Today's Hafta is going to be a very special on the 600th episode where we will be discussing unpopular opinions that each of us has had or have. This Hafta we have the Hafta OGs. Today is a polite Hafta. I shall not use any expletives either. I give you five minutes. Kuch toh maryada rakhe. Problems that India faces now, social, economic and increasingly administrative, one of the root causes of that is the idea of nationalism. I think travel is a hedonistic and consumeristic activity that has, in the public consciousness, acquired this aura of being something greater and more noble. I mean, of course, I could not disagree more with you. Do you like travel? You don't seem the kind who enjoys travel much. No, I like, but I don't have money for it. Ah, it's all right. But among the liberals, I think their description of snowflake is very accurate. I think they have the inability to have conversations with positions they can't agree with or people they can't agree with. So the unpopular opinion here is, is there a peer pressure to now like things? Yeah, exactly. There is a peer pressure to like things, exactly. Or to dislike things. I think, and I say unpopular opinion to a grouping which is, which since I identify as liberal, to the liberal grouping. Because of course, to the right, everything is an unpopular opinion because I can't stand the right. I think they are small minded, you know, dimwitted idiots who are stuck in time. So, but among the liberals, I think the description of snowflake is very accurate. I think they have the inability to have conversations with positions they can't agree with or people they can't agree with. And this only comes from very short term. Like they would have seen three lectures or three articles of someone and have decided this person is a bigot. There's no nuance. This cancel culture, that inability to have a conversation with someone you don't agree with on this issue. But maybe you have an agreement on some broader issues. Like you may have the same direction in the river, but little eddies who may have counter currents on certain issues. I think this is a very typical liberal characteristic. It is a liberal characteristic of a certain age group And it is especially prevalent and heightened in those who are in the journalist writer community and are very vocal on social media And unfortunately, I think they should be taken seriously. They add very little to any intelligent discourse other than outraging and telling you who you should invite, who you should speak to, you shouldn't speak to and this all stems from them not being able to have a conversation with a position that they actually in my view cannot argue with so the best way to do is cancel that's obviously you see that everywhere now but uh i think that is a sort of the if not the end point but you know we're close to that of liberalism the modern liberalism as it was conceived in you know western academia to begin with and then exported everywhere so the liberalism the idea of liberalism is that the individual is free so when you elevate that individual beyond community beyond any factors of you know what was considered taboo before or whatever so when you elevate that individual as the supreme you know what do you call it as the supreme deity in a way what that does is that individuals desires their concerns their traumas their triggers those become paramount beyond everybody everything else so if you have 10 people and that one person says okay i'm triggered by this thing because individual is beyond approach is beyond everyone you have to defer to that it doesn't matter nine people disagree they differ another individual has another thing so this is basically the hyper individualization of society that liberalism has brought about that is why you know some of the commentators especially in the west what they are talking about now with this backlash around wokeism around you know transgender ideology and all that is basically the idea is that this is what we are entering now is the post-liberal world where all these deities of liberalism will be kind of torn down one by one by one and the other is is that these become in a sense a political communities where the power is so diffused that there is no way of organizing if you don have a community if two people in a society can agree on on a certain thing one is triggered one is not triggered then you can't mobilize which is necessary for you know building communities building political movements yeah which also extends to this whole this new fashion of before you give any news trigger warning this news contains violence this news contains dude don't watch the news if you get triggered by everything sit home read charles dickens that will also trigger you because that also violence and how orphans are treated in orphanages charles dickens has some of the most violence that you will get in yeah maybe then you should read any blighton but then that also may trigger because of big ears and those other characters with that we also would like to tell you people are finally are proud of supporting independent media. Those of you who've been supporting us for years have always been proud. We've always had those stickers, but now we are relaunching them. If you want to tell the world you support independent media, you are the ones holding the fourth pillar up. You are the pillars holding the fourth pillar up. Here, there are these stickers all over my face. If you're a subscriber already, mail us at subscription at newsloan.com with the email, which is your subscription email, and we'll send you this set of stickers for free. You will please have to pay for the courier charges because if several thousand people write into us, our courier charges will go into the lacks. So pay the courier charge and we will send you the stickers for free. Stick it on your car, on your cycle, on your scooter, on your window, on your neighbor's car bumper. Tell the world that you pay to keep news free. Encourage others. And if you're a non-subscriber, we're offering you a discount. Here is the QR code. Scan the QR code or click on the link in the show notes and you will get this sticker set for free with the subscription along with the subscription, of course. Trigger is also because I think taking a very high moral ground is the easiest way to intellectual victories. So easy intellectual victories come with say taking high moral ground at the first instance in an argument Yeah it lazy because then you don have to argue Yeah because then you stick labels and stick labels that this is this this is that and then you don have to argue further if you divide something as hate and love then then you have to not argue anything this person is hate-filled why are argued with him yeah so because the individual is the judge executioner there is no outside standard that you have to conform to right and what you feel what you think that is supreme beyond everything else there is no kind of objective outside standard that you have to conform to which again like i was saying is sort of the end point of liberalism yeah yes she i mean i mean it also comes down to what issues that matter to you more than others for some people it's veganism for some people it's caste for some people it's you know genocide whatever. So you react to certain personalities based on where you stand in this hierarchy of what you see is most important. The second thing is that cancel culture as a phrase is something that I don't think I really, I don't really think it exists to that extent. I think it is sort of rebranding accountability. I think getting arrested for doing something illegal isn't getting canceled. You're just being arrested, you know, being blacklisted for saying a certain thing isn't being cancelled, it is facing a consequence. And when we say blacklist also, it's like any vaguely negative outcome for something you have done. And it's so broad so as to even sort of defeat the purpose. I think we call it insidious because of this entire nature of people rallying against the woke left and so on. But I think it's troubling to also categorise people as, to categorise angry people as the sort of mindless hysterical mob. I think people are powerless in so many ways when you talk about inequality and injustice and you know the daily grind the lack of employment the amount you're spending just for one single hospital visit and you kind of like to believe you have the power to cancel someone who hurts you you don't because that's not how power works but i think that's also why people respond the way they do you
