FAKE PHOTOS:THE INSTINCT

After the recent tragic crash of an Air France plane,newspapers and
television channels kept on presenting newer facts each day through
desperate assumptions,and speculating wildly on the possible causes
and exact location of the plane crash.And this kept the world stuck to
the newspaper headlines and television screens when news channels went
live.It went on for weeks,long after the crash had taken place(and
possibly by then,bereaved family members and friends of the passengers
had accepted and reconciled to the reality of the disaster).
There was sensational excitement all over the world,when all of a
sudden,photos of the passengers in their last few moments were
released into the internet.Nobody could trace the source though,but
the photos were assumedly snapped by one of the passengers himself
just before the aircraft went down.Mails were frenziedly forwarded all
over the web sharing the morbid photos and people kept on gushing and
commenting on the Pictures Of Death.People wanted to see and feel
first hand,the ruthless(and ironical)reality of the last moments of
the passengers before they were lost forever.
Then came a bigger shock.It was revealed that the photos were
fake,taken from the television series LOST.People reacted angrily to
the perverseness of the idea of circulation of fake photos surrounding
a real-life disaster and there was rapid despatching of emails
conveying the shock and anger of those who had actually believed in
the photos.And this infuriated reaction seemed palpably overdone.
People had 'fed' upon the gross brutality of death and the morbid
helplessness of the people just before they died.
Man had been caught on the wrong foot.Suddenly a sadistic aspect of
human psychology was exposed to the world and,more importantly,in
front of its own self.
The frenzied anger behind the world-wide condemnation of and protest
against this perverted joke,actually reflects upon the human psyche's
embarrassment and the immediate reaction to escape,distancing itself
from this embarrassment.People suddenly perceived the naked perverted
gratification they had subconsciously derived each day,from
following,and speculating about,the helplessness of men who would die
in a few moments.Man had somehow 'enjoyed' the brutal and cruel way
death had captured the ill-fated passengers with.The same animal
instinct had once gratified citizens of Rome as they watched
gladiators drawing enslaved blood in the amphitheatre.And the same
instinct still comes to surface when men spend exorbitantly for
tickets to watch Matadors killing a helpless,entrapped bull,slowly and
gradually.They enjoy watching the bull die step by step,each lance
piercing it with cruel pain.
Man can deny it but cannot escape from this Reality-that a
violent,sadistic element still remains.Perhaps it was an instinctive
necessity of prehistoric men to survive in a dangerous,hostile
environment 15,000 years back when they Had to kill to live
themselves.
Is this morbid instinct relevant at all for human
existence?Evolutionally it should have been extinct by now.But it is
still there inside.Man has consistently and deliberately made his
environment hostile by 'creating' wars and polluting the ecosystem in
which he lives.Perhaps it is a subconscious need of man to justify his
innate animalistic sub-self,and to create windows by which he can vent
out animal self.
Man has a long way to go to reach a superior evolved level.And for
that,he has a Big Responsibility.He cannot escape.