By Amit Sengupta
The Rot is in the Brain
So ‘brain rot’ is the new term in English language for year 2024, according to Oxford Dictionary. Without a hyphen.
It won the ‘competition’ because, literally, in the addictive and insatiable consumerism of the contemporary digital era, the brain seems to be rotting like a sinking quagmire in hell. You can see it everywhere. This rot. You can almost touch it, smell its insufferable epidemic.
Hence, in the age of exploding AI, all emotions and sensibilities, intelligence and creativity, knowledge and wisdom — everything is in a continuous state of vicarious, non-sensory, artificial simulation. Surely, it’s another kind of obsessive, self-centric, passive stagnation, a deadly drug, a cacophonic anti-catharsis, in what appears to be a relentless, never-ending browsing phenomena in ‘the uneventful life and times of social media’. Indeed, ‘anti-social media’ would be a more apt term.
The concept and term scored over others in the English language, including ‘demure, romatasy, slop, lore’. Why they lost out, including lore and demure, remains a mystery.
The term apparently first appeared in the celebration of ‘solitude within solitude’ in the dense woods, in 1854, penned as Walden, by Henry David Thoreau. He wrote: “While England endeavours to cure the potato-rot, will not any endeavour to cure the brain-rot, which prevails so much more widely and fatally?”
Obviously, he had no idea of the insatiability of online content, including ‘Happy Birthday’ and ‘RIP’ in the late 19th century. The rot must be still there, inherited from its shady and sinister past, and flourishing, out there in the ‘White World’.
The New York Times reports that Casper Grathwohl, the president of Oxford Languages, the company’s dictionary division, said the term’s rise reflects the breakneck speed of social media-driven language change. “With ‘brain rot’,” he said, “it’s a phenomenon of young people skewering language trends on TikTok, almost exactly after they themselves have churned out that language.”
That is, the ‘aura’of words and languages, as much as silences (and aesthetic meaning), have changed as well. In fact, on social media, the meaning of the word ‘aura’ itself seems to have found a new connotation. For a large number of the young, now, it vaguely resembles quick achievement and success, or similar such things, etc, something that is a priori in post-modern capitalism of FPCG.
Brain rot, as Oxford’s ‘Word of the Year’, emerges from a huge corpus of 26 billion words or more, in the English-speaking world. The idea is to reflect “the moods and conversations that have shaped 2024”.
The funny part is that there seems to be neither mood nor conversation in the virtual world. There is, of course, an excess of narcissism. And nonsense!
India stands with Palestine
In a categorical declaration of its stated and past positions on Palestine, India has voted in favour of a UN General Assembly resolution seeking the withdrawal of Israel from Palestinian territory. This occupation started 1967, including East Jerusalem. India has called for a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in West Asia.
The draft resolution is called, ‘Peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine’. It was tabled by Senegal. The resolution was adopted in the 193-member General Assembly. India shared its yes vote with 157 countries, while, predictably, the US, Hungary, Israel, Papua New Guinea, Argentina, Nauru, Palau, Micronesia, voted against.
The resolution stated the Gaza Strip is an integral part of Palestine. It was occupied by Israel in 1967. It supports a two-state solution.
According to a UN statement, “Peace and security will never be achieved through force or occupation,” Assembly President Philemon Yang (Cameroon) stressed, as he emphasized that the continued denial of Palestinian statehood “has only perpetuated cycles of violence and deepened despair”. It has been over a year of hostilities that have caused thousands of deaths and widespread destruction. Now is the time for all to “bury the hatchet for once and for all”, he stressed, calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the unconditional release of all hostages.”
India also stressed that the occupation of Golan Heights in Syria is wrong. Israel should immediately withdraw from it, India said.
France, Germany in turmoil
France’s fledgling government has fallen. Members of Parliament voted against Michel Barnier as prime minister.
The immediate reason was his act of pushing an austerity budget without consensus. Interestingly, the Far-Left New Popular Front joined hands with its bitter enemy, the far-right National Rally, and backed the no-confidence motion. Barnier became PM just about three months ago.
The Europe Editor of BBC, Katya Adler, writes: “…the country is in turmoil — political and economic — is not only of grave concern to French citizens… These are times of deep global instability… And France, together with Germany, is traditionally seen as the EU’s ‘motor’ in terms of ideological and political horsepower…But that motor is spluttering, to put it mildly…
“France is not alone in being riven and distracted by domestic political disputes. Germany will hold a snap general election in February after its bickering coalition government recently collapsed…The EU as a whole is affected.”
South Korea defies Martial Law
South Korea too is in turmoil. Modeled on the western model of democracy, and with a history of military dictatorship, it’s in the grip of a discredited and weak president, with a scandal shadowing him and his wife. President Yoon Suk Yeol imposed a sudden martial law on the country, inspired by the tyrannies of the past.
The declaration was quickly followed by street protests, the media coming out against it, and lawmakers forcibly entering the National Assembly. Some of them jumped the walls. The National Assembly rejected the martial law.
South Korea has a remarkable history of people’s protests. Its students, including Leftist organisations, and citizens have fiercely fought against the military regimes, openly taking them on the streets and public places in the 1980s. Those days, while some male and female students would face armed soldiers with pepper sprays, others would block their guns with roses.
The famous May, 1980 Gwangju uprising by the citizens is celebrated as a landmark in South Korean history. It’s commemorated every year with memorial functions all through the day and a massive and lively procession in the night, with paper lanterns filling the sky. Students enact the people’s uprising and army repression, while tearful homage is given to the martyrs who were gunned down by the military. The entire political class joins the celebrations, including the government.
Meanwhile, an impeachment motion against the president is being pushed by opposition law makers. The ruling party has opposed the motion and it is likely to be defeated, unless a few ruling party members choose to shift sides.
Besides, the police has stated that they are investigating the reason behind the martial law declaration by Yoon Suk Yeol. More so, prosecutors have stated that they have opened investigations involving the president, interior minister, Lee Sang-min, and defence minister, Kim Yong-hyun, who has quit. According to reports, the head of state in South Korea does not enjoy immunity from such a ‘crime’. The punishment includes death penalty.
The way the phrase “brain rot” sums up the condition of our digital age is much interesting. Social media will indeed utterly change the way we think; it often makes us passive consumers of shallow content. On the other hand, India’s consistent position on Palestine reflects its commitment to peace and justice.Political turmoil in France and Germany clearly manifests the current global chaos, while the protests in South Korea remind us of the struggle for democracy.
Do we ever realize how much is happening every day, from shifts in culture to political tensions around the world? It’s easy to get caught up in our own routines, but the world is constantly changing in ways we might not even notice.