What is caste-ism and why people like or dislike it..
This is ofcourse just my take. But it is some take, so go ahead and take a look.
So here is the thing. In my world, there are many forms of caste-ism. Traditional caste-ism like Brahmins and Kshatriyas in Hindus, catholics and protestants in Christians etc. This is the accepted definition of caste-ism. But there are hundreds of examples even outside of this which in my world is still Caste-ism.
I’ll name a few.
Music fanboy groups. All music lovers are divided into very distinct groups. There are the metalheads, the boyband fans, the retro fans, the classical fans and so on and so forth.
Then there are the technology fanboy groups. The main groups here are the open source guys and the not so open source guys.
There are also fanboy groups in hmm say movie watchers. Some examples include the ‘i love any form of senti mush’ group, to the ‘i love bollywood masala and fantasy’ group, to the ‘quentin tarantino type i love only critically acclaimed movies’ group to the ‘i love mindless action’ group.
I think you get my drift by now.
Now why do I say all of these are castes?
Caste-ism according to me; is a form of groupism where each group is identified by a set of qualities, the primary one being the identifying quality that puts you in the group in the first place ( like you liking metal or you liking bollywood movies or you being born to a brahmin family). However this is accompanied by a set of other qualities deeply associated with each group as a result of the aggregation of all qualities displayed by the group members from times immemorial. This can include good and bad qualities, and this set of qualities that you associate with a particular caste differs from person to person. (Note: in this post I use the word group and caste interchangeably just to reduce monotony)
I for example associate the qualities ‘passionate’,'interesting’ and ‘arrogant’ with the group ‘metalheads’ . Ive met thousands and am married to one so its not like I have anything against them. Its just that over time I have gotten myself to associate the above mentioned set of qualities with a metalhead. You on the otherhand might associate a completely different set of qualities with the same group.
Lets move on to a more controversial caste ‘Brahminism’. I associate the following qualities to ‘Brahminism’.. ‘well educated’,'arrogant’,'lucky’,'vegetarian’,'orthodox’ and ‘religious’ (lucky being less of a quality and more of just a result of being in the right place at the right time in the wrong system) . I was born to a Brahmin family, so once again I do not have anything against them.
So what I mean by all this is that to me this entire world is filled with lots of groups of people(called castes in a social context) identified in my mind by certain traits. I have to point out here that in my mind, just by possessing the identifying quality one need not necessarily belong to a particular group. However once someone chooses to belong to a particular group, they will invariably always most definitely be assigned all the qualities of that group by me, whether they like it or not. For eg: I was born a Brahmin like I mentioned, but I voluntarily choose not to belong to that group because even though I am well educated, lucky and may be arrogant too :-), I am neither orthodox nor religious.
So hence my theory states the following:
One is highly likely to identify themselves as belonging to a particular group/caste if
a) they possess the identifying quality AND
a) they feel they possess all or most of the qualities ‘they think’ are associated with that group(other than the identifying quality) AND
b) the qualities they don’t possess are qualities they wish to possess or wish for others to believe that they possess AND
c) the group of qualities they possess and associate with the group do not comprise of a ‘negative quality’ that they would not wish others to think that they possess.
If you are still with me, don’t forget to leave a comment. :-)
Oh going back to the title, I personally dislike caste-ism primarily because I do not like to be generalized in any manner, whether it be good or bad.
Category: Uncategorized 9 comments »
January 29th, 2010 at 8:07 am
There is also a fifth or an (e) point IMO. Certain caste-ism is born out of the majority section in the society associating qualities with a small tiny minority; whether or not the people of the section thus treated as minority associate within themselves might be irrelevant here. Although over a period of time continuing discrimination from the majority might force them to bond within themselves …
January 29th, 2010 at 8:35 am
right. but that seems more like ‘racism’ to me http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism the difference being that racism generally refers to grouping people based on solely ‘undesirable qualities’ and hence discriminating against them.
but it is interesting
January 29th, 2010 at 8:50 am
More than majority, its exclusiveness that attracts people to form cults/ groups etc which in turn creates room for group-ism or casteism as you call it. There are also groups made because of a belief system, emotions, opinions etc like the “I hate Shah Rukh” group, the “Sri Sri Sri ..” group. And there are groups formed due a consequence of popular opinion.
