Posted on 05/08/2013 2:45:41 PM PDT by Jandy on Genesis
The evils of the caste system are regularly expounded in contemporary writings. In The Open Society and Its Enemies, Karl Popper argued that Plato’s ideal state, with it three-tier structure, is totalitarian. Yet, as others have noted, Plato's ideal represents an improvement upon the rigid caste structure that characterized ancient societies. Plato suggested that some particularly gifted individuals should be trained to work outside of their caste. This was a radical idea for his time (B.C. 428-347).
The egalitarian nature of American society makes castes anathema. We react strongly to perceived or real limitations of our freedom of choice. On this matter we find agreement among such disparate groups as feminists, the National Rifle Association, gay activists, and libertarians.
Rarely do we consider the benefits of the caste system. It lent stability to ancient societies. People knew their place in society and were proud of the work done by their caste. Caste identity provided a strong sense of duty. The Bhagavad Gita states, "By devotion to one's particular duty, everyone can attain perfection... By fulfilling the obligations he is born with, a person never comes to grief." (BG 18:44-48) This idea is found in Judaism also. Baba Batra wrote, "All appointments are from Heaven, even that of a janitor." (Talmud, Baba Batra 91b)
Members formed stable marriages with partners within their caste and received support from their kinsmen. The caste also lent job security similar to that provided by Medieval guilds and modern trade unions.
(Excerpt) Read more at jandyongenesis.blogspot.com ...
Every part of the world had cast system and still does. Indian civilisation was the first to recognise and admit its existence.
The Turks themselves are in part Eastern Caucasians (from actually near the Caucasus mountains) and Ugrics are ancestors of Hungarians and Finno-Ugrics.
You should have done a little more research before tossing some random Wikipedia quote.
And for the moment lets take your word that Atilla is “some kind of Asian”. So what have you got? Just 2 characters from history (Atilla and Genghis Khan) to draw moral equivalence with centuries of Inquisition, crusade, pogrom,holocaust,slavery,racism, apartheid ,colonialism, communism, nazism, fascism done by White people?
So you don’t like Wikipedia OR their quotation from the Encyclopedia of European Peoples?
Too bad.
“...centuries of Inquisition, crusade, pogrom,holocaust,slavery,racism, apartheid ,colonialism, communism, nazism, fascism done by White people?”
You come-off as a racist and quite an unpleasant person. Which is basically what this is all about - no particular group of people have cornered the market on cruelty. Not white people, not Asian people, not sub-Saharan African people, etc. You’ve judged an entire civilization as being incredibly vicious and yet you write in a way that reveals an intolerant personality or worse, a boor.
How pathetic.
That rant could be right out of a left-wing history book. Want to blame Europeans for the heartbreak of psoriasis while you are at it?
As far as the race card.... why don't you go back to the posted article or the post I was replying to? The writers discounted any criticism of the Caste system as creeping Western Imperialism and anti-Hinduism. As if attacking anyone who is critical of a backwards idea is a legitimate defense of that idea itself. I wonder where they could have come up with such an asinine idea or tactic?
As to what in your comment I didn't like -
First I found it's premise fundamentally flawed - that I was somehow unable to comment on backwards and harmful systems that were being ADVOCATED because of a backwards and harmful past of Western Civilization that has almost entirely been DISCARDED.
Second I found it factually challenged in that the things you mentioned were not fundamentally the province of Western Civilization (or white people) and did NOT all come before enlightenment ideals of personal liberty and individualism. That those ideals did not come to full flower in Western civilization until recently doesn't mean that the ideas were not forcefully being applied and advanced by those who advocated for those ideals.
Ok, then. If that is your standard, then Mao and Pol Pot engaged in mass-murder communism. The European Marx might have invented it, but those two elevated it to wholesale slaughter - in Asia, by Asians.
There is far more religious strife in India than there is in the United States. We don't have Christians engaged in wide-scale attacks on Hindus here, but Hindu attacks on Christians in India has been rising over the last 20 years.
Want historical genocide by Asians? Try Tamurlane. Just one of hundreds of examples if you bother to do more than just regurgitate left-wing historical bile against European history.
Really.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_Asia
According to Sir Henry Bartle Frere (who sat on the Viceroy's Council), there were an estimated 8,000,000 or 9,000,000 slaves in India in 1841.
Any other left-wing spin you wish to promulgate so we can shoot them down?
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.” Charles Napier
“You say that you have a custom of raping young children in your churches. The rapists should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law instead of your churches hiding and protecting the criminal priests.” - Anon.
They are not my churches, and most of the “young children” were teenage boys. But absolutely - they should be, have been, and will continue to be prosecuted.
But maybe burning widows is a good thing. I mean it has a long history, and not once in India was there a rebellion of widows against it./s
“My fellow Indians and I and our attitudes toward the people who surround us. It's the way we consider our fellow citizens. It's the attitudes that permit a grown man to believe he can rape a 5-year-old and insert objects into her vagina. It's what allows cops to imagine an acceptable response to this outrage is to offer the family 2,000 rupees—less than 40 American dollars—to go away, along with the reminder that they should “be grateful your daughter is alive.” It’s what governs the thinking of judges who, in deciding rape cases, advise the woman to marry the man.”
And...
“Or when the lawyer for actor Shiney Ahuja had this to say in court about the woman who accused Ahuja of raping her: “She belongs to a lower caste, which is aggressive by nature, and she wouldn’t have submitted herself so easily. They are known for being aggressive.””
By all means - let's promote the caste system - may as well bring back phrenology as well! Both have the same amount of scientific justification - none.
Ah, the moral equivalence game. Another hallmark of the liberal-minded.
“So you don’t like Wikipedia OR their quotation from the Encyclopedia of European Peoples?”
Its not about liking or disliking wikipedia. When you quote something, make sure you have done some more actual research rather than copying and pasting a random line from the Wiki without any real knowledge. Did you even know who Turks and Ugrics were? I don’t think so.
If stating facts makes me unpleasant then I am quite fine with that. My original post was in response to allmendream’s racial superiority nonsense (who himself was judging all of Indian civilization based on “caste system”). You kinda jumped in the middle of that conversation and now you want accuse me as racist because you have nothing else to throw at me.
No particular group cornered the market on cruelty you say? I don’t know about that. At least as far as India is concerned, Indians never ever committed any mass genocide that would allow white people (of all ethnicities) to get on their moral high horse and point finger at Indian “caste system”. Get a perspective.
Instead of equivalence one must always aim for victory. This is the conservative way.
And yet more moral equivalence. And considering how many Sikhs were slaughtered in India as recently as 1984, you sure don't have much ground to stand upon.
Spinning away atrocity with moral equivalence is not victory, it is liberal slime.
And the Huns were an Asiatic people from the Steppes of Asia - same as the Mongols who came centuries later.
I didn't post anything that was “racial superiority nonsense”, if you were capable of understanding my point it was that an idea or criticism was not automatically discredited because it came from the West or white people. Similarly something is not automatically good and wonderful because it has a long history and comes from the East.
You forgot communism, which in the last 100 years have murdered more people than the entire rest of your list combined.
“Spinning away atrocity...”
That’s the liberal way; stop doing it.
White people created the movement to abolish slavery worldwide. This upsets people like the Muslims, who regard slavery as an institution sanctioned by Allah.
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