A challenge to civilization: the ‘private’ on ‘public’ domain of human thought and feelings

Terracotta

The on-going saga pertaining to the Alvin and Vivian sexually explicit debut on the social and new media is sending majority Malaysians scurrying to new heights and lows of arguments for and against the duo’s act, respectively.

This episode is of significant interest in the wake of the Malaysian political crossroads that the country has locked itself into currently. It is equally timely given the Prime Minister’s recent indication that governments must control the society’s thinking in order for achieving progress.

Indeed, the Internet has become a defining medium insofar as civilization rates. Through the Internet and its many ‘new age’ features like Facebook, Twitter, etc. humanity is being challenged out in the open yet within the confines of our own private spaces – be it at home or at work or even at public places like cafes and WiFi outlets.

The debates for and against Vivian and Alvin is raging. It will certainly not find a confluence. But we need to reflect seriously about how the networked society is emerging and will eventually set the parameters within which humanity will be operating.

A defining benchmark we should not miss is the fact that this new age technology that forces our thoughts and feelings into the public domain called society still keeps our privacy intact as the access to these ‘YouTube, Facebook, Twitter’ mediums is strictly exercised out of absolute freedom and choice, sourced within our own private space and time and decision or choice.

If people google, source and read or view such sites like what the Alvin and Vivian space offers, what gives you that morally virtuous profile to condemn?

Likewise, when you have in your private space and time sourced, read and viewed such material, what gives you that morally high ground to promote such materials?

There appears to be a paradox here and this is what many non-thinking people are missing. The Internet is here to define the new meanings to freedom, choice, democracy, accountability and engineer a new culture. It is here to take humanity to new experiences and understanding of all that encompasses life – thoughts, words and deeds.

It is people like Alvin and Vivian who have become the ‘new age’ crusaders of thoughts and feelings, challenging our civilization’s inventory of logic and emotions.  Where it will eventually deposit society is as illusive as how the Internet is developing and how the networked society is emerging.

But what is certain in this Alvin and Vivian saga is governments will be challenged; politicians will be tested; leaders will be tried in the public sphere; parents will be battered; religious leaders will be provoked and challenged – it is confrontation, a new conquest of humanity’s thoughts and feelings.

We are arriving on a new plateau where civilization will be pressured to re-visit and re-write its philosophies. In all likelihood, this will be a trajectory experience – humanity’s abandoning of the Socrates, Aristotalian and Platonic philosophies that have long been the basis of many thoughts and actions.

The use of draconian and antiquated laws to clip and clamp such ventures as those of the Alvin and Vivian saga will be run-over in time.

We have arrived on to a new space and time where what is private is challenged on the public sphere and what is public is accessed on a private space and time. It is an emerging experience of humanity’s freedom and choice.

In fact this whole episode can be an immense learning opportunity for Malaysia’s longest ruling political party too. So hopefully before any of our politicians attempt to open their mouth that often remains disengaged from thinking, better they think twice lah.

This is timely advice given the fact that Malaysia is being overwhelmed with the political marshes entrenched around the LGBT prioprity, sex-and-video sagas, and not forgetting the Sodomy trials.