At 05:26 03/05/2012, Ray wrote:
Was the Indian caste system really a result of the British Empire?
No, of course not. (The book description on Amazon cannot possibly be
an accurate summary of the book but is tendentious -- written by a
neo-Marxist I suspect. The author of the book must be hopping mad.)
The Hindu caste system had existed for at least 2,000 years before
the East India Company arrived in India. The British administrators
took little notice of the Hindus and the first generation or so
actually married fairly freely into the upper layers of the Mogul
(Muslim) minority class (which had the power -- largely left alone so
long as the Company could get on with exploiting the masses.) Like
all societies, the Muslims certainly had a ranking system but it was
quite exiguous as compared with the enormously demarcated Hindu caste
system with savage punishments for infringements* and which had
evolved over many centuries long before the Mogul conquests.
(*which continue)
Keith
In Acemoglu and Robinson's new book "How Nation's Fail" a lot of
balloons are exploded in the myths about nations and cultures and
prosperity. Has this book been brought up on this list? Did
Keith mention it? I seem to remember it but I don't understand
the current post's generalizations about other cultures and the future.
The following came up in a Cherokee men's breakfast at the Cafe
Luxembourg this morning. A young man brought up the issue of caste
in Indian Society and spoke of a book that his father, an elder, had
sent for him to read on the phenomenon of caste in India. The
father is a translator of Asian poetry and an international expert
on the mathematics of string figures. He has a new exhibit of
his string sculptures opening this week in France. His son is an
urban planner and a computer professional. I thought about this
post and its description of various cultures and was interested in
how the New Cambridge History of India blames the English attitudes
in governing for the hardening of the caste lines that did not exist
before the invasion and the takeover of Indian society by the
English. Might the hardening described in the brains of children
actually be a cultural bias? Just a thought Keith. This book
describes the hardening of the caste lines as a result of the
British story about class and it's implacability.
This is the description of the book from Amazon.
The phenomenon of caste has probably aroused more controversy than
any other aspect of Indian life. This volume explores the emergence
of ideas and practices which gave rise to the so-called
'caste-society'. Using an historical and anthropological approach,
the author frames her analysis in the context of India's economic
and social order, interpreting caste as a contingent and variable
response to changes in India's political landscape through the
colonial conquest. The book's wide-ranging analysis offers one of
the most powerful statements ever written on caste in South Asia.
Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to
the Modern Age (The New Cambridge History of India) by Susan Bayly
REH
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Keith Hudson
Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2012 5:19 AM
To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, , EDUCATION
Subject: [Futurework] Why the Dalai Lama will win
The only reason so far for the success of China is that it has
copied all the consumer products that have been invented in the West
and as much of the latest technology as it can lay its hands on.
However, since 1901, when Nobel prizes were instituted (and also
when all the technologies and scientific ideas of the West were
almost fully available to China), the country has won only 9
scientific prizes whereas America, Germany and the UK have won over
320 between them. Unless China were to radicalize its highly
authoritarian education system, which squeezes out the creativity of
its children from their earliest years, then it's unlikely to win
more than a dozen more scientific prizes in the next century
(except, of course, for the rapidly increasing number of Chinese
scientists who will have been taught in Western schools and who dare
to think laterally because they have absorbed the non-Confucian culture).
In balance of payments terms, China is going to be successful for a
long time yet. It will need another 20 years or so to bring its
coastline population of 600 million up to the average standard of
living of the West (or as we 'enjoyed' it prior to 2008). It will
take another 30 or so years for China to bring the rest of its 700
million rural population up to scratch even if all goes well with
sufficient available world resources (in competition against the
resource requirements of at least 2 billion in India, Brazil and Indonesia).
I cannot see the second phase occurring in China because the major
cities of the coastline will probably wrench their way out of
centralized control and become largely independent city-states as,
indeed, Hong Kong has largely remained since the British released
their (non-democratic) control in 1997. The new provinces will not
only monopolize the production of profitable exports but also the
resources that are imported. Like the 80-class (that is,
inadequately educated majority) of the Western countries, which is
now increasingly dependent on state welfare benefits, the poor of
the rural interior of China will, quite simply, not replenish
themselves in sufficient numbers and will largely die out.
What will be the future of the 20-class (that is, the adequately
educated and connected class) of the West? More specifically, what
will be the future of the 20-class in America, Germany and the UK?
Together with a small number of exceptionally creative cultures such
as Finland, Israel, Singapore or Switzerland, this is where the
leading edge of research in neuroscience and genetics is to be found
and likely to be maintained in the coming decades. The reason for
this that both of these research areas are so complex that they
increasingly require high connectivities between specialists
researchers and large teams of researchers. Thus nascent ideas and
commercial development in these two growth sectors will not be
anywhere near as copiable as they have been hitherto in, say,
engineering, nor can key personnel be recruited as individuals.
But the 20-class of the West is also not replenishing its numbers
itself at present. Will it, too, decide to fade away voluntarily as
the increasingly impoverished 80-class has been doing for the past
30 years? Hardly. As the population falls away, and as immigration
resistance of the West intensifies in order not to share their
increasingly meagre welfare benefits, then the beauties and
attractiveness of the natural world will be all the more available.
And, as any parent knows, such enjoyment is greatly reinforced when
there are children to share them with. The 20-class is likely to
start having family sizes above two children in the coming years as
they survive the present recession in good heart. But even if the
20-class doesn't breed enough children, neuroscience and genetics
can help them specifically (in addition to their broader commercial
development).
Neuroscience tells us that large-scale rear-brain culling takes
place before puberty. Too much culling (because of a poor
informational and attention-ful family environment) is capable of
blunting a child's mind greatly by the age of 5 years-old and almost
completely so by the age of puberty. An inadequate brain is then
largely irremediable. Skills that haven't developed by then are
never teachable from then onwards to any high level. Also, genetics
tells us that high intelligence is not so much the product of a few
special genes but several hundred of them. High talent is more the
product of DNA which does not have too many sub-optimal genes,
whether dominant or recessive, rather than having anything unusual
about it. Any 'ordinary' child, given a secure, affectionate
upbringing with good socializing and educational opportunities at a
very young age, and with good skill training to follow and a daily
existence with sufficient spare time to think can produce what we
call 'genius' or at least a 'brilliant' mind.
And how will the 20-class recruit the talented numbers they require
for continuation? It will do so in exactly the same way that the
Dalai Lama used to be recruited by the Buddhist monks of Tibet or
the Living Sun Goddess was (and continues to be) in Hindu Nepal. And
if you want to know how they were recruited without the modern
benefits of neuroscience and genetics, but fully consonant with
them, please write to me. I have gone on long enough this morning
and breakfast calls.
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
<http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/>http://allisstatus.wordpress.com
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com
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