Why has the campaign against school uniforms, which has struck a chord only among some students, so irked the phuyai or adults in Thai society?
Academics, celebrities as well as political activists -- most of them from conservative camps -- reacted fiercely against the call by the "Bad Students" group urging pupils to not wear their uniforms at the start of the new school term last week.
One lecturer even scathingly dared students to go to school naked if uniforms were such trouble. Others condemned the campaigners for being rash and too young to understand the full benefits of uniforms.
Proponents of uniforms say they reduce perceptions of inequality, as uniforms prevent children from more affluent families from showing off with fashionable outfits. School uniforms also nurture discipline, they argue.
While some schools were okay with students opting for casual outfits, others barred them, even threatening to re-enrol them at other schools over the issue.
One parent is taking legal action against a school that barred her child from class because the student didn't wear a uniform.
It is astonishing how the row over school uniforms has become so contentious, turning it into a new hotspot of social polarisation.
In a way, the debate is inevitable as the topic reinforces the larger political conflict between the ultra-conservative and progressive forces that is playing out through the ongoing student-led protests. The school uniform is a vignette of the struggle between these two forces, which has been going on since the 1932 revolution.
The political tug-of-war has had its ups and downs -- rearing up at times before calming with a certain compromise in other periods -- but it has never really been resolved.
The Khana Ratsadorn (People's Party), which ended the absolute monarchy and ushered Thailand into being a democracy with the King as head of state, may have prevailed with their "pro-reform" agenda almost a century ago. But history has shown the conservative, royalist camp has always fought back.
Whether it was the Boworadet Rebellion, the failed coup by a royalist faction in 1933, the Oct 14 uprising, the Oct 6 massacre or the many subsequent military coups, the intellectual tug-of-war running through these landmark events has been part and parcel of Thailand's democratic development.
The long reign of His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej the Great produced a kind of compromise, the so-called "Bhumibol consensus", which established the role of a monarch as a benevolent head of state who dedicated himself mostly to the country's development and people's welfare.
With the new reign came a new challenge. The latest protests by progressive-minded students have rekindled this age-old, ideological conflict. Among their three demands, reform of the monarchy is the most controversial, politically-sensitive and vulnerable to attack, yet one that has also gained the most traction with supporters and opponents alike.
So, how does the relatively minor debate over school uniforms fit in this bigger picture?
It is quite clear that the school uniform is a proxy for the nation being split apart by generational values. It isn't just the uniforms' merits that have engaged and evidently enraged so many people -- it's what they stand for.
Through school uniforms, one can see the dichotomy of Thailand's social hierarchy. Adults above youths. Uniformity over free will. Top-down authority as opposed to individualism.
It is a microcosm of the Thai hierarchical, highly unequal society. It's both a product and purveyor of authoritarianism and Thai-style power culture. It is both the means and the end for those who would like the hierarchy and inequality to go on.
That is why the Bad Students' campaign to abandon school uniforms strikes at the heart of these phuyai. It's not that the phuyai care that much about school uniforms but it is a direct hit at their own values, something that has formed their self-identity, governed their worldviews and made possible their relations with other social entities.
Without uniforms, what would remind children of their role and place in the social hierarchy? Without the distinction, what would allow the phuyai to "control" the youths?
That is why some phuyai have become extremely paranoid by the attack on uniforms. Just like with their fear of communism in the past, they probably reckon that once the first domino falls, the rest will follow.
But history has shown this was not the case.
People familiar with the modern world will simply say there is no need for control. Youths these days can be persuaded by knowledge and reason while individualism and freedom may serve as their discipline.
But these are not things the ultraconservative ruling phuyai understand apparently. And that's the unfortunate thing.
Atiya Achakulwisut is a Bangkok Post columnist.