An Ode To Arrogance!
Arrogance
is one of the defining characteristics of human beings. Arrogance can be easily
discerned or felt by us in every word or act or posture or gait displayed by
the inflicted persons. We confront them everywhere—at home where the arrogance
of the head of the household is as ancient as the homo sapiens; at workplace
where the arrogance of the boss percolates down the line very often apart from the
others in various sycophantic roles; at educational institutions where the most
scholarly often displays the most arrogance apart from the others in various
emphatic roles; in the ruling class hierarchy arrogance has been a trademark
notwithstanding the transformation from monarchy/dictatorship to democracy in
many nations of the world; and so on. Of course, no generalization has been
attempted here: else, how on earth can we have the magnanimity of discussing
it!
The
word ‘arrogance’ has, logically, numerous synonyms. Here we’ll mention a few
examples so that our discourse is easier to understand. These are: Haughtiness,
Condescension, Egotism, Swagger, Snobbishness, Superciliousness, Mocking, Sneering,
and Big-headedness. Based largely on these we can list out a few characteristic
features of the arrogant as below:
· The ideology or the
ideals they adhere to are the perfect which everybody should follow
unquestioningly. They know everything, and are absolute scholars, philosophers
and writers.
· What they do or say or
imply is always right and no living soul should ever vouch on the contrary.
· What they eat, what
they wear and what styles or standards they adopt are the most discrete ones,
and no one should ever think disobey.
· They are extremely
intolerant of others’ opinions, forget about dissent which you only think is
the hallmark of a democracy, and anyone who dares to contest gets condemned as
unfaithful or criminals or traitors.
· They are also extremely
capable of making fun of others—that they possess an indomitable appetite to go
on mocking others with an omnipresent all-knowing grin; if they are forced by
circumstances to give befitting replies to daringly democratic voices.
As
we had mentioned earlier we meet arrogant people at every walk of life. At best,
we can get over them with slight inconveniences; at worst, we get affected by
them so grievously that our life gets derailed or even damaged—all such
situations being at a personal level though. However, if arrogance takes over
at the macro level, meaning at the level of state administration or governance
then it’s a recipe for absolute disaster. Unfortunately, such kind of ‘governance
with arrogance’ has been happening in many places across the world: bulldozing
public opinion or protests or democratic traditions or basic principles of
humanity. The tragic consequences are all there to behold: use of the
time-tested divide-and-rule policy, particularly during elections; unparalleled
display, preaching and spread of hatred; racist and communal violence; mob fury,
lynching and riots; and of course, tragic loss of innocent lives—so unnecessary
and so eminently preventable.
Why
then ‘an ode’ to such an undeserving phenomenon? Well, democratic sentiments
are still embedded in numerous souls of numerous hapless subjects like this
writer, and so, we, some of the people, still strive to respect the spirit of a
democracy. We’d earlier said about the unfortunate phenomenon of ‘governance with arrogance’ seen in quite a
few countries of the world, and what is doubly unfortunate is the fact that
large chunks of subjects tend to support or vote for the phenomenon. These
large chunks often prove to be the majority in respective countries. In a
democracy we respect all sections of the society—their needs, interests and
opinions, and therefore, if the majorities themselves are with the ‘change’
then how on earth could we ignore such overwhelmingly democratic spontaneity!
It’s
altogether a different matter if the majorities fail miserably to distinguish
the ‘right’ from the ‘wrong’. And, it’s altogether a very justifiable matter if
we decide to use the ‘an ode’ prefix.
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