SOCRATES once said, wisest is he who knows he does not know. This adage has the key to understand the increasing stupidity in the social media.

Most (self-proclaimed) pundits on social media consider themselves experts in every branch of human knowledge. A casual glance at social media should suffice to make one realise how social media is saturated with “know-it-alls”.

When such pundits enter into a debate, it does not take them long to shed their scholarly cloaks and resort to vile language. These self-proclaimed “scholars” think that googling a topic or watching a programme on cable TV make them an authority.

What they don’t realise is that knowledge and wisdom are never acquired easily and never would be.

It can be debated that whether this psyche of “Mr-Know-it-all” is only present in social media or it is the reflection of the whole society. But what can’t be argued with, is the fact that this idiocy and fatuousness is not healthy for the intellectual growth of the society.

This attitude not only harms our ability to learn and gather more knowledge but also undermines the value of true scholars and experts. Socrates was right in saying wisdom begins when we start to realize the fact; “we don’t know”….

Syed Usman Shah

Lahore

Published in Dawn, October 20th, 2014