#social stratification

[alwaysbewoke]

[hussyknee]

I accidentally deleted this ask yesterday but fortunately had a screenshot. Ngl I'm kind of ??? about it because...why would you single out Hinduism to pick the most fundamentalist, cultural and political aspect of it, that's not even practised in most the Hindu minorities outside of India? Nearly every community in India has a caste system regardless of religion. Within Hinduism there's no just one caste system either. Eelam Tamil Hindus have a caste system, but it's not as violent as India's (although of course still violent and oppressive). Sinhalese have a caste system too, and the ones still invested in it would swear blind this was related to Buddhism somehow, a doctrine that preaches against inequality of any kind. Caste systems are literally haram in Islam and yet some Muslim communities managed to rationalize creating one because they wanted to assimilate into the worst of us I guess.

I know fuck all about Hinduism to tell you the truth, but my sister is a convert and devotee of Durga Matha. I asked her about it and she sent me this:

There are as many variants of Hinduism as there are varieties of grass. The only thing they have in common is the Vedas which is a bunch of hymns and stuff. It doesn't really go into detail about caste.

The caste system comes from a book called Manu Smriti. Some accept it as a Hindu text, some don't. Hinduism isn't even a religion actually. It's a bunch of similar belief systems that the Britishers lumped in together for ease of classification. Within Hinduism there are many sects- Saivism, Shaktism, Vaishnavism, etc. So to define Hinduism as some sort of oppressive religion doesn't make sense because it isn't a religion as Westerners define it. Anyway, truth is everyone cherry picks the parts of religion that suits them and discards the rest. Some think that's being dishonest. I think that's just common sense.

This makes sense to me. It's very colonial to monolithize belief systems that evolved from the disparate religious texts and syncretic practices of dozens of kingdoms and dynasties over 4000 years, just because it shares the unique character of belonging to the Indian subcontinent. (Which is precisely why its propagated by Hindutva nutcases. They're imperialist colonizers permanently snorting Indian manifest destiny crack.)

Bestie. Friendo. My guy (gender neutral). Ideology doesn't shape society. People wrap ideology around what they already want to believe and do. This is how you get Zionists (both Christian and Jewish), Wahabi/Salafi Muslims, Hindutvas and... whatever we're supposed to call this current iteration of Theravadin Buddhism that is also characterized by ethnosupremacy and genocide. Religion takes the character of the individuals and ideologues that choose to follow it. There are no exceptions.

To reiterate the point that inspired this ask: Some LGBT folks's queerness is inextricable from their religious identity. Stigmatising and ostracizing religion in queer spaces is alienating, racist and violent. Just like no one should force religion on you, no one should force secularism on people either. There is enough air for us all to breathe free.

[transangledlozengeggbutt]

[whatifsandspheres]

If you believe for a second actors are being overpaid, or people in media in general are overpaid, disregard the executives who extort and use them-- for a second. Consider the context of what media has become. Mass media and sports boast high-wages and status. Remember how the World Cup recently involved a lot of literal human slave labor before, during, and after in Qatar? These people have been getting lots of money in certain positions because it's the ol' bread and circuses. Someone somewhere else is taking a larger share, and it's not all in quantifiable currency. It includes our submission and complacency to scabbing and crossing picket-lines. It includes our belief in indulging anti-labor-union attitudes. The same people arguing the writer's strike is unreasonable would say the same about farmers, sanitation workers, teachers, and so on.

I'm going to need y'all to preemptively chill out because the actor's strike is going to mean a lot of things including shows and movies we've been anticipating being pushed way back, and absolutely minimal press tours for the next however long this lasts.

The effects of the writer's strike are months down the road which made it a whole lot easier to support because as third parties we weren't really being affected (yet), the effect of the actor's strike is going to be immediate and we're going to get a lot more propaganda of "these people are overpaid to begin with."

Remember our desire for content does not supersede these people's rights to live.

Support unions, support the strikes.

