Recently I was watching a video where Matt Damon reads Howard Zinn, and starts off by saying that world's wealth needs to be reallocated. The video got a lot of attention on social media, because everybody thought that those were Matt's own words. I liked it. Not because I like Matt Damon, which I do. But I liked what he quoted. Particularly, the place where he quoted Zinn to say that our problem is not Civil Disobedience but civil obedience, he got my memories working.
When I was young, I used to think of how to make things more equal for people. That was not in the intense way the previous generation dreamt of. I did not dispute or discredit their dreams. But I saw around me, how the philosophy, they thought would bring equality to mankind, failed to do so, and fostered authoritarianism on the other hand. I also realised that market forces are inescapable like nature. But I knew that the answer from the market place couldn't be a sacrosanct one, because the market existed before the Marxist philosophy and brought about huge income and wealth difference and exploitation; and it continued to do so, even after Marxist/ Socialist system of political governance gave away to 'capitalism'. I had dreamt of a new system that will acknowledge the market forces but will have checks and balances that will allow uniform opportunity and improve basic living standards of multitudes who were still at the bottom of society.
But more importantly I was willing to raise my voice for that. I also realised that I was much more muted than my previous generation. But we did rebel and disobey.
Now, I see a large section of the present generation to be totally conformist and harbouring half digested dogma about 'capitalism'. A host people in their late 20s and early 30s, that I know directly or indirectly, display this. I have seen on FB and otherwise, how these people foment majoritarian views, and are hoping for one authoritarian capitalist messiah to deliver their redemption. I find this rather sad. Even the clamour for Lokpal was just a rather ignorant and half-passionate act of incrementalism; the protests were neither sustained nor did they call for any deep understanding of the issue nor personal sacrifice. This was so different from what we knew of our previous generation, and even from our generation. Very few, among the young educated upper middle class is now taking personal risks to bring about a change. And the more one is comfortable in his or her cushy life, bestowed by Mammon, the God of Capitalism, more vocal one is of majoritarian and often repugnantly oppressive social views.
I know that the life I chose, was different from what many from the previous generation chose. I know that I made compromises, when I dreamt of a change without much disruption. In a way, I have started questioning myself and my generation for walking this path, where we just conformed, hoped someone else will bring the change and thus paved way for the next generation, which is steeped into civil obedience and hedonistic selfishness.
