Things that will incense people*

1. Anything that smells Left ("Bloody commies they oppose EVERYTHING!"). Which leaves me with the STRONG urge to go up to random people, state some very obvious Redness- 'So. The workers of the world should unite, huh' and observe the various states of outrage on their faces. It should be very amusing. I anticipate much giggling-in-the-head.

2. Reservations. They go blue in the face sputtering about merit.

3. Trade Unions. "Them useless, good for nothing, lazy freeloaders who scream about their rights and forget the Greater Good.'

I've been doing a bit of calm listening to conversations and opinions that would earlier have left me blue in the face but impotent to intervene effectively. I picked up this very useful tool of learning and argument during the summer school on Philosophy for the Social Sciences, Manipal. Today I actually enjoyed myself, listening to people talk about and argue about the following.

a) Trade unions and why they suck.
b) How the Muslims have no one but themselves to blame for their poor socio-economic indicators (apparently because they have no middle class and their upper classes do not let the lower classes progress). 
c) How the RSS is dismantling caste structures on the ground (this was interesting. I'd like to do some reading on the chaddiwallas)
d) An argument between right wing people about the merits and demerits of reservation.

The calmer I am, the more I realise how categories can be so misleading. I would have earlier dismissed the (religious, more than economic (even though they overlap)- ) Right Wing as a monolithic block of people with minor variations in opinion. But I have been surprised too many times in the past couple of months to hold on to that image anymore. Yes, the right wing IS the right wing, but the tag, like all tags, ought to be used only for the sake of convenience and not as a definition. That would  be dangerous, and silly. And counter-productive for anyone who wants to bury the Right so deep in the ground that they emerge in outer space across the spherical diameter.  

Some people feel anger is an important tool for empowerment and socio-economic change. It has been argued that anger is the first step to change. I'm increasingly inclined to disagree with that. As mentioned above, I think it is counter-productive and it binds one and limits the effectiveness of the counter action. I think we need to draw a distinction between the recognition of and refusal to accept injustice- and anger. The Gandhians probably got that right.


*I'm referring to a particular type of people, ofcourse.