[whatheluck]

no really, why the hell are we still using GDP per capita to measure a country´s wealthy if we all know all the lacks it has.

Everyone keeps talking about the problem with GDP but it still is the reference index wtf. Specially cosnidering all the other existing indexes that measure wealth "reasonably" well... or at least better than fucking GDP

[tjeromebaker]

Understanding Social Dynamics | A Review of "Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Class: The Sociology of Group Conflict and Change"

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[healthyhabitjournal]

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[all-all0s-eyes]

Given the origin of tipping culture in the United States - (short version is that it was a way to legally underpay mostly black workers post Emancipation by basically making a minimum wage exemption from the kind of jobs that Black Americans were most commonly allowed to work in. It's one of the many examples of the principle that the US as a body will saw off its own foot rather than allow functioning equity, but I digress.)

-- Anyway, given the above and other sly methods used to avoid allowing social mobility or equality, it's not surprising that this consequence of entrenching caste systems in employment remains with us. Just like every waiter in the present now has to live with the legal/economic fallout of a rule made a century ago to soothe white people unprepared to face black people as equals, the attitude that customer service reps/retail workers/hospitality workers are supposed to not only be helpful, but to be cheerful, focused on customer happiness, and constantly reaffirming their allegiance and gratefulness to be employed at their establishment is something left over from rules originally made to entrench racism. And yeah, the fact that it's not technically racialized is part of the point. Minimum wages for all, except for these jobs that are the only jobs we allow freed slaves and their descendants to get. Service with a smile for your social betters - not because you're black, but because that's just an expected part of the *only jobs most of you are allowed to have.* Because we don't usually think about the origin of these attitudes/practices, it feels like they're more natural to our society than they are. Our current problems with labor forces pushed to the brink of tolerance because "no one wants to work anymore" is a result of a work culture established and perpetuated by a nation that was not ready to have no way to maintain social barriers, and now ALL of us are subject to the results. Happy Juneteenth, everybody.

literally fuck companies that don't want their employees to act "unprofessional" in front of customers. I'm at a five guys rn and the employees here are joking around calling orders back and forth to each other and saying things in weird voices and laughing with each other while they work. Someone just came in for their shift while I was waiting for my food and was greeted by the whole kitchen with a secret handshake lookin thing. It was so silly and cute I love seeing ppl have fun at work and I know my food's gonna be bomb bc the ppl there are having fun with each other. Let employees be people and friends and have fun what is the issue!!!!

[tenth-sentence]

She was his social superior and although he now had a view, she had one too.

"Normal Women: 900 Years of Making History" - Philippa Gregory

[alwaysbewoke]

[whatifsandspheres]

Don't even get me started on the inadvertent Psy-Op that is Greta Thunberg's green-washing bandwagon with their scientifically illiterate but passionate SolarPunk bullshit. They mean well, they really do. They wouldn't be so annoying if they didn't believe to be fighting for the right causes. Homegirl's momma has absolutely nothing to do with her being in the right place and time to utter the right lines. Nope.

[whatifsandspheres]

You guys. We have to be honest and willing to perceive the reality around us.

Those things were done by capitalists so that they could breed and feed workers. But what does every highly stratified and unequal society require more than abundant and cheap labor? Slave labor and widespread desperation.

We currently have the highest number of enslaved humans in the history of all humanity. Some estimates suggest 50 million people are in slavery around the world, with ten million added recently within just five years. Every time the ceiling on the world's "wealthiest" is raised, the baseline is receded from the feet of millions more around the world. Their money, all modern currency, is only worth something if it is built on the poverty and deprivations of poverty of others. That's why every time the rich get richer, they need more poor to get poorer. That's how poverty and slavery have accelerated. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-62877388

