Bad Feeling

Anita says she's in a "funk" at the moment. She's not sure what the word means exactly, and neither am I (we are both language exiles, in a way), but I'm starting to feel that I may be in one too.

The ongoing strikes are starting to create a lot of bad feeling. A sort of clammy, hostile environment in which everyone is either: fed up, put out or on strike.
I try not to talk about it too much. After all, strikes are on a par with politics and religion: topics best avoided unless you're absolutely 100% certain that the other person shares your viewpoint.
And to be honest, I don't really have a clearcut viewpoint on this issue.
What surprises me most of all about the anti-retirement reform strikers is their "four legs good, two legs bad" mentality; the sense that it's so obvious who the "baddies" and the "goodies" are in this epic adventure...
Add into the equation the fact that France has a long-term love affair with striking as a form of protest, and you quickly get to the fired up situation (or "social climate", as we say here) we find ourselves in at present.

I don't object to striking. But I don't appreciate being forced into a position, or qualified as morally inferior, for my decision not to strike on this occasion.
So what to do when a pro-strike colleague launches an unprovoked attack, insinuating that I - and those of my "generation" (I guess I should be grateful for the "young people" label...) are cowardly and selfish?
Options include: a serene smile, no comment, a counter-attack, an exchange of insults.
In the event, I choose to point out that every person should be free to make his/her own choice on the matter. And that nobody should callously judge the motives of anyone else's decision.
But I am missing the point: the verbal attack was launched merely to provoke, and no debate is possible. Again, all I hear is a variant of "four legs good, two legs bad", and the insults "selfish" and "cowardly" are flung back at me with a dollop of extra venom.

So, in an atmosphere bristling with unnecessary anger, I switch off my computer, hop on my bike and head off to collect BB from school, where the after-school staff are striking.
And as I pedal along, I think about some of the counter-arguments I would have liked to make, had there been an opportunity for debate, or indeed a point to voicing a viewpoint other than the "Single Acceptable Viewpoint".

I would like to say: people are different. Your desire to strike, wave a banner, shout and protest and fight the good fight depends as much on your convictions as your character.
Those of us who are ill at ease with any sort of group mentality (I am not a group joiner, that's just the way it is) find other ways to manifest our support of or opposition to whatever issue, and surely those other ways are just as valid?
I would like to say: we all have our issues. Some of us feel blood-boilingly angry at the prospect of a raised retirement age... some of us have innate convictions about the superiority of a vegetarian diet, or the bike as a mode of transport (er, no names).
But to what extent should we strive to convert others to our own set of values?
Why should I shout about my moral superiority, when I don't know the first thing about the life, history, convictions or hardships of the person I'm judging/converting/attacking?

But these are just thoughts and the hard reality is: the only person who really cares to hear them is me.
So much of the time, it seems, individuals are rooted in their own beliefs like 200-year-old oak trees set in hardened soil... and what we pass off as "discussion" is little more than two blinkered individuals shouting over one another's head about who is right, and who is wrong.