In a recent discussion, some felt that social classes among people may be the predominant social ill that people may have to face in the future. In the US, there is a huge systemic class problem based on economics and arguably race. But to a large extent, people don't have that metal attitude of treating different class members as different humans or less than humans. There are a few who argue such basic differences in character exists among these classes.
This resembles a situation historians have noted as existed in ancient India, where people took different social roles and performed jobs, but had the basic dignity and flexibility to move from one class to another and even form personal relationships between different classes. It was not a rigid system. But as it most often happens, people reinforced their group identity and eventually the separation became so rigid in the minds of people that they ossified in to different castes with no flexibility of movement. Then those ossified castes broke into hundreds of sub-castes that maintained their rigid social nature..Post-independence there have been consistent efforts to regain that flexibility with some success but a huge gap in achievement as it didn't address the psyche of people and challenged its foundational assumptions.There is something to be learnt from this story in our times and be aware of events and attitudes arising.....
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