Humans have known vices such as greed, anger, lust, envy, gluttony, arrogance, and sloth. Each of these vices makes people undesirable and not liked in the society. Rather, these vices are the reason for the bloodshed, poverty and anguish in human society. However, the vice which is not frequently discussed and probably cause the most damage is desire of a man to be loved, to be loved by their own people and masses in general. This vice is most difficult to eliminate and gives birth to nepotism, tribalism and multitudes of lies which damage the very fabric of society.
Look at all the politicians, they will create all kinds of smoke screens to remain desirable and popular. They will do anything in their power to create trickery and deception so that people will keep loving and following them. The longing to be loved by people is an addiction and it makes so-called representatives of people do all kind of stupid things. These politicians will go to any extent and break all the rules and regulations to keep their constituents in their spell. It starts from favoritism, and nepotism and culminates into developing hatred for their opponents and that they should look good, and all their follies are covered through the lens of comparison.
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Understanding the matter better
Partitions of nations happened, Millions lost their lives, and Poverty and food shortages happened, just because a few of the politicians or leaders who were mortal beings had a wish to be loved by the masses and they knew that by suggesting a few slogans they can arouse emotions and sentiments. While doing so they completely forget the outcomes which will happen to their own or the opponents’ followers. Even if you look at the dictators, the basic reason for their demise is that when they want people to love them and their craving for this love causes them to make mistakes and blunders which in effect becomes the reason for their downfall.
These days TV channels and their anchors are also infected with this desire and rather than providing information or intelligent analysis, most of them have their audiences and they play with their emotions to get ratings or in other words, they want to create fans or people who love them. In doing so, they completely forget the facts or unbiased opinions rather the spin the facts and narratives to keep playing with ordinary people. There will be some who would argue that majority of the journalists or media men would do this for greed or because they must tow a certain line because of their owners; however, the biggest motivation remains ratings or love of their fans.
The religious zealots also suffer from this ailment of being prized and create all kind of stories to remain popular within the segments. While telling these stories, they make sure that seed of hatred is also sowed, and other believers are carved into villains and heretics. For the love of their sections, they will distort facts and portray themselves as divine and godly. In order to stir the emotions, it becomes essential for them to label other sections as evil. If we carefully do the analysis, all these religious zealots have aligned themselves with power circles because they understand that only by becoming powerful, they can spread their word and in return provide the benefits to their powerful beneficiaries.
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Probably, the desire to be loved is the root cause of all human miseries
This desire limits human freedom and forces it to obey traditions, social norms, limit our thinking and water the seeds of fear. It inculcates fear, fear of losing constituents. The illusion of being loved or being accepted and respected forces us to do things which in many ways make us conservative and orthodox. Most people want to carry on with same agenda as of their forefathers since it remains the accepted norm. It provides people a deeper sense of familiarity and comfort. The progressive men were generally not loved or respected during their lives only the later generation understood their cause and motivation.
In essence, most people want to love or follow someone either because of their personal gains or even vendetta. Finding unconditional support or love remains a big deception, mostly the followers want something in return. Most of the politicians, understand this behavior and therefore they speak a multitude of lies or make false promises to gain false love. Both sides keep trying to befool the other. However, the false perception of gaining the love of people forces politicians, religious zealots, Judges or media men to do things which may be beneficial for short time for some but have horrendous long-term impacts.
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Freedom is the answer to this conundrum. Once it is realized that all the acceptance and love is there because it’s not unconditional. One no longer remains slave to the validations and approvals of society. Only then men will take tasks that will make them independent and innovative. Overcoming the desire and pressure of being loved, will help inculcate the true free spirit in men. Its only then one starts believing in doing the right thing.
Moied Javeed is a senior telecom executive in Pakistan and can be reached at mj@tptglobal.net. The views expressed in the article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Global Village Space.