MOB MENTALITY

Mob mentality is prevalent everywhere, and it surfaces during our everyday (apparantly harmless) social interactions. Everytime you pull a friend's leg along with others, everytime you watch your national team play, it's there, lurking around the corner. It's a relic of our evolutionary history, like most, nay all of our emotions. You feel secure when you are part of a group, you like to belong there, and just to make yourself feel better, you try to make the outsider's life uncomfortable. But how do we define an outsider? Is it necessary? Yes, it is very much a neccessity to find an outsider(s), someone who doesn't 'belong' with you, for only then will you get a chance to prove your allegience to your fellow 'brethren', by targeting the outsider. This endless game of inclusion and exclusion is reflected in the earlier mentioned ordinary happenstances. Just try to think about it objectively, the way you dress, the way you talk, it's all defined by what's necessary to be a part of 'group' of your choice. How many times have you ridiculed someone for being 'out-dated', for not following the latest fads and fashion? I used to wonder why schoolkids target the silent loner among their classmates, or in college the non fashion conscious guy/gal is in for a hard time. They are just different, why can't you let them be? Now I know, that's because they are the soft targets who will help you establish your being a part of a mob, and give you a sense of security, security in numbers. We still haven't forgotten that it's best to hunt in a pack.
And of course, all these things add up to show a really ugly face, when during a riot a surging mob rapes and kills, or first world nations invade a third world country. Is man really the 'noble beast'? Or just a beast behind a noble facade?

the thing called class!

my friends take me for a socialist, if not a communist! they will be mighty disappointed if i endorse and appreciate the existence of an elite class of people in society. i give a damn about a monetary upper class, there should be none, of course in an unrealizable utopian society, as we have oh so heartbreakingly realized. i had this sort of silly arguement with a friend yesterday, about the roger-rafa wimbledon final, where he argued that nadal was a representative of the 'proletariate' class, and (poor) federer was a 'bourgeoise', since he wanted to win every point with minimum effort by using his superior skills! even after realizing how absurd the arguement was, one suddenly realizes there is a class of human beings who rise above the rest of the pack, and makes you look up at them in astonishment, if not reverence. i feel elevated, to a higher state of consciousness, every time federer hits a backhand cross-court winner, or a laxman drive whizzes past the cover fieldsmen ... don't you see, some people are just special, and there's nothing wrong with it.
and let me state this, i don't think democracy is always a good idea. to an extent i think plato was right, the multitude doesn't always know what's good for them, that should be decided by an elite. look at what happened while choosing the 'new seven wonders' of the world: 'christ the redeemer' a wonder, in the same category as 'taj mahal'? come on, give me a break. most democracies in the world today actually function in an intermediate manner, where the multitude elect an elite to govern them for a specified period of time. but they botch it up most of the times! look at the cabinet ruling USA, or the corrupt people and goons we elect to the 'lok sabha'.