As a metal loving person myself, I shall try and make a list of items that we consider essential to appreciate a form/type of music:
1. It should be original
2. it should be made the person claiming the fame for it (in case of boybands, they only sing the songs;its written by someone else and composed by someone else
3. It should either be technically sound or instrumentally tight (but originality takes preference over this)
4. It helps if there members of a band that are prodigious like an extremely good singer/composer (sting is a good example here after his Police days), great guitarist (RATM, GNR) or an amazing vocalist (Hetfield)
You will find that most popular music be it pop, music from bollywood movies, etc wont fall in any of these categories. Mind you, metal lovers are the most extreme critics of metal themselves. Thats why you will find that metalheads also appreciate classical and other genres of music.
January 29th, 2010 at 8:56 am
Well, yes and no. Racism, like you’ve pointed out, fits what I wrote in my previous comment so yes to that. A similar example for caste-ism: the branding of the then ‘perceived as lower castes’ as Dalits in Indian society.
January 29th, 2010 at 9:42 am
@sagar , i guess traditionally dalits are a valid caste. but like i said, unless they share a tangible quality together they do not form a caste of any sort in my view of things. and ‘perceived as lower caste’ is not a tangible quality. infact its a quality based on caste :-)
@ritesh,yep i get all of this. i think most of these traits also has a lot to do with the ‘passionate’ quality of metalheads which seeks perfection and fairplay. im not condemning any group in any way. but unfortunately because of the sample set of metalheads that i have met, i have formed these three opinions about them. come on, i call them passionate and interesting and im married to one of them, so it shouldnt hurt too much if i post my observation that they are very arrogant too :)
but its nothing personal. :D i probably wouldnt have married you fi you were not a metalhead. for whatever reason, they are very interesting people. so stop taking it personally
January 31st, 2010 at 4:15 am
I dissent :) rather I wish to elaborate a little more on my point. Will stick to the Dalit example for this wherever required.
“traditionally dalits are a valid caste” – I didn’t find anything specific mentioning the origin of the dalit caste so you might be right here. Just to consider the other side of the argument; borrowing from wikipedia “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalit” those people in the hierarchy of society who were relegated to performing ‘tasks considered ritually impure’ were segregated from society and looked upon as being lower or lesser people so IMO perception played a very strong role here. In those ages of the Indian society caste was probably THE status factor, a mandate really, everyone was expected to be belonging to a caste. In such a society the said people performing untouchable tasks were forcibly relegated to the lowest strata of society and this continued discrimination probably bonded them together. I feel this is how their ‘caste’ emerged.
A thought experiment to make sense of what I’ve written above; assume I end up at a place where the majority of people are fans of popular boy-band or girl-band music. I being a metal/rock person would be looked at as a misfit for sure. Assume all such ‘misfits’ at this place are now ignored by the majority. Here there won’t be a difference made between a Led Zeppelin fan (me) and say a Bon Jovi fan even if I don’t like Bon Jovi (which I don’t, but that’s besides the point) or the other misfit doesn’t like Zeppelin. But all the ‘misfits’ are looked at as a single group.
The reason I’m pushing the perception card so much is that without this perception thingie (influenced by a false sense of superiority or even inferiority) there wouldn’t have been all this rigid diversification in society.
Anyway, reverting back to your post, my argument actually doesn’t pass the criteria that you stated :) for considering a group as a caste so it does fall outside the premise. I couldn’t resist throwing in a new point on this subject which I find very very interesting! :)
Oops! I forgot to mention before; Nice post! :)
June 11th, 2010 at 4:25 am
Bon Jovi definitely rocks, the best rock and roll band in the planet-’.
July 12th, 2010 at 3:46 pm
Bon Jovi in the 90′s is super popular and can i say the king of rock and roll on those days;”"
October 7th, 2010 at 6:44 pm
i remember Bon Jovi when i was still in high school, Bon Jovi was very popular in the 90′s,,;