Blog #5

In Indian Culture there had been a Caste System for many years. In which your ‘class’ or role in life is determined at birth. There was no changing their place no matter how much they resented it. This fits right in with our class theme, Class Warfare. The difference is there isn’t as much war over this because this is believed to be the way that class is handled as deemed by religious texts.

Instead of separating out by Wealth like what we see in the United States, Upper, Middle and Working/Lower Class structure, the caste system separates out by job/duty. The “working class” still remains as a caste, the people who do labor, services and craftsmen are the Shudras. Then they separate those who do more important jobs like farmers as the Vaishyas. The Upper/Aristocratic caste is the Kshatriyas which includes Kings, warriors and people of law. This sounds very similar to our definition of class, but from here is where the differences emerge, the Brahmins are the religious and educational staff/workers like priests and teachers placing them in high respect.

In America teachers and priests can be found among varying class status and usually depends more on their own personal background than anything else. Maybe this accounts how our nation has fallen far behind many others in the field of education. As our culture pushes the respect and higher pay/dignity towards other jobs that are revered as better for the nation.

The final major difference is that foreigners are seen as casteless and then certain foreigners by trade are referred to as untouchables; maybe out of fear of the damage the influence that their culture could do or maybe out of respect, either way in America foreigners in the past have been immediately filed into some of the lowest classes in history among arrival. Americans may accept their culture, but the more that come, the more jobs that are taken away from Americans. Blame in many subjects is constantly shifted to something involving race, religion, or citizenship.

This brings out a more positive view on the caste system, but don’t get me wrong. These are just the aspects that they got right and how they ended up avoiding a lot of class warfare, there is much more to this system enough to write a thesis on. How? Because it has already been done, America may be the “Melting Pot”, but we still have a lot of lessons to learn.