They don't care about feeding everyone even if it's a logistical possibility that they can accomplish with ease. They care about breeding us like expendable slaves and training us like automatons to be obedient and subservient with belief and faith for the hand that feeds. It should not be a surprise. We have to wake up. Even the model of agriculture and its selected crops and diets are nutrient deficient and designed around biases that make more needless work and enable centralization of power and controls that hands the reigns of food sovereignty over to the financial elite. It depletes topsoils and normalizes animal agriculture at the expense of human and ecological welfare. It's easy to dismiss it as stupid greed, especially when you have met these people in person and walked in their upper-class neighborhoods. They're not that bright, and you'd hate to put down a dog that merely bites out of confusion. But it's not stupid greed, it's more vile and evil than that. It's an ingrained bias designed into the system since before modern agriculture became industrialized, and it stems in the culture of slavery before even capitalism.

[semperardens-juli]

[...] organised not hierarchically but by consensus.

The Lonely City, Olivia Laing (x)

[digitalfossils]

[singingcicadas]

The way it's depicted, Cybertron's pre-war societal issues had a lot less to do with Functionism and more to do with unchecked government corruption, massive wealth disparity, high layoff/unemployment rates, and disenfranchisement.

People were starving, they needed work, they weren’t getting any. Those that were fortunate enough to have work didn’t get paid living wages, much less have anything to spare for health contingencies. Even then stability’s still the luxury of the top few tiers; they live one cut away from layoff. The government cared only enough to exacerbate these issues by coming up with new ways for exploitation. Any attempts to protest or lobby were shut down through political persecution. As a result the masses turned increasingly to crime, drug abuse, thuggery, and violence. Extreme acts of terrorism gets lauded as long as the collateral damage's suffered by someone else. Morality and caution are eroded in the face of desperation.

Meanwhile the many alleged restrictions of Functionism are just lip service complaints made by the characters which doesn’t match up to most of the stuff we’re shown. Like if Rung could become a psychologist, a specialized job that requires higher education, despite having zero background on top of such a weird alt that he had to be classified as an ornament, then wow the functionists must be open-minded. If Dominus Ambus could be a scientist/doctor/explorer/author/successful social rights advocator during the height of functionist control with a minesweeper military-use alt (assuming that his secondary alt's the same as Minimus'), then wow the functionists must be accommodating. If Tyrest could become chief engineer under Nova and later go into law, a complete change of profession, while being a jet, then wow functionism's flexible. If Ratbat and Momus could become senators in a society that discriminates heavily against beastformers and labor frames, then wow that’s progressive. If every Prime from Nova to Zeta (with the exception of Sentinel, his alt’s a tank, he only has wings in Megatron Origin as part of his Apex armour upgrade), every single named pre-war senator other than Proteus and Momus, and four out of five of Nova Prime’s buddy club (only Galvatron's a grounder) were wingframes in a society that supposedly discriminates against wingframes, then wow that’s… inconsistent worldbuilding.

Megatron didn’t get into bloodsports or start a war because he didn’t get to pursue his dream job. He got driven into the pits and down the slippery slope of moral degeneration because his only source of income was cut off by the mine closure incident. People wanted livelihoods above anything else, it's the failure to provide that that made the miners go off the deep end and resulted in the death of a guard. If Functionism actually ensured that everyone could be guaranteed a job or at least minimized the unemployment rates, then stratified castes or not, there would have been no war. People, or societies, are generally capable of tolerating an incredible amount of injustice as long as the majority still have a chance at scraping by at the end of the day. But the government, and later Megatron, kept yanking the rug out from under everyone over and over until they no longer even had a chance at that; there's no other choice left but fight or die.

[writingtoolofdubiousintegrity]

glasses aren't a disability aid the same way caffeine isn't a drug

Made the mistake of bringing up that needing glasses is a disability on tiktok and people got real mad.

“You can fix it with glasses” yeah, cuz they’re a disability aid? But like, I still have to pay 160 bucks to use my own fucking eyes?

Like, by definition, if your eyes do not work without aid, you have a disability to see.

Having a disability doesn’t automatically put you in what people consider the “disabled” category, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is in fact, a disability.