Skip to main content

The rise of the weird: AAP and Kejriwal

AAP confounds me. It doesn't confound because of its stupid bland unhygienically regurgitated theatrics in sole blinders-on aim to gain some credible new bytes before it hits the jackpot just a few weeks away. It does, certainly, but not as much as its firm believers believe in this alien philosophy of nonsense with no roots of politics, economics, sociology or common sense, believe with so firm a mind that an evangelical priest knows where to pitch his tent next.

The reason why these so called politely named AAP-tards (I would actually prefer AAP-turds) are so sadly in need for approval and a flag post to hoist their hopes and dreams that they would hitch onto any weird ideology which sounds good, irrespective of the value, benefits and realism this salesman holds out for them.

I remember the mass waves of hysteria of good old days when Ganeshji was said to drink milk. I really loved it because I saw the most sane of the people, the professors and commissioners et al, diligently trying to queue up to feed Lord Ganesha a few drops of milk. It would have been a great thing to do, except that it wasn't true to any extent.

We have seen this hysteria*, and I also like the word delirium, in several spheres of life, especially in markets that we deal with day in day out. But in politics these kind of events are quite rare. That is because the world of politics moves at a glacial pace, and has any chance of impact only several years apart. Hence, such events are very good learning points for those looking out from their balconies.

Barrack Obama came to power in one such hysteric events when all people wanted to do was to get rid of one person with only one more person as an alternative. Therefore, it was not much of an hysteria as much it was of lack of opportunity and choice.

Put it in this context the rise and din of Arvind Kejriwal and AAP (we have dealt with these themes before, see the archives), is far removed, and not so far too. However, just like Barrack Obama, here is a guy with absolutely no policy clarity what so ever, on any issue or departments what so ever, trying to gobble up the public mind space only on one and only one theme of  - providing an alternative!

Funnily, and tragically, people are falling for this gamble. So desperate and befuddled are these people that they cannot look beyond their conditioned stereotypes and propaganda mindset that they are barely able to analyse the actual opportunities in a logical manner. THIS, is why I find this entire sequence of events puzzling and even hysterical.

And just as I was thinking of this an interesting mail with a video link drops by, which probably gives a lot succinct explanation of why people fall for such bull.

This rise of AAP, and the chaos its created, is an interesting sociological case, much like the post-Wiemar (as I have often mentioned in these blogs), leading to almost hysterical frenzy of following the 'dream' of 'purity' in (public) life (/race). For lots of people who trade and watch market psychology in action, this mass lemming-like behavior is an excellent point of view to learn, study and analyze, and if it does really break anything in the election - whine about it.

This is the link to that video: Michael Shermer: Why people believe weird things

Then, until next time, stay sane.

------
*I love these dictionary definitions of hysteria so much that I will quote it here fully

Hysteria (noun) 

1. exaggerated or uncontrollable emotion or excitement.

2. an old-fashioned term for a psychological disorder characterized by conversion of psychological stress into physical symptoms (somatization) or a change in self-awareness (such as a fugue state or selective amnesia) 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cognitive rules of business presentations

In his recent book, Clear and to the Point, Kosslyn explained that the four rules of PowerPoint are: The Goldilocks Rule, The Rudolph Rule, The Rule of Four, and the Birds of a Feather Rule. Here's how they work. The Goldilocks Rule refers to presenting the "just right" amount of data. Never include more information than your audience needs in a visual image. As an example, Kosslyn showed two graphs of real estate prices over time. One included ten different numbers, one for each year. The other included two numbers: a peak price, and the current price. For the purposes of a presentation about today's prices relative to peak price, those numbers were the only ones necessary. The Rudolph Rule refers to simple ways you can make information stand out and guide your audience to important details -- the way Rudolph the reindeer's red nose stood out from the other reindeers' and led them. If you're presenting a piece of relevant data in a list, why not mak...
Post a Comment
Read more

Monetary inflation, Spiritual devaluation

Its been sometime I have been trying to make some special people understand the evils of inflation. Inflation is an abstract subject most of us dont know about, let alone understand the technicalities amidst jargons. I have in my previous post have briefly touched the social part of inflation but never in a concentrated way. I understand what my friends mean when they say "tell me in layman’s language." It is not a heartening sign, that they avoid technicalities. But it could well be that knowing where they stand, their role and understanding the social changes in the light of inflation may motivate them to understand the term "inflation." This is just to highlight the brief points. First and the foremost, is there any link between inflation numbers and society. Yes. The relation is same as the relation between society and money. What is money? Money is an easy means of exchange. If I am selling my horses to a pig-farmer and I am not interested in taking pigs in ret...
2 comments
Read more

Unprecedented External Demand Shock Underway

India’s export growth averaged 24.8% over the last three years, driven by strong global growth. However, over the last three months, export growth has decelerated sharply. While until recently the strong demand from emerging markets including Latin America, Emerging Europe, the Middle East and Africa ensured that export growth remained healthy, over the last three months disruptions in the macro environment of these economies have been evident. Apart from weakening demand, exports have also been affected by the lack of availability of foreign trade credit and inventory liquidation. India’s exports declined by 12.1%Y in October 2008 compared with 10.4% in September and 26.9% in August. While we expect some improvement in the second half of 2009, exports are likely to be unusually weak over the next six months. We now expect exports to decline by 5.3%Y in 2009 compared with 12.7% in 2008 (estimated) and 23.1% in 2007 Excerpt source
Post a Comment
Read more