Armchair Revolutionaries!

I'm busy with work, when I get a new mail notification. I open it to see the following -

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Subject: Shocking Hi Friends, Sorry for giving you all a very bad news, it may be one of the worst news after the Independence. Subhash Srivastav an AIIMS student died at 6:44 pm on 20/05/2006, because of hunger strike protesting against reservation. Media is not allowed to cover it. Please pass this to all and help not to let down his sacrifice.

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Sure - this is just another one of the email scams where someone with a vast amount of spare time and imagination composes and dashes off an email that catches on like wild fire, and the next thing you see it's all over the WWW. From bringing good luck, to preventing bad luck, and from spreading warnings to simple words of advice - these emails come worded such that most of us want to forward them in order to "spread the word". This motivation in all the cases may be different. I am looking at the above email again, and I wonder what drives a person to forward junk like this. We all want to be revolutionaries. We all want to fight the system. We want to fight 'injustice' when we see it. But we want to do it all from the comfort of our armchair. We're the armchair revolutionaries. We'll forward emails, we'll apply and minds and discuss what ails society, we'll discuss how things should be, we'll blog.. but we won't...?!!! We're revolutionaries!

about:group

About Perception & Purpose

Wiktionary (a free wiki dictionary) provides one definition of a 'group' as - "A number of things or persons being in some relation to each other"

I'm not too concerned with the grouping of objects. I'd rather speak about groups of people. Though some of what I speak would be applicable to objects too.

There are 2 kinds of groups, I'll say. I call these the - 'involuntary groups' and then the 'voluntary groups'.

The 'Involuntary Groups':
These are formed on the basis of inescapable features or properties of persons that cause them to be clubbed together by external observers. The members of these groups are present in there not by an act of their volition, but simply on how they are perceived by the external observers.

Typical examples of these would be - men, women, humans, foreigners, village bumpkins, etc.

Persons are categorized thus based on how their traits or behaviors are perceived by others. Important to note here are the words - 'perceived' and 'others'. In other words, if one has to include or exclude oneself to these groups, there has to be change in how they are perceived by the people around them, who themselves may or may not belong to these groups.


The 'Voluntary Groups':
These are very exciting entities in themselves with a lifecycle of their own.

'Voluntary groups' are formed when persons come together with an objective or purpose. The 'objective' or 'purpose' is what differentiates these from the 'involuntary groups' that are based on perception.

Volition of the participating members determines the lifecycle of these groups from their creation to their sustenance and demise.

Examples are aplenty around us - Churches, Clubs, Interest Groups, etc.

"Birth": Such a group is formed when two or more persons get together with an objective. (Such an objective or purpose with a single person would be typically referred to as an idea or an ideal).

"Growth": Once such a group is formed, it would need to attract more persons who share the same objective in order to buld up a 'critical size' for the group. Till the group attains this size, each participating member is extremely important for the growth of the group. Compromised contribution from even a single member would affect the growth of the group. A lot many groups die at this stage due to their inability to attract further members and/or inability of the members to continue their earlier contribution levels.

"Sustenance": Once the 'critical size' of the group is reached, it more or less becomes self-sustaining. That is, beyond the 'critical size', the impact of compromised or zero-contributions from some members would be pushed back by the sum of all the contributions in the group. It is usually at this stage that ideas that do not completely benefit the original objective start to form and develop in the group, leading to sub-groups. These sub-groups could play a role in either modifying the original objective, or leading to an untimely demise of the group.

"Demise": The group would cease to exist either when the original objective has been met, and the members decide to disband, or when it would happen when the sub-groups formed during the sustenance stage overwhelm the 'critical mass' of the primary objective holders.

In the latter case, the sub-groups would then break-up the primary group, or break-away from the primary group. Each group would then follow the same lifecycle as outlined earlier.

This break-up or the break-away may result in groups that lack the 'critical-size' for self-sustenance, and if they are unable to attain that each of them would pass away into oblivion - the end of the road for the groups.

Maybe I'll cover how to manage groups in another post of mine. Till then, cheers!