I am all for a bunch of people celebrating a festival. Don’t get me wrong. However, amidst these celebrations (and some of these are at massive scale), is the main point lost?
Tag: community
On Being Trolled and 66A
Everybody who is on the internet has probably heard of this term. Trolls or being trolled is fairly common. In fact there are sites such as 4chan where the sole purpose of the community is to troll on different activities.
Reddit is also one such community, where a lot of users are actively trolling and are being trolled. Being a long time lurker on Reddit, I used to read through multiple posts where fellow redditors would make hilarious comments (often to diffuse a situation). Funny, but at whose expense?
Capitalism
Some time back I was reading a collection of essays by Ayn Rand, ‘twas titled Capitalism: The unknown ideal. I was foolhardy enough to put my status message as so on a professional networking site (LinkedIn). A friend of mine commented on that saying –
let me know how to ameliorate the fact that capitalism is pro-incumbent. Also how do we bridge the rich poor divide..Raising taxes for the rich?
Then started a slew of replies, back and forth. I did not understand why do we have to bridge the rich and poor divide. I soon put the issue to rest and went ahead with my day-to-day life … until yesterday, when a chance discussion with Amol led us back to this issue.
I do not see why do we, as a society have to strive for collective equality (why else would you want to reduce the rich-poor divide?). Amol said, that it is not fair, that some people should have a good life while others do not even have basic amenities. I agree, its not fair. But such is life! How can there not be a divide, if there were no difference between people, then there would have been no difference between you and me. So where would your individualism go? People can’t be equal, they have to be TREATED equally. There is a difference.
I agree, that the country needs infrastructure boosts … so much so that it should support the basic needs of all. But to expect that the rich feel for the poor and give willingly, naaah … I have no such feelings.
On a light note, let me paint a picture for you of what would happen if all people were equal, here’s a song by Groove Armada, check the video out – If Everybody Looked the same.
United WE stand
What brings a community together? What really binds the members of the community?
Two things: Pride and Fear.
Perhaps, a third – a shared purpose.