We all think we are entitled to our own opinions and rarely do we restrict our opinions to things we actually know about (which sometimes is a very narrow field!) But we love to pronounce our judgements on things we should honestly keep quiet about – or better – learn as much as we can about before committing our opinions to public ears. And this is certainly the case here in Bali where people who have newly arrived feel entitled to make negative judgements very quickly. But really they should not.
Of course, this rule doesn’t apply any more since everyone now has access to powerful public exposure online that was only available to journalists for the last century! But why should people be allowed to write about things in Bali they don’t understand when the real experts keep quiet? Well, the answer is in the question. Why are the experts keeping so quiet when the public is so vocal on so many things?
When I say ‘public’ this doesn’t necessarily mean real people, it means ‘WhatsApp’ groups and ‘Key Opinion Leaders’ and ‘Influencers’ nowadays, who fill the ether with their most valuable thoughts to enlighten their faithful followers as to the latest injustice or trending complaint.
But back to the experts. We do have people who understand and have studied all the things that people complain about in Bali: the endless discussions on waste and landfills, the constant fury over the traffic, the despair over uncontrolled buildings and the outrage over badly behaved foreigners etc, etc. but indeed the experts are quite quiet, and the critics are at full volume, and that indeed is wrong. But so are the critics. Which brings me to my point: the cult of ‘me’.
We observe just a tiny part of life through our own eyes, hear just as little in our everyday conversation and interactions, and read far too little about the land and culture in which we live -and disrupt. But we ‘know’ that we are right in our opinions. We have been taught to believe in the power of ‘me’ and thanks to the brilliance (and simultaneous idiocy) of social media, our opinions can be read by people who, because of the reach and power of social media, may actually believe we are making justified accusations.
This makes us feel we are “right” and that makes it hard to listen to others, hard to cooperate with people “less informed than ourselves”, hard to find common ground and common causes with the people who actually come from or represent the island, and to whom we should be listening, understanding and offering to help. Instead of saying ‘I have the answer’ a hundred times a day.
It is time to move on from ‘me’ to ‘you’, then to ‘us’. A cult that includes everyone is no longer a cult. It’s a civilisation.
