The Mango Loving nation and the Trader

Once there was a nation whose people loved mangoes.  In their love for the fruit, they had found countless varieties of mangoes and rejoiced all of them.  You need not love or eat all of the varieties, but you could be assured that there was one for every taste.  None would take out any variety because of love of one’s own.  Every taste had its uniqueness and under every variety was one common ground – Mango.

You could not explain the taste of any variety to any one.  It was one’s love for a taste.

Then one day, a trader came to the land of mango lovers.  His job was to sell the mangoes, because he thought his fruit was the best.  And because there is no way to measure love, the more he sold – he thought – the more is the demonstration of his love to his beloved fruit.  Love can be real but its measures can be easily gamed.

He came to the nation and started selling his fruit.  Some tried, and some asked him politely to be less aggressive.  But to him, his love for mango could ONLY be measured in its sales!  He grew frustrated.  How could he sell his mangoes in a country that liked so many varieties.  So he hit upon a plan.  Why don’t I start showing how other varieties are bad and show how mine is better.  SO, he started a tirade.  When confronted he would plead that was his passion and love for his own mangoes.  But deep down he knew it was more than that – the urge for more sales!

Soon, he was meeting with success.  He was successful in stopping the growing of half a dozen varieties in some far flung areas by his plan.  The people of the nation grew alarmed.  They asked him to stop this disturbing trend.  After all, if you mangoes are really that good, then people would eat them.

One guy wanted to take on this trader and engaged in a debate.  The debate went on between them, while a third guy came onto the scene.  He said – well both are bad people because both are arguing and want to uphold their own ideas.  He of course never realized that he himself was criticising both of them for .. well.. criticising each other 🙂

Of course, one was arguing for HIS mangoes.. exclusivity … and the other was arguing for restoring an atmosphere where genuine love for mangoes could thrive.

The third guy was not realizing that he was in his passion for some vague idea of justice between exclusivity and inclusivity, paving the way for exclusivity to succeed.

For exclusivity to succeed ALL it has to do is stand on the same pedestal as inclusivity and ask for justice and same treatment.  Of course, inherent in the plea for the same treatment is included the assumption that the exclusivist will call the inclusivism a sin and his own path as the path of real freedom.  Also included is the belief on part of exclusivist that IF inclusivist tries to present his case and debate the ideology of the inclusivist, then that is sufficient and necessary reason to kill him or curse him.

This head-I-win-tail-you-lose scenario is what an exclusivist is trying to achieve in every society by using the plea of his love for mangoes while hitting at all the other varieties in order to sell his.  Hidden under his claim of his love for “all” mangoes is his urge to trade and make money.  Love for mangoes makes for a good argument in the nation of mango lovers.  That’s all.