Dr. Hossam Badrawi Official Website
** Triviality **
By
Hossam Badrawi
In our current era, we find that the culture of triviality has begun to impose itself in an unprecedented way on various aspects of social, cultural, and media life. Triviality can be defined as the tendency towards superficial, light, and valueless matters, as it tends towards nonsense and leaving deep issues and important topics aside in favor of what is easy and consumed. This phenomenon is not just a passing coincidence; rather, it has become part of the daily lives of many people.
The reasons for the spread of triviality are many, the most important of which is
The multiplicity and spread of visual media and social networking sites, which have led to a shift in focus from deep content to quick and brief entertainment. Many people prefer to consume short videos and superficial content that does not require deep thinking.
Platforms such as Instagram and TikTok have begun to glorify empty simplicity at the expense of knowledge and analysis, despite the possibility of using them to deepen culture on the other hand, and some of them do so.
In addition to this, the desire for quick fame has become a goal that many individuals, especially young people, seek. In the age of social media, anyone can gain fleeting fame without the need for real skills or achievements. It is enough to provide superficial or controversial content to attract followers and achieve popularity.
Is social media popularity really real!? Absolutely not, but it is a popular spread that has a loud voice, otherwise opinion polls would have taken it. Science requires samples representative of society to have value, which is not available in trends.
In some societies, educational systems have begun to focus on quick results and functional skills at the expense of critical thinking and interaction with deep ideas, and teaching young people the values of research and investigation is neglected, leading to the emergence of generations that lack intellectual depth.
In light of globalization and the spread of competition, many feel pressure to keep up with popular trends and popular content. It is easy for an individual to be lured into trivial content just to belong to the group or fear of uniqueness and difference.
When triviality becomes the prevailing norm, individuals are less inclined to practice critical thinking and delve into issues. They prefer quick indoctrination and superficial opinions without any attempt to understand or analyze.
The spread of triviality results in a decline in the level of cultural and societal dialogue. Instead of discussing essential issues such as justice, freedom, and development, people are preoccupied with marginal issues, scandals, and entertainment content that does not add anything to the collective consciousness.
The widespread spread of the culture of triviality erodes the cultural identity of societies. When people tend to imitate superficial models and randomly import popular Western values, they weaken the ties with their heritage and authentic values.
Triviality is also linked to consumerism, as it encourages individuals to be preoccupied with appearances and empty materials promoted by the cultural and entertainment industries. The person becomes a mere consumer of products and content, far from any kind of creativity or intellectual production.
Is there a way to confront the culture of triviality?
Yes
But it requires political and social leaders who have the cultural depth to understand the danger of triviality
and its spread. With reason, educational systems can play a major role in confronting triviality by enhancing critical thinking skills and encouraging reading and scientific research. School and university life should encourage inquiry, intellectual curiosity, community participation, sports, art, and encourage deep dialogue.
The media can contribute to this by providing cultural and awareness programs that address intellectual and social issues in depth.
Supporting arts, literature, and cultural production that aims to provide deep insights and analyses about society and humanity can constitute an important alternative to the superficial content that dominates the media arena.
Every individual can contribute to confronting the culture of triviality by themselves by controlling the content they consume. Instead of following superficial and consumed content, they can move towards what nourishes the mind and contributes to building knowledge.
The spread of the culture of triviality poses a real challenge to modern societies, as it weakens the quality of cultural dialogue and promotes superficiality in thinking and behavior. We must all strive to change this reality by focusing on intellectual depth and purposeful cultural production, and avoiding surrendering to superficial temptations that may seem tempting in the short term but are empty of any real value.
In this context, my friend Dr. Raouf Rushdi has a wonderful message entitled: “A Very Stupid Article”
In which he says:
You cannot wake up in the morning and say to yourself: From now on I will remain stupid …
That is very difficult … Believe me
Being stupid is not a trend. Stupidity is a way of life. You must live it from a young age. And whoever enjoyed swimming on the beach will get very bored of diving into deep water. In short, it is a halt to mental and emotional growth at the age of five in the pre-school stage. You think that you have to be angry, nervous, violent, superficial, random and superficial in order to enter the magical world of stupidity. But this may not be useful either, because stupidity is originally a talent and needs to be polished like other talents. You must have an innate readiness to be an imitator. It is the noble automatic sense of choosing your stupid sources of knowledge, and you have no excuse, because the Egyptian media has not fallen short in that for decades. It may also be useful to hate reading, boycott intellectually profound people, and avoid any logical discussion, but talent remains the first foundation. Stupidity is an art. Yes, by God. The stupid person is a person who has spent most of his life improving and polishing his stupidity. He has added his own touch to his stupidity and unique patterns in explaining his foolishness, and has surrounded himself with fixed rituals to add the necessary significance to his nonsense.
Why are you standing next to someone who always comes up with the nonsense and takes the lead since he was young and frivolous by virtue of his age.
The miracle lies only in making sure that your mind does not grow. The easy secret is that your mental mechanisms refrain from cognitive accumulation in order to ensure the stability of your stupid behavior.
Have you seen how tired a frivolous person is?
You are not fit to be like him because you simply think about being frivolous in a deep way.
Where do you get the superficiality with which the frivolous person reaches his decisions? Where do you get his admiration for himself? And his passion for the clarity of his thinking?
And you are a skeptic who criticizes yourself all the time. You spent your life with Descartes, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer.
The frivolous person, man, is a person who has delved deeply into superficiality and possesses decisive mechanisms that are certain and beyond doubt in his thinking. And the distance between the entrances of his perception and the exits of his decision is shorter than what your complex spiral perception may reach.
Forget being trivial,
It is a trivial idea,
Stay deep and suffer in bliss with your mind
And do not resent the trivial who is in misery and enjoys ….
And the Canadian writer Alan Dono says
In his famous book:
“The System of Triviality”
“The trivial have decided the battle in their favor these days, the time has changed, the time of truth and values, because the trivial have seized everything, with all their triviality and corruption; when values and high principles are absent, the programmed corruption of taste, morals and values floats; it is the time of the lowly vulgar.” And the more a person delves into vulgarity, vulgarity and degradation, the more popular and famous he becomes.” Social media has succeeded in coding the trivial, as any foolish beauty, or empty handsome man can impose themselves on viewers, through several public television platforms, most of which are vague and unproductive platforms, that do not produce any valuable product that is fit to challenge time…”!!!
The culture of triviality has come to dominate people’s daily lives and takes up a lot of their mental effort, so you find people spending most of their hours arguing, debating and sometimes fighting about the most beautiful shirt, the best sports shoes, the latest fashion trends for men, women and youth, the most beautiful look you can present yourself with to people, the tallest building, the largest mosque, the most beautiful cow and the best bull. The trivial have become a role model for future generations, so that the world is threatened with the perpetuation of the authority of triviality.
Wisdom of these days
“Except for you trivial ones, advance and sleep,
This is your age and these are your days.”
And you brilliant ones, retreat and cover up
Triviality is not only dominant
No, it is also …..contagious
“For every disease there is a cure
Zzzzzzz
Except (stupidity / triviality)
It has exhausted those who treat it.”
Do not underestimate triviality because it will absorb everyone if we do not stand in its way..
