Hey..
Disclaimer: The following is neither a political commentary or a manifesto. It is just an attempt to organize some of the incoherent thoughts flowing in my head.
While the above line is the universally proclaimed decleration of many democracies, manifestos of various (if not all) political parties, in reality there is very little evidence of this being observed.
Class distinction is not something that just chipped into the socities suddenly. It has been there ever since time. Whether one chooses to believe in the Scientific origin of mankind or one chooses to stand by the Biblical history of mankind - in any case, CLASS is a term that has always existed. In any culture of any nation, in the history of the overall mankind, there can be hardly any civilization that has existed and flourished without a distinction of a class.
The necessity to differentiate is the originator of class.
Man has always sought to differentiate himself from another Man. The need for uniqueness has always prompted Man to differentiate himself. This need is motivated from both self as well as in a group. Slowly but steadily, this unqiueness provides an identity to the Man. And those men who are not skilled enough to get their own identity try to find a match with men of other identified identities for the fear of being left out. This match is either birth or profession or both in most of the cases. Identity also provides necessary security to the Man.
Class is not imposed on a man. Man has carefully chosen to divide himself into classes for his want of identity.
Once identities are established, it becomes a war of identities to establish superiority. These are the typical Class Struggles. At no point of time can it be said that one identity will continue to establish permanent supremacy over the others. The identity supremacy can be only in pockets of time, some of which may be longer than the others. But the time pockets do have a definite end when another identity takes over the reins. This is a universal law and will continue to happen.
Class exists in every single unit of a society, big or small.
Religion, Caste, Profession, Nationalism, Race are all identity providers. They are large units of society which provide the much expected identity and security to a Man. It is impossible for a Man to surive and lead a life without belonging to one or more of the classes.
Belonging to a Class is a basic social requirement for survival.
Man has to belong to atleast one class for his survival. This is a basic social requirement. It is impossible for Man to denounce all classes at any point of time. While there may be a constant class struggle ongoing, there will always be volunteers for classes on either side.
Any social transformation will always end up creating classes.
Presence of Identities cannot be destroyed forever. There can be only a identity shift or new forms of identities that get created. Democracy, Republic, Communism, Socialism - are all successful identity/class creators. They successfully change an existing set of identities into new ones. Though a majority of these preach the same law of equality, the reason are they having different faces is that all of them end up creating different sets of identities for man to cling to.
In a nutshell, the concept of class is being driven from the inner ego of Man that pushes his need to differentiate himself and to prove his superiority. Caste, Race, Religion, Professions etc are the key gateways to the world of classes.
Chao..
7 comments:
A holistic stand would essentially mean, people who don't belong to any class become a a class unto themselves - like 'non-believers' a religion unto themselves.
It all boils down to what "is" and what "is not". The idea is that there is nothing that "is" or there is nothing that "is not". Only thing that "is" is - the thing that "is not" - the indeterminate..."THE UNKNOWN"
That is one nicely organised thought process, but if you hire my consulting services, we can improve, refine & reengineer your thought processess ;)
Pretty interesting view point.
Baseline, what i believe is why make a big deal about class in-equalities. Inequality is universal and class should not be blamed for it.
Should the current social movements in many countries that blame class for many evils in society be damned ?? Should not they concentrate on the inner evil in men (and women) to eleviate suffering rather than search for sticks to beat age old class systems ?
The Jury is still out there on this one.
Eswar
I take a strong exception to your viewpoint. Class ineuqality is certainly something to br worried about. Of course it may be stated as a matter of fact that inequality is universal, it still doesnt warrant that inequality can be imposed.
The social transformations or revolutions are the vented out reactions of class struggles. And any theory to address the 'inner-evil' as you have said it needs to definitely kill these root differences before they can try for a successful transformation.. Or atleast that is what I seem to think.
Siva,
Its nobody's case that in-equality should be shown a blind eye, nor is it my case. All that my comment says is that we should stop bark up the wrong tree. Blaming class for all evils including in-equality is taking us nowhere.
And since its a universal truth (as you say) that humans tend to organize themselves in class/groups why bother to fight it to attain the "all are equal" goal. May be we should try someother route.
Eashwar has a point here.For example in our country.If everyone is educated and knowledgebale, we can easily tackle the problem of the class.This way we dont have to directly address the class problem, we can solve it indirecetly by efforts to produce more thinkers.
I dont think there is any indirect way to address a class issue.. It will just persist..
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