Chapter five, is titled “Society and Inequality in
Eurasia/North Arfica: 500 B.C.E. – 500 C.E”.
For many of the following opinions I am about to impart, I
am aware they are coming from a place that could never truly understand the
paradigm of thought which permeated the culture and religions of the people of
the second wave civilizations (who were influenced by earlier civilizations).
At the same time, because many of the inequalities that existed then exist now,
though widely varied in their expressions in their respective societies, and
though I