Blast from the Past

by Guest Thu Jul 28, 2011 11:11 am

I returned to Sulekha a month ago, after a five-year hiatus. Over the last month, a recurring theme of my posts on Sulekha Coffeehouse
has been questioning the basis for the caste system. Many Hindus I
speak to admit the caste system is bad as it stands today. But they
harbor the notion that in its original, pristine form it was all benign,
and that subsequent distortions by vested interests are to blame for
everything that is wrong with it. I find this disingenuous. As Rashmun pointed out
rather well: "without fully uprooting the ideological justification of the
caste-system from popular consciousness there is no getting away from
the evils of this system."

http://pavan-pamidimarri.sulekha.com/blog/post/2006/12/defending-the-indefensible.htm

by Marathadi-Saamiyaar Thu Jul 28, 2011 11:26 am

phew....thot it was already Friday

by Guest Thu Jul 28, 2011 11:32 am

Marathadi-Saamiyaar wrote:phew....thot it was already Friday

Time to remember Merlot?

by charvaka Thu Jul 28, 2011 12:12 pm

Rashmun wrote:Time to remember Merlot?

For the nickname he uses for you?

by charvaka Thu Jul 28, 2011 12:13 pm

Rashmun wrote:I returned to Sulekha a month ago, after a five-year hiatus. Over the last month, a recurring theme of my posts on Sulekha Coffeehouse
has been questioning the basis for the caste system. Many Hindus I
speak to admit the caste system is bad as it stands today. But they
harbor the notion that in its original, pristine form it was all benign,
and that subsequent distortions by vested interests are to blame for
everything that is wrong with it. I find this disingenuous. As Rashmun pointed out
rather well: "without fully uprooting the ideological justification of the
caste-system from popular consciousness there is no getting away from
the evils of this system."

http://pavan-pamidimarri.sulekha.com/blog/post/2006/12/defending-the-indefensible.htm

I agreed with you when your arguments made sense. Congrats.

by Guest Thu Jul 28, 2011 12:24 pm

charvaka wrote:
Rashmun wrote:Time to remember Merlot?
For the nickname he uses for you?

--> did you know about Jayanta Bhatta's classification of Charvakas into two categories? do a google search on it.

by Guest Thu Jul 28, 2011 12:26 pm

hey read your blog on 9-11... was good. Didn't know you saw it so upclose.

by Marathadi-Saamiyaar Thu Jul 28, 2011 5:59 pm

Tracy Whitney wrote:hey read your blog on 9-11... was good. Didn't know you saw it so upclose.

Of course...why should that surprise you?

by sambarvada Thu Jul 28, 2011 10:49 pm

Imagine that a few hundred years from now, every time someone like me points this out, an apologist quotes the Declaration of Independence to me: "all men are created equal", implying that slavery could not have existed because the US considered all men equal. What would be relevance of the quote to the fact that slavery existed? But this: that human beings are capable of fine ideals in their lofty documents like the Declaration of Independence and the Vedas, but they are also capable of copious quantities of hypocrisy when it comes to practicing those ideals.

===> Pavan is wrong.

If the white founding fathers ever thought one day Blacks would get equal rights, they would not have said "all men are created equal".

Judging the past by current ethos is not a great idea.

by charvaka Fri Jul 29, 2011 12:53 am

sambarvada wrote:Imagine that a few hundred years from now, every time someone like me points this out, an apologist quotes the Declaration of Independence to me: "all men are created equal", implying that slavery could not have existed because the US considered all men equal. What would be relevance of the quote to the fact that slavery existed? But this: that human beings are capable of fine ideals in their lofty documents like the Declaration of Independence and the Vedas, but they are also capable of copious quantities of hypocrisy when it comes to practicing those ideals.

===> Pavan is wrong.

If the white founding fathers ever thought one day Blacks would get equal rights, they would not have said "all men are created equal".

Judging the past by current ethos is not a great idea.

That is what I meant by "copious quantities of hypocrisy."

by Kris Fri Jul 29, 2011 10:15 pm

If the white founding fathers ever thought one day Blacks would get equal rights, they would not have said "all men are created equal".

Judging the past by current ethos is not a great idea.

>>>> Equally bad and in fact, more relevantly, neither is the justification now of traditions or mores that have been clearly shown to be mean spirited or stupid. If the founding fathers had sought to preclude blacks from equality (which they most likely would have, had they known that possibility would come up), that shoudn't be a yardstick for how they should be treated now. That would reflect a person or society incapable of intellectual evolution.

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