By Raj Snehil Juneja
Raj Snehil Juneja is the Principal for PE Fundraising at Khetal Advisors, a mid-market investment bank in Bangaluru and San Fransisco Bay area. An economist by profession, he studied at the London School of Economics and received training at McKinsey and Company.
I often wonder whether we humans are the only species on the planet intent on running ourselves towards inevitable extinction. All too often, there is little evidence to refute this hypothesis, especially in the face of the worst acts against humanity, such as the Vegas mass shootout on 1 October 2017. The attack comes as the most recent knot down the rope from attacks in London, Brussels, Paris and Orlando. It has happened so often now that the exact cyclical fashion in which it will play out is fairly evident.
Normalisation of violence
There is a thin line between resilience and desensitisation to violence. Resilience demands that somewhere in between panic and return to normal life reactions that ensue, we manage to build a framework that is robust enough to minimise the probability of a future attack. However, we fail to do so and hence find ourselves in the same cycle. All that then persists is us merely becoming desensitised to it and allowing for normalisation of violence to the extent that we are unaffected by it. The first step to fixing a problem is acknowledging its existence. The problem with violence is real. It generally starts at the grass root level, crawls its way into adulthood and mutates into uglier forms when provided with supporting external stimuli such as news networks, extremist groups and now, Trump. Fixing the problem requires changes at each of these stages.
Grass root level change
Little by little, overtime and inadvertently, each one of us has contributed to the problem. Every time we ignore a physically stronger kid bullying the weak on a playground, we contribute to the problem. Every time we turn a blind eye to domestic violence, just because it isnt happening in our own house, we contribute to the problem. Every time we let a man in a position of power incite violence at political rallies, without holding him accountable, we contribute to the problem. To quote Edmund Burke, “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph, is the silence of a few good men.” The solution is to stand up for someone and to speak up for something.
The cost of winning
The world we live in espouses competition at every turn. There is nothing wrong with competition. It is competition that has given us efficient firms, better products, better entrepreneurs and better sportsmen. The problem then is not competition, but the fact that we dont know how to compete. Take, for instance, the same bully from the playground. Since he resolves every disagreement by throwing his weight around, he fails to develop the ability to compete. He believes only his view to be correct and does not take into account another persons argument or thought process. Furthermore, since he does not know how to compete in a healthy way, he believes he can win, by shutting the other person down and resorting to violence. Translating these practices into todays cut-throat world, it is evident that if we think we have the opportunity to win, in any sphere of life, we don’t hesitate to put another person through the chipper. Being devoid of empathy will make it easier. Donald Trump is the classic example of the kind of person that tries throwing his weight around, who fails to understand what winning really means. The world would be better off understanding winning and success, the way Melinda Gates understood it from her mother, “To know that even one life has breathed easier because you lived, that is success.” The solution is to be able to understand success and victory the way Melinda does.
Acceptance of dissent
As we get older, we get set in our ways. We often resist change and our ability to adapt to new information. We consume information that only reinforces our existing belief system. We can be easily induced to violently attack anyone who doesnt conform to our worldview. The solution lies in understanding the virtue that in order to know something with certainty, we first have to doubt everything we know.
Hope for a better tomorrow
As the human race, we must not normalise things that ought not to be normal. It is not normal to get used to violence. Violent events around the globe invoke less and less empathy each time, as we start to adapt to the new normal. It is ultimately up to us to not let that happen. The worst of humanity contributed to these attacks. However, the best of humanity also shone brightly during these attacks. People put themselves in the path of harm to help others. Such people were there in Vegas, in London, in Paris and in Brussels. It is these people that prove that our species has great scope for empathy and positive change after all and as Mahatma Gandi astutely quoted, Be the change you want to see in the world.”
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