of the frivolous times
we're living in.
To quote
Naguib Mahfouz again, "Humans have a proclivity to cheap publicity." We
can go to any level to be in the limelight. Agreed, Poonam Pandey, Rakhi Sawant
and their ilk may be extreme cases of attention seeking, but more or less we
all have this tendency to be in news, albeit with much less intensity and
drama.
The
question is: What makes us behave in such an asinine manner? We live in an age
of mediocrity with superficial people. In these times of selfies and ubiquitous
social media, the desire to create a sensation is overwhelming. Everyone is in
a tearing hurry to give his/her opinion. Those who're brainless, yet want to be
famous, try to emulate Poonam Pandey. Nothing profound is happening. Pedestrian
people, performers and rank undeserving people are getting accolades and
acclaim. General people also think that if so and so can win an award or be
famous, why can't we? This encourages the likes of Poonam Pandey to shed
clothes in public or feign death.
The Extreme
Mediocrity Syndrome is responsible for this type of utterly irresponsible
behaviour. Social scientists believe that humans are passing through
intellectually the worst phase in human history (courtesy, Cornell University
Sociological Studies, 2022).
There's no
cerebral, seminal and epochal development in any sphere. World-class literature
is not being produced. Classics are neither being created nor being read or
viewed. Except for Noam Chomsky, where're legendary thinkers like Edward W
Said, Umberto Eco or Jacques Derrida? There's no great composer of the class
and level of Mozart or Bach. Nor is there a singer like Mohammad Rafi and Frank
Sinatra. Mediocre times produce mediocre people whose only objective is to get
a semblance of success and fame by resorting to fly-by-night means. No wonder,
we've such inferior humans who die for a day to create 'awareness' about
cervical cancer!
I once
again quote Mahfouz, "Wisdom brings sanity." Where's that wisdom in
this age? Where's that sanity? When a whole country leaves all cerebral
pursuits and runs after Ram and Sita, what'll be the outcome? You'll have a
plethora of morons and retards.
By the way,
please read Naguib Mahfouz and his books like 'Palace Walk' (1956), 'The
Beggar' (1965), 'Sugar Street' (1957), 'The Harafish' (1977),
'Midaq Alley' (1947) among others. I'm sure, the learned readers and
contributors like Mr Ghulam Mohiyuddin and Mr Ghulam Ghaus Siddiqi must have
gone through Mahfouz's thought-stirring novels. The latter, being a scholar of
Arabic, must have read Naguib's oeuvre in Arabic. We should read this Egyptian
great who predicted long ago the times we're passing through now. By the way,
English translators of Naguib's works such as Lyon Amiss and Afnaan Aqif,
though exceptionally good, couldn't fully capture the essence of Naguib's
idiomatic Arabic. Readers might be aware that Arabic is the richest tongue in
terms of proverbs, sayings and adages.
----
A
regular columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul is a researcher in comparative
religions, with special reference to Islam. He has contributed articles to the
world's premier publications in several languages including Persian.
URL: https://newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/suffering-extreme-mediocrity-syndrome/d/131656
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