We need to talk about this, especially folks at certain NLUs and Jindal.

Let's look at the latest example: Elon Musk-Joe Rogan versus Jimmy Kimmel. What's incredible is that the media is so polarised that even the liberal media only reports Kimmel's takedown of Musk (like the Daily Beast and Rollingstone) while the conservative media only reports Musk's tweets against Kimmel (like the Washington Examiner and OpIndia).

But the really worrying thing is that the wokes vs conservatives war is influencing our day to day lives at law school in India. If not Musk vs Kimmel, then definitely Arnab vs Kunal Kamra, Karolina Goswami vs Dhruv Rathee, Audrey Truschke vs Vikram Sampath, Modi vs Rahul etc. I mean if you read OpIndia or watch Joe Rogan those on the left will cancel you and not invite you to their birthday parties, while left girls will not date you. Similarly, if you support the Wire, then you will be unfriended by the right. Friendships and relationships have been damaged like this. As a result, you do not see unity among students and there is not one to protest against injustices of the admin like before.

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/jimmy-kimmel-elon-musk-donald-trump-comparison-1234646671/

https://www.thedailybeast.com/jimmy-kimmel-schools-elon-musk-on-comedy-after-terrible-fauci-joke

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/joe-rogan-slams-jimmy-kimmel-perpetuating-toxic-comedy

[...]

You're right, it's a serious problem for wider society and not just for law schools. And it's highly likely that the stoking of culture wars is also done at the behest and with the connivance of politicians, on both sides of the spectrum and the media that both lie or manipulate in different and more or less brazen or subtle ways.

Do you see any potential solutions or ways forward, or is this just life now?

its only students in law school who live in a bubble thats completely media created and divorced from reality that care about culture war nonsense. redirect your energy from all of this waste of time, write a good research paper, read a book, do course work more seriously, start a clinic at your law school to actually help other people.

you are choosing to define yourself with your politics. No one owes it to you then to look past it and engage in social behaviours.

choose to define yourself with something else- and maybe people will see you differently.

Very true advice: we all waste far too much time and energy on these fake wars stoked by politicians, corporates and billionaires who want to distract us from the issues that really matter and fear being irrelevant otherwise.

Let's not play their game and let's live our own lives.

My only issue with the left and journos who sympathize with it is that it does not outrage against Islamic crimes like this -

https://twitter.com/tarekfatah/status/1608573331552493568?s=46&t=svxzF90fGocSDEsK1IkVew

That my outage and rejecting such culture in my homeland makes me bigoted.

The culture wars are an outcome of poorly conceived policies by left-liberal politicians, which have caused them to be booted from power globally + sour grapes with people-centric policies by karma yogis like Mojidi.

So many examples of left-liberal incompetence. Biden, Obama, Manmohan Singh, the list goes on..

Is that really your only issue with the 'left' and sympathising 'journos'? Would appreciate if you could clarify the following.

1. You don't actually think there's a single credible / mainstream person on the left or in journalism in India, who supports what the Taliban are doing in Afghanistan, right?

2. Do you think it is the duty of every domestic 'leftie' or journalist to also have and loudly share their opinion about politics or situations in other countries? I.e., if an Indian journalist doesn't tweet condemning Donald Trump, does that make them a MAGA-type? Or if they don't tweet about the war of Saudi on Yemen, or the slaughter in Eritrea, they are tacitly supporting those wars?

3. You may agree that the RW is almost obsessed by the bad things Muslims do or allegedly do abroad and in India, and not necessarily because they care about those women but often for cynical reasons of vote bank politics or dog whistles (e.g., the "be scared of Islam" tactic). Against that background, lefties or left-leaning journalists are damned if they do and if they don't: either they shout vocally about how horrible Islamic fundamentalism is every day, and are thereby indirectly feeding and supporting an agenda of propagandistic division pursued by the right-wing here that they disagree with; or, if they choose to talk about other issues, they're 'accused' of being complicit (though accusation implies an actual charge that makes sense).

We are in a situation now where the right-wing has a strong bias against talking or reporting anything that makes the Hindu majority look bad, and the 'opposition' (including civil society and politicians) naturally therefore has to fill in the gaps of silence that are NOT amplified by the government and their supporters: is there anything else an 'opposition' could or should be doing, in your book, which would not be self-defeating?

Is the incompetence the preserve of politicans on the left though? Why are Biden and Obama more incompetent that Trump or GW Bush? They're all different sides of the same coin (though arguably Trump does take the cake in general outright dishonesty (Biden and Obama are more subtle in their lies), and GW Bush has more blood on his hands for Iraq and Afghanistan everything that followed, even when compared to Obama's continuation of the drone wars).

And if you want to look at the UK, the centre-right there has produced the clownshow quartet of Cameron, May, Bojo and Truss.

As for Manmohan Singh: you could argue he was not in control of corruption within his own party enough or effective enough as a politician, but economically he oversaw a period of strong economic growth by many metrics, without the kind of completely avoidable blunders / reckless incompetence such as demonetisation and botching the GST rollout, to name just two.

Manmohan Singh is revered for the time he spent as Finance minister i.e. the person not in control of the party. However, when he was alleviated to the post of PM albeit a puppet PM, he is still responsible for the actions of his government. You cannot be the head of the government and not take responsibility and allow an Italian to control your life. The PM is the head of the government is under no obligation to follow orders from the party head to anyone, especially when he was instrumental in finding coalition partners but man did not have a spine to stand up to the Gandhis

Ok, so he was a puppet PM, which is a fair criticism. But you haven't mentioned which specific errors of the government MS should be held responsible for, and if so, whether there are any blunders that MS should take responsibility for as puppet PM, that exceed some of the current government's blunders in terms of incompetence, as implied in the thread OP?

Lol, Bush does not have more blood on his hands than Obama. Obama was responsible sponsoring the overturning of the 2007 Kenyan election by his brother and the resultant riots that killed thousands of people. Add all the lies surrounding ObamaCare to that you have Trump in a costume, basically someone like Clarence Thomas. Being subtle in your lies and concealing it unlike Trump does not mean that you did a great job and eventually people will be able to see through it.

You could have found a better example than the Kenyan crisis to pin on Obama (was his brother even involved back then? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007%E2%80%932008_Kenyan_crisis ) but fair enough, let's not quibble over litres and agree that nearly every US president in the last 50 years has considerable blood on their hands, irrespective of whether they were Reps or Dems...

I don't really understand your point about "Trump in a costume", ObamaCare and Clarence Thomas though.

On demonization - ▮▮▮ ▮▮▮ ▮▮▮, LI MOD -

https://twitter.com/pchidambaram_in/status/1609792826698612739?s=46&t=zIefWF2lbTj64BTRrpjM3w

Quote:

Once the Hon'ble Supreme Court has declared the law, we are obliged to accept it.
However, it is necessary to point out that the majority has not upheld the wisdom of the decision; nor has the majority concluded that the stated objectives were achieved. In fact, the majority has steered clear of the question whether the objectives were achieved at all.
We are happy that the minority judgement has pointed out the illegality and the irregularities in the Demonetisation. It may be only a slap on the wrist of the government, but a welcome slap on the wrist.
The dissenting judgement will rank among the famous dissents recorded in the history of the Hon'ble Supreme Court.
The minority judgement brings out the profound distinction between the plenary legislative power of Parliament and the limited power of the executive Government
We are happy that the minority judgment has emphasised the important role of Parliament in a democracy. We hope that in future an unbridled Executive will not thrust disastrous decisions on Parliament and the people

AND THIS -

https://www.barandbench.com/news/litigation/breaking-supreme-court-dismisses-pleas-challenging-2016-demonetisation

[quote]
A five-judge bench of the Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a petitions challenging the Central government's 2016 decision to demonetise currency notes of ₹1,000 and ₹500. [Vivek Narayan Sharma v. Union of India and ors]
[/quote]

Oh, yes - the next time to promote Manmohan Singh - think of CWG and 2G (as a counterbalance to the dissent) and with Obama - think of his foolishly conceived Iran deal and Obama Care (which no tax-paying American across ideology liked/ wanted).

Thanks for sharing. Re demonetisation - is there any remedy the Supreme Court could have actually provided? Sure, the entire bench could have rebuked the government, but realistically, it's not like they could have ordered demonetisation void and null, or could have fined the government.

Regarding Manmohan and Obama: yes, both of them have also made mistakes in their careers (though Manmohan's biggest mistake was probably having been too passive and having been the largely powerless figurehead of a party that had been in power too long where nepotism and corruptionhad crept in, and didn't really stand for anything anymore; re Iran and Obama care - they might not have been perfect but do you think they were both steps in the wrong direction (or at least as well intentioned and successful in their aims as demonetisation - indeed, there are far worse things Obama has done, but you're allowed to have your opinions).

I agree with the comment about Manmohan Singh being respected as FM but not as PM. I remember there was this cartoon (which was banned by the Congress government) which morphed Manmohan and Sonia's faces on to the Dabang song, with the caption "Munna badnam hua Munni tere liye". That sums it up. The rotten, corrupt, incompetent Nehru dynasty ruined the country and cast blame on a man who himself is personally clean.

Fundamentals + Reasoning.

People need to understand clearly the fundamentals that they are fighting for. Everything else is just a matter of to-may-to or to-maa-to.

It will turn out that neither left nor right will disagree on the fundamentals.

1. Respect for other.

2. Validity of the other's views.

3. Readiness to drop views that do not adhere to logical reasoning.

Stick to the fundamentals. Don't get carried by momentary phenomena of the daily happenings. Control your emotions and do not let them get in the way. Remind yourself of the fundamentals, which will help you transcend either camp and develop perspectives that can be progressive for both the camps.

There's a lot of space for this kind of a role.

"Left girls will not date you" arent the left the snowflakes? Your political views reflect your most fundamental ethics, so being a conservative is actually an incredible reason to not date someone. I would not date someone that is diametrically opposed to what rights I get to have or don't.