যুবাযুবি হাত ধরাধরি রাস্তা হাঁটলেই জনগণের কী কাঁচা আঁশটে জিঘাংসা! হ্রস্বজামা স্বাস্থ্যবতী দেখে বাসেট্রামে পিচুটির ন্যায় দৃষ্টি দিয়ে চাখব কনুই গুঁতিয়ে সহবন্ধু ডাকব প্রেমালাপ গিলতে কান কুকুরখাড়া রাখব, তাপ্পর বাড়ি ফিরে ছ্যাছ্যা ওয়াক ধিক, আন তো আমার হকিস্টিক!
এ লেখা ২০০৬-এর, ‘উত্তম মাধ্যম’ কলামে লিখেছিলেন চন্দ্রিল ভট্টাচার্য্য। আমাদের ছদ্ম-ব্রহ্মচারী সমাজব্যবস্থা এবং তার অভিভাবকদের ঠুকেই এই বিশেষ ক’টা লাইন, তবে এ লেখায় হয়তো একটা গুপ্ত আশা ছিল যে এই হিপোক্রিটিক্যাল বুড়োভামেদের অচিরেই সরিয়ে বেখেয়ালী-কিন্তু-সৎ তরুণতরুণীদের রাজত্ব কায়েম হবে – অন্তত আধুনিকতার সেরকমই গতিপ্রকৃতি। সেই সময়ে বসে লেখক নিশ্চয়ই ঠাহর করে উঠতে পারেননি পরবর্তী পনেরো বছরের সময়জাল, যার মধ্যে আসবে অরকুট-ফেসবুক-টাম্বলার-ইনস্টার বিশ্বায়িত ডিজিসামাজিক পঞ্চগ্রাম, অভাবনীয় ফুলে ফেঁপে এবং গেঁজে উঠবে ওয়ার্ল্ড ওয়াইড ওয়েব, জে কে রোলিং টীনএজারদের কাছে নিন্দিত এবং ঘৃণ্য হয়ে পড়বেন, এবং একুশ শতকের প্রধানতম সাংস্কৃতিক ব্যাধির ব্যবচ্ছেদ করে জনাথন হাইট লিখবেন The Coddling of the American Mind, ডেভ শ্যাপেল পরিবেশন করবেন The Closer, আর রহস্যময়ী লেখিকা টাইটানিয়া ম্যাকগ্রাথ বার করবেন সেই অতি বিটকেল ও ততোধিক ধুরন্ধর হলুদ বই – Woke।
The Devil works in mysterious ways. The very falseness that lurked in the hearts of our backdated, hypocritical, partiarchal parents has now found a new avatar in teenage hearts all over the world today. The problem is the same – being one way within, and professing a different way without.
It is difficult – and so, bold to the point of foolishness – to analyze the hypocrisy of the modern youth. There simply hasn’t been enough time. We are yet to witness the fallout of this falseness, this repression, this denial of objective truth. The next two decades will reveal the horror. It’s all a bit too much, when one thinks of all the other horrors we have been promised in the years to come. But then again, this is how it happens. At first there are the smaller plagues, which bring only pests and pestilences. Then comes the final penalty: the death of the firstborn son. There is no death greater than the death of the future.
It was put very eloquently thus: “These are children who are engaging in recreational outrage.”
The recreation is many-flavoured. There is the furore about ‘cultural appropriation’, fanned by people who have little understanding of the inherent fluidity of what we call ‘culture’. There’re inept attempts at representing all cultures and ethnicities ‘equally’, which result in very poorly concieved works. There’s the constant sugarcoating and agenda-driven falsification of all matters related to sex and gender. Mushy judgement and foggy thinking pervades all fronts.
Perhaps it won’t be very out of place to mention, in passing, the ongoing hearing of the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard case. It is a prime example of how ideologically-biased thinking can befuddle entire populations and cause real damage in the world.
Two examples, and then we close. A few days ago I was talking to a person who was practising for a dance performance at school. She was in a foul mood. I asked her about it and she gave me her story. Turns out, the dance teacher at the school asked her to change some moves in the dance because she was ‘moving her butt too much’. She sent me a clip of the dance, so the state of affairs would be clear. Now, I am no expert on what can or cannot be done in a dance, but if the dance teacher found what-I-saw-in-that-clip too offensive, she should not arrange for contemporary dances to be presented at all. I could cite a dozen more stories like this one, -coming from a all-boys Hindu missionary residential school, I have witnessed many cases of such philistine puritanism.
The second example does not have to do with any incident. I have noticed a trend around social media over the past few years. It appears that now, young people fight shy of the word ‘sexy’; they substitute it with other words – ‘cute’, ‘fire’, ‘snack’, and so on. Sometimes it is childishly obvious, but most of the users would vehemently deny that they use these words with any sexual overtones whatsoever. This is troubling. Why are youngsters struggling so hard to profess dissociation from sex?
Melbourne psychologist Dr Matthew Berry argues that things are really the same; the difference is only superficial. “Older people are defining sex in old money and Gen Z are defining sex in new money. … Think of a different topic — communication. Each generation is accused of writing fewer letters and making fewer phone calls, but actually our communication style has evolved…. Similarly, Gen Z may be having less in-person sex, but engaging in more sexual activity. … I would argue they’re more sexual because they’re Snapchatting nudes at 13, 14, 15.”
This is just where I am sceptical. Like I said in another post before – virtual sex is not sex. It lacks a lot of vital, important things – without which sex is not sex, it is porn. A person who substitutes sex with porn grows to have a deeply faulted psyche, a handicapped personality that lacks the tools to socialize with fellow humans. Our world is full of people with great social reach and no social instinct, and this is perhaps the greatest reason behind the rising flames of intolerance, hatred, and nihilism worldwide.
Professor Alan McKee from Sydney says, “I am deeply concerned with how obsessed some adults are about the sex that young people are having or not having. It seems like they’re always having too much, too little, or it’s the wrong kind, or they’re not doing it properly. People should pay attention to the plank in their own eye.” I think Professor McKee is wrong. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. But maybe that is just the way it is supposed to happen in the scheme of our human tragedy.