The ideological debate

The hall was full with no space available even for the audience in the gallery. We had liberals, libertarians, socialists, communists, anarchists, feminists, conservatives and their respective new-borns. The discussion over which ideology can dominate the 21st century politics was doing the rounds and the enthusiastic crowd was cheering for their own ideologists who were participating in the discussion.

When the conservatives and the socialists called for a strong state, the liberals, the communists and the anarchists vociferously opposed them for favouring state machinery over liberty and equality. Suddenly, the liberals and anarchists joined hands to present the idea of liberal anarchism. Similarly, the socialists and communists came together in the form of Marxism. While the conservatives and feminists were not in talking terms to each other, they too had to join hands at least to decide on their position of non-alignment to any of the groupings. The new-borns of the classical ideologies, such as neo-Marxist, New Right, neo-liberalism chose their originators and started presenting facts that suited their hypothesis. The atmosphere was too inimical with each of the intellectual grouping unwilling to succumb to any hegemony of the opponent ideology.

Suddenly, the sound of master door knob shaking by a powerful hand engulfed the hall, and a man with no-nonsense facial expression entered the room and announced, “Hey guys! Time is over, now we have to talk about serious issues. Can you please vacate the hall?” In a matter of few seconds, the whole intellectual crowd left the hall and the discussion over any ideology dominating the 21st century came to an end.

The man who ended the discussion with the above announcement was a ‘Realist’.