PSEUDO-RADICALISM

Oxford dictionary defines radicalism as "departure from tradition; progressive; unorthodox". It primary talks about people who have a point of view entirely different from the socially accepted norms. And it won't be an exaggeration to say that it’s a host of radial people throughout the history who have shaped the mankind where it stands today. Right from Galileo to Gandhi, these men have stood for what they believed to be right no matter what the people think of them or their ideas. But this article talks about a different approach to radicalism, which I call pseudo-radicalism.

I define pseudo-radicalism as opposing a generally accepted idea rather than supporting an extremist idea. The difference being that a radical person advocates something which he believes from within and which represents his unbiased way of reckoning. On the other hand, a pseudo-radical first gathers the socially accepted view and then go after it with a negative approach. That is, a pseudo-radical does not have an originality of ideals, opinions or faculty of reasoning. And, I am afraid, the number of such people is increasing day by day and you will find them all around you; maybe you are one of them. Let me discuss how and why they exhibit such a behavior.

Firstly, its a conscious effort to stand out of the crowd in this competitive world. They certainly do not care about either of the point of views but do have an urge to somehow proclaim themselves to be on the extremist side. They do it just for the heck of it and their victory is only in getting heard and nothing else. How many times you have heard a friend telling "Mahatma Gandhi ruined this country" or "Tendulkar is no good for Indian cricket" or "I don't like Forrest Gump. Its too bland". I don't say that everyone making such remarks is a pseudo-radical; in fact some of them strongly feel it from the core of their heart and can fight it out with debatable reasoning. But still there are many of them who say it just to be different. They are hardly aware of Gandhi's philosophy or Sachin's records and don't even care to know how wrong they are. Another easy example of this is the recent article by Mr. Arindam Chaudhury titled "Don't see Slumdog Millionaire. It sucks!” He sure got his share of visibility out of it (he got more than 5000 views and 300+ comments in his blog in merely four days after he published it in TOI).

Second reason, which probably a psycho-analyst can explain, is accreditable to sub-conscious. An uneventful childhood, a distressful family atmosphere or a long foregone episode in life could germinate into such a behavior. Psychologists can perhaps delve deeper to understand it better.

I am not aware of prevalence of this phenomenon a few centuries ago, but I am increasingly fumbling upon such conducts all around me. And I would mainly attribute it to the heightening complexity of societal structure where people are succumbing to this urge to be different.

You might call this article to be a nonsensical and you may even get angry; and that, my friend, is a clear indicator of you being one of the pseudo-radicals talked about here. But don't worry, a little more introspection can sort it out.