Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
Yeah, ours got away with having unmasked people coming to rallies without any social distancing. I wonder how many he killed by doing that.?
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Caste System
- Thread starter The Hammer
- Start date
No, I believe in equality among all humans. Of course, a large, complex society would have to have some kind of division of labor, but if society needs street cleaners and manual laborers, then people who fulfill those roles are serving a productive purpose in society. They should be justly compensated and treated as equals in the larger society.
Another problem is that such a society eventually stagnates and erodes.
No.
People's occupation should not be the basis of hierarchies in society. So for example, the president might be the highest authority while he/she sits in the chair, but he/she must be treated as an ordinary citizen when he is not acting as such... for example while buying tickets to movies or having dinner at a restaurant. This does not happen, but in my vision of an ideal society, it should.
I am wondering how this works. According to you, your daughter paid her education by working part time during her college. Assuming one is an US citizen taking education in a state university one is resident in the average cost (tution + other costs) is $26,000 per year
How Much Does it Cost to Study in the US?
This is only for low ranked universities. For higher ranked universities the costs for out-of-state students are $40,000 to $65,000 per year.
The median earning for part-time work in USA is between $12 - $15 per hour. Assuming one works 4-5 hours per day for 6 days parttime in college. The max income one gets with such a punishing schedule is $18,000 - $20,000 per year max (no holidays etc.). Clearly there needs to be extra source of money to fund for even a low-medium level college and get a decent degree, or one has to take an education loan. The second issue is, are there enough part time jobs available at all in the locality of an university for this mode of hand-mouth existence to be possible for every student?
This is a real situation in colleges in USA. A significant fraction of students actually starve during their college days.
A Decade of College Student Hunger: What We Know and Where We Need to Go
Your daughter may be very meritorious and lucky (usually both) to be able to sustain herself with work during college, but the situation is quite grim for many students for no fault of their own.
I myself had been a meritorious student all my life and had to pay nothing for my education (graduation and post-graduation) because of whole host of scholarship that I got. But that does not mean that we should not consider the needs of average students who have the passion but may not be exceptionally meritorious or exceptionally hard working. After is a student is all of this at 16-17 years already, he or she is already ready for the world whatever the situation of the world. The real task is to train and groom those who have not yet reached that level.
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ajay0
Well-Known Member
The Vedas and Shrutis emphasize the equality and fraternity of all human beings.
Casteism as a social institution is a man-made one and has no basis in the Vedas or Shrutis or spiritual teachings of Hinduism, and its present version actually contradict and violate the Shrutis.
The Vedas emphasize the equality and fraternity of all human beings. The Manu smriti that brought about casteism was of man-made origin and had nothing to do with Vedic religion. This was perhaps necessary at a certain time period as with feudal systems elsewhere ( as in Europe and Japan) but became obsolete with time, and should have been changed as the Smritis are supposed to be temporary structures.
The smritis, or man-made laws and customs regulating society, can and ought to be modified with changing times and circumstances for material progress in line with new methods and innovations. Negligence in this regard is the cause for deterioration in material standards.
This is why the Arya Samaj, which are based solely on the teachings of the Vedas, rejected casteism entirely. It is interesting to note that they also stand for gender equality and empowerment of women.
S.Radhakrishnan praised Swami Dayananda Saraswati ( founder of Arya Samaj) for taking Hinduism back to its Vedic foundations, and drew a correlation between his teachings and reforms in the Indian constitution.
Buddha, Mahavira and Guru Nanak too criticized casteism and emphasized the equality and fraternity of all beings.
It depends on the situation and circumstances, and social-political systems are tailored to them. Feudalism, democracy or dictatorship could be right under the right circumstances in a given situation.
At present , India has democratic structures, which hold casteist discrimination punishable under its laws. Inter-caste and inter-religious marriages are common in urban India, and to some extent in rural India showing the displacement of old values by new ones.
ajay0
Well-Known Member
The majority of the vedic sages were from the lower occupational groups. Satyakama Jabala is a renowned Vedic sage who was the son of a prostitute. Upon answering his lineage correctly to a Guru, the Guru took him as a disciple on account of his honesty and character.
Character was the factor used to differentiate the sages and saints from the rest of the masses.
Character was the factor used to differentiate the sages and saints from the rest of the masses.
Expensive colleges usually do research and have Masters and PhDs. The quality of their faculty are also usually better as they are real experts in the cutting edge of their fields. The money goes to sustain the research infrastructure. Their labs are also more state of the art. The research faculty there are also involved in updating curriculum for subjects at bachelor's level, determining govt research policy, incubating initial level technological start-ups with students etc. They also maintain subscriptions to high end research journals like Nature, Science and associated ones which is very expensive. This the reason for high costs.
Heyo
Veteran Member
Informative but not what I asked @Watchmen. I wanted to know why it isn't possible to go to an expensive college if your parents are poor. Are the expensive colleges, with their better equipment, better teachers and better connections, where your degree is a guaranty you'll get a better paying job, reserved for the upper castes/classes? Should poor kids be glad to manage to go to community college?
There are scholarships available, but someone must pay. So a large fraction will go to students who can pay the premium costs.
In fact, if you come from a poor family, your value for investment is much better for a state or community college than a research focused university.
https://www.collegefactual.com/rankings/best-colleges-for-money/bachelors-degrees/
Heyo
Veteran Member
So, higher education is set up as a caste system in the US? Prestige colleges for the wealthy and community colleges for the rest?
The colleges in the list are not community colleges...
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
There are times my wife says she would like to put me in a caste. I assume she thinks I should go and live in India, right?
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
At my age of 77, the untouchables.You'll have to ask her which one it is she'll assign you to.