Opinion

Social media and personal struggles

One is entitled for freedom of thought. But it should be done based on evidence otherwise the world will teeming with abuse, harassment and sarcasm

Knowledge, be it spawned by humanities or experimental and applied sciences, can accommodate everyone. Knowledge touches people’s lives and reality and redresses their issues and problems, however it can also be pure illusion and argumentation. In all cases, knowledge bears epistemological pleasure from the one hand and encourages questioning and discussion on the other hand.

Nations have, since antiquity, been competing to gain knowledge and utilise acquired knowledge for serving human society. This process produced the existing body of knowledge and sciences some of which is now a thing of the past yet others had been upgraded and are benefiting humankind and building civilisations.

Man had since antiquity experienced passion for discovery and had raised lots of questions regarding existence and human nature. Man has lived with a multitude of religions and philosophies of mind, gnostic and natural philosophies. They have sought ways of life and its course to emulate nature and unveil its secrets. Therefore, humanity knew many doctrines. Such is the nature of humankind, it could not have been possible for knowledge without differences, otherwise the minds would have frozen and come to stillness as death.

Just as man experiences passion for discovery, they also experienced the development of their means of doing so and handled the challenge of discovering the rules of existence. People transmitted their knowledge verbally, then they invented writing on palm leafs, barks, rocks and bones until the discovery of papyrus by ancient Egyptians which led to the spread of books and many philosophies became widespread among nations and civilisations. Thus, the legacy and philosophies of Greece, Persia, India and the Arabs were preserved for us.

However, the biggest quantum leap was made by Johann Gutenberg (1468) with the discovery of printing which brought about a major shift in knowledge and thanks to printing the media industry arose. It was not until the nineteenth century that radio and television were invented. The 20th century marked the invention of satellite channels, the World Wide Web, websites and social media, all of which have made a quantum leap in the spread of knowledge and the overlapping and development of sciences.

Social media has gathered together the means of knowledge from the beginning of history to the present day. Hence, knowledge spread among the public in all languages and means whatever audible, visible or readable, be it human knowledge or natural knowledge.

Unfortunately, we see some people discharge their negative energy on social media by swearing and degrading other people and then acting as though they have triumphed and scaled higher ranking. In fact, they are abusing their own doctrine whether left wing or right wing and insulting the countries to which they belong because history has no mercy and what is written today, however trivial, will be read by the next generations.

One is entitled to defend one’s thoughts regarding existence and they can freely display their talents and knowledge even if they were viewed as naïve by others. However, that should be done based on dialogue and the exchange of evidence otherwise the world will teeming with abuse, harassment and sarcasm.