Society - Individual Part II

Yesterday, I was watching "V for Vendatta", probably for the 50th time. OK. It's slightly exaggerated; nevertheless, I watched it and I'd watch it over and over again. I realised that I get the same feeling as I used to when I watched it for the very first time. What makes it so appealing? There are the obvious and superficial reasons, and there are not-so-obvious reasons. The obvious ones - (1) commercial elements like explosions, knife fights (2) appropriately chosen music (3) excellent script equally challenged by an unmatched dialogue delivery (4) screen-play and direction (5) background set on anarchist principles thus making the protagonist go against an entire establishment. The not-so-obvious reasons are of specific interest to me and has been a subject of my curiousity since first semester of my under-graduation period. Upon closer inspection, it gives a direction to my question of whether society is greater than the individual, or the vice-versa. Behind all the trivialities, it addresses the notion of power.

In one of my earlier rants, I was too juvenile and narrow-minded to think clearly and understand how it works. Although the answer is not easy to get to, it turns out, it's not very difficult either - I only needed few more inputs and time to think. If only I had asked why a little sooner!

Anyway, I realised that it is this power that controls the society and and keeps eveything in check. And what is the source of this power? The answer is individual. Untimately, it is an individual (or a set of individuals) over the entire course of human history that shaped the stucture of what and how a society should be. It is he - unlike others - who can think ahead, with the knowledge of the past. It is he who has the power to influence the society with his will and his ideas. Like most animals, even we humans exhibit herd mentality often. I presumed it would follow the pareto principle - 80% of the people get controlled by the other 20%. However, this research produced even more striking results. It concludes that it takes just 5% to influence the rest 95% [1].

One might wonder - But, what of the innumerous instances in our daily lives where he has to put the demands of the society (or group) before his own needs? French sociologist Gustave Le Bon's Contagion theory goes some way to explaining such events. "The crowd is always intellectually inferior to the isolated individual, but that, from the point of view of feelings and of the acts these feelings provoke, the crowd may, according to circumstances, be better or worse than the individual. All depends on the nature of the suggestion to which the crowd is exposed." [1]

Any society is shaped by the individual; not just any individual. The super-heroes (not limited to fiction) fall into this category.

References:
[1] http://psychology.suite101.com/article.cfm/following-the-crowd

Why God, Why?

Countless times I've come across sports fanatics, of cricket and football in particular. Hell! I live with one right now. I was even caught-up in many arguments and fights completely oblivious of what the fuck it was all about. I could see the passion and aggression in each of their eyes and voices when they spoke about their favourite teams, players and matches. I would simply shake it off, walk out of the room feeling sorry for them. Obviously, I was in a universe of my own that had no point of intersection with the world of sports (except in the Summer of '07 where indoor cricket in SAC sucked me in). Needless to say, I was of the opinion that following sports was a waste of time; there's definitely a better way to "spend" one's time.

Over the past year, I was getting increasingly conscious of the impact of sports on me. Living with people who have the capacity and interest to follow sports all day long and not allowing it to have an effect on you is difficult. It started with tennis and now cricket.

Only yesterday, I sat down to retrospect how my view changed completely, however gradual it was. Following sports might start just to pass the time or for entertainment. It becomes much more than than. One waits eagerly for start of a tournamant or a tour or a series. One keeps a dashboard of all the achievements and memorable moments of the game or a player. One waits for records to be broken and history created. Record breaking in that context, is not just a player's or a team's source of motivation. It's a part of a collective dream shared be every single person glued to the TV munching the finger-nails, or in the stands screaming and cheering on the top of his lungs, or even staring at the live feeds on the monitor quietly in the office cubicle. And that moment not only gets engraved in history, but also in the minds of every person attached to it. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say, "It becomes a part of one's identity". It defines who we are.

Having said all this, to me, yesterday was more significant that the day Federer became the greatest player ever to play tennis (even though I watched and adored tennis more than cricket). Evidently, the reason is not very difficult to fathom - Tennis traces back to an individual, but cricket in most cases, is associated to a nation. To me, it was not Sachin who scored an undefeated 200*; it was one of us, one of the 1.15 billion Indians.

I never considered myself a patriot; but, when I noticed the number of tri-coloured flags in this page, the feeling was quite overwhelming. The disappointment that the Indian flag is not present in 'Highest individual score' table did not last long (for me, considering that I've been following our achievements only recently).

I'm glad I watched yesterday's game. You should've seen me all pumped up, hoping Sachin would get to the top of the chart. Looks like I've started becoming one of them now.

Why? Why God, why??