By Sardar Khan Niazi

We live in a society that increasingly values the appearance of reality over reality itself. In today’s Pakistan, impressions — carefully curated, emotionally charged and often misleading — have begun to matter more than facts, substance and lived experience. From politics to piety, from patriotism to personal success, what seems to be true now frequently outweighs what is true. This is not merely a cultural shift; it is a structural one, accelerated by social media, 24-hour news cycles and a deepening crisis of trust in institutions. Politics offers the clearest example. Public discourse is dominated less by policy and performance and more by narratives, optics and outrage. Speeches are clipped into viral soundbites, aerial photographs rather than outcomes measure rallies, and governance is reduced to hashtags. The success or failure of a leader is judged not by reforms delivered or institutions strengthened, but by how effectively they control the narrative on X, YouTube or WhatsApp. In this impressionistic environment, contradiction is not a liability. A statement can be disproven within minutes, yet continue to circulate for years because it feels true to a particular audience. Emotional resonance has replaced empirical verification. As a result, political loyalty increasingly resembles brand allegiance — immune to evidence and hostile to nuance. This performative morality creates an illusion of righteousness while allowing social injustices to persist unchallenged. We loudly debate personal sins while remaining indifferent to systemic cruelty, corruption and inequality. Impression replaces accountability. The same pattern is visible in our notions of success. A society grappling with unemployment, inflation and shrinking opportunity nevertheless celebrates an endless stream of self-made” success stories online. The gap between these digital fantasies and the daily struggles of ordinary Pakistanis continues to widen, breeding frustration, self-doubt and resentment. Young people, in particular, are trapped in this contradiction. They are told that hard work guarantees success, while witnessing a reality shaped by connections, class and chance. When experience clashes with the illusion, the individual lived is blamed for failing to measure up, rather than the system for failing to deliver. Media institutions, once expected to mediate between reality and the public, often amplify the problem. Television talk shows prioritize confrontation over comprehension, speculation over reporting. Living in an impression-driven society also affects how we see ourselves as a nation. We oscillate between exaggerated self-congratulation and excessive self-loathing. Pakistan is portrayed both as uniquely virtuous and perpetually wronged. Both narratives avoid the harder task of honest self-assessment. Reality, as always, is messier. Pakistan is a complex country shaped by historical choices, power structures and human agency. However, acknowledging this requires patience, intellectual humility and a willingness to sit with uncomfortable truths — qualities that do not trend well online. The danger of an impressionistic society is not simply that it distorts reality, but that it eventually replaces it. When citizens lose the habit of distinguishing between image and substance, accountability becomes impossible. Policies fail, institutions decay, and yet the spectacle continues uninterrupted. Resisting this drift does not require rejecting technology or nostalgia for a pre-digital past. It requires cultivating a civic culture that values evidence over emotion, depth over drama, and ethics over optics. Schools, media houses, religious leaders and political actors all have a role to play — but so do ordinary citizens, in the choices they make about what to share believe and amplify. Impressions may be unavoidable in the modern world. Allowing them to dominate our collective life, however, is a choice. The question Pakistan must confront is whether it wishes to remain a society that looks convincing, or become one that actually works.