Class Warfare

You've heard, I would imagine, of that horrid system in India called the caste system. In this system your status in life was determined by the caste you were in. That was determined, essentially, by your heritage. Of course, it would be a mistake to think that it was purely a product of India. Many civilizations have had these structures. Not all were based on heritage. There have often been divisions between religious, ruling, and worker classes. Some included a warrior class. As an obvious example, the British were famous for their aristocracy that had a class over the serfs who did the work and alongside the clergy who ruled the religious world. Some of these systems have been quite elaborate (one account I read said that India had more than 45 castes) and some more simplified. In South Africa it was apartheid, a gross caricature of standard racism taken to an extreme. But we agree today that these are, as I said, horrid systems. We prefer, in our modern, wiser, more developed society, a classless society. "No class."

It's a nice thought, perhaps, but I would beg to differ with the notion that we have arrived. While we see ourselves as having moved beyond that primitive, evil perspective, it seems instead to be ingrained, even inborn. While we decry those dirty rotten views that make people out to be "lesser" simply because of their heritage or position, I would submit that we make a practice of it ourselves on a daily basis.

Look, for instance, at the class warfare offered by Washington. Who is the enemy? "The rich." Who is Washington, then, trying to defend? "The poor." Now, these classifications are, by necessity, pretty vague. What is "rich" and "poor"? For instance, some of the poorest individuals in our society make far more than what are deemed "poverty stricken" in third world countries. Those folks would be elated to have as much as American "poor". And "rich" seems to be defined as "more than I have", whatever "what I have" is. So now we are being told that "the rich" are evil and "the poor" are abused and the way to fix that is to take from the rich. That's class warfare. It is, without possible argument, classification. And the class known at "the rich" are being pitted against the class considered "the poor" in a showdown to take from one to give to the other. Class warfare.

Long ago in this country we decried racism. Judging people on the basis of their skin color was deemed (rightly so) wrong. Dr. King's alternative, "the content of their character", was a good thing. Now, we have not arrived at a society free of racism, but we have come a long way. The fact that we have a president in office who, 40 years ago, wouldn't have been even considered is a verification of both the decline and remnant of racism. It is clearly a decline in that he was elected and clearly a remnant in that we noticed his racial origin. If racism in America was over, there would have been no comment on "a black man in the White House". No, the caste system we call "racism" is not gone. Today, it is the power class that is evil and the others that are good. From a racial starting point, we know that Native Americans are good. By virtue of the fact that they were here first, we know that they loved the land, were peaceful, and were much better than any white man ever was. If that sounds ludicrous, it's because it was intended to. But that's the thought process. White people are bad. To this day they keep the black man down. They have oppressed every non-white race they have ever encountered. Evil white people. And, again, we have classified and, from that classification, we have separated into castes. There are the good ones and the bad ones, based entirely on their heritage. The good ones (non-whites) want the bad ones (whites) to pay reparations, to surrender power, to fade away if at all possible. Reverse discrimination. Class warfare. And not even close to "the content of their character." In fact, how often have I heard, "Character doesn't matter"?

We think we've come a long way in modern society. We think we're more civilized than those silly systems of caste or aristocracy or whatever other classes they had before that caused such friction. We're not. We've simply changed which classification we prefer and are still fomenting strife. You're a Democrat? Lousy socialist! Oh, you're a Republican? Right wing nut job! You're an American! Oh, that's the worst of all! No, we haven't come so far at all. It seems to always be "us against them". It looks like it always will be, regardless of the shifting categories of class.