Saturday, April 21, 2018

Left and Right - Who is right, who is wrong

On thing I learnt the hard way, on social media or otherwise it is utterly foolish to argue with a person with an extreme left Liberal or right Conservative points of view. If I am trying to convince the person otherwise to see through logic and commonsense, I am most likely wasting precious time. Because the thing about common sense is it is not so common.

For the Liberals (often ascribed as Libtaards by their detractors in a derogatory way) - Left is right, right is wrong. On the other side of the spectrum, the Right Winger nuts are convinced they are right and left should not be left alone, rather confronted. A balanced view is often frowned upon, such a person is branded an interloper.

A la Sardarjee jokes, one is considered naive and insane if he stands at 12 O'Clock noon. Those on the Right at 3 O'Clock or on the Left at 9 O'Clock are considered saner. (In Clock analogy scale, the hour hand at 12 denotes center, 9 as extreme left and 3 the extreme right).

Reminds me of a story from the great PANCHATANTRA (Five Treatise), a series of meaningful short stories compiled by our ancient story teller Vishnu Sharma. In once such stories, a bird tried to preach prudence to a monkey trying to make the later see sense. But the monkey laughed it off, grabbed the bird by its neck and chocked it to death. You may be the bird amidst multiple monkeys in myriad troll sites, both Left and Right.

Since the year 2000 when George W Bush narrowly won the Presidency, America is a divided nation. Off late, India is fast catching up. Most of the upper caste Hindus are blind supporters of Modi and BJP, aptly ascribed as BHAKT (devotee). Similarly, I haven't come across a single friend of mine from Muslim and Christian community in India no less patriots that others, who support Modi's BJP. Some are extrovert in expressing their anathema to Modi and the current leadership the Hindu Nationalist Party. Some are not so overt, but have privately express their concern and insecurity in the current state of affairs.

We have a slang in Odia called MUNDA, which can be transliterated as stubbornly moron. MUNDAs galore in both India and US. In India we have mostly illiterate, poor MUNDAs. In USA we have their literate, more affluent SUV driving counterparts. The stubbornness of the both and their close mindset is amazing and alarming.

I prefer to argue with people in the middle who I find reasonable, talk sense and see through logic- specially those who have an open mind with the ability to think. Sad such folks fall into a very narrow spectrum and are an endangered species these days like Royal Bengal Tigers.

As far as I am concerned, I see myself a right of the center person, yet on many matters, I am progressive with the bottom line that humanity is trumps all. I always give credence to the person who takes the opposite stance to my stand with an open ears and mind.

What I detest to the core is hypocrisy, harboring a staunch anathema to hypocrites, often taking pleasure in exposing and bustling their bubble using sarcasm as weapon. While Liberals discuss poverty and famine over Scotch and Kabaab (Kabob) in 5 Star Hotels, Conservatives are often caught pants down with Concubines and as Rapists while preaching chastity and family values. They are epitomes of hypocrisy and double standards - listing all is beyond the scope of this blog.

Hope henceforth sanity prevail and logic rules over emotions. Unfortunately, love (same as hatred) is blind and is strongest when unreasonable. Demagogues thrive on this, as long as their BHAKTs give them a free pass. God bless my JANMA BHUMI (Birthplace) and KARMA BHUMI (Land of profession) out of these doldrums.

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