Like Button

Monday, October 11, 2010

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.

2 comments:

Marshal Art said...

There will indeed always be an "us vs. them" dynamic. The real question is who are each? If we're speaking of racial issues, for example, dividing strictly on race, obviously that's not a good thing.

But if we're talking about something like peace loving people vs. a group of people that wishes to dominate, cutting off heads if any should dare object to the dominating belief system, well I'd say that's a legitimate "us vs. them" that needs to exist.

I've been "debating" with a guy who rejects notions of competition ( I think this would qualify ) in favor of some notion of "unity" which as yet is clearly defined. I argue that even within groups of people who are obsessed with "unity", there will still exist a level of competition and "us vs. them" if only over the ideas put forth to attain this utopian ideal.

I think also what we're seeing these days is a definitive warfare between classes of morality; those who cling to traditional notions of morality and those who think they're smart enough to redefine morality for the modern age (*gack*). This definitely shows up in the rich/poor caste system referred to by you. It seems morality is determined by net worth. Somehow, Francis of Assisi would be a scumbag for simply winning the lottery. But Donald Trump would be glorified at the right hand of the Father if he went bankrupt.

Envy and fear are prominent in the divisions between classes, or what is determined to be classes, and some who seek power will play on those emotions, driving the wedge deeper between us.

Anonymous said...

A former coworker was the most extreme Leftist of anyone I have ever gotten to know well. She typically had her radio (headphones in use, I will say) tuned to the Leftist ‘Air America’ program that could be found on radio at that time. During commercial ads, she would take off her headphones and spout their stuff at me and at others in the office. One time I dared to suggest that one of the ideas they bought into was especially foolish, and she told me that she “took offence” to me saying that. I had to hold my tongue, for on a number of occasions she disparaged “those friggin’ morons who voted for Bush.” Little did she realize that I am one of those Democrats who does NOT abuse the voting privilege by voting a straight ticket…

--Lee