Caste in India 2 Mar 2010 3 Quarks Daily has an excellent essay on the evolution (cultural, of course) of the Varna and Jati system in India. This is often referred to by westerners as “the” caste system. Politics Religion Social dominance Social evolution
Ethics and Moral Philosophy Evolution quotes: Social Darwinism by Haldane 23 Oct 201223 Oct 2012 The actual application of Darwinism to contemporary capitalist society is quite clear. The poor leave more offspring behind them in each generation than the rich. So they are fitter from a Darwinian point of view. And if, on the average, they differ genetically from the rich, their innate characteristics are… Read More
General Science Sensible information on the US Health Care debate 6 Sep 2009 I’ve been critical of New Scientist a bit, lately, so it is with great pleasure that I can link to this informative and sensible video. [brightcove vid=30583310001&exp3=2227271001&surl=http://c.brightcove.com/services&pubid=981571807&w=300&h=225] Read More
History The forgotten Holocaust 15 Oct 2009 This is a disturbing essay by Timothy Snyder in the New York Review of Books, republished in Eurozine. It suggests that we do not remember the entirety of the Holocaust in German and Soviet hands. [H/T 3 Quarks Daily] Read More
Its rather nice. Hierarchy when it is flexable does resolve problems and tension. Perhaps why it has been around for so long. When it becomes rigid it cannot fuction effectivly. Social tension increases, the lines become even more rigidly drawn between competitive social groups. Culture that is shared particularly material artifacts that may be used by all members of an ethnos will be made to look distinct. At times of tension they will start to bare ethnic markers and symbols. Diffrence has a high value under such circumstances. But it is in part I think an understanding of ethnicity and how it is used to negotiate and change identity that is playing out in modern India. As it certainly is in other parts of the world as understanding and cultures evolve. Just as it has always done. As the subject of ethnology did in the mid. 19th cen. when it found it’s methodology and first spoke in the ethnological socities of London and Paris into a sea of considerable noise. Some shamless flag waving for ethnology but it is an important subject I think.
The Indo-Aryan Theory has been quite rigorously disproven with genetic evidence. They occupants of the Indian sub-continent are all from the same original source. The Indo-Aryan theory is just another product of racist Europeans deciding that White people had to have started all great civilizations. It’s no different from the theories that used to propose that the ruins in Africa where from ancient European colonists and not native ancestors. It’s just Nazi science, pure and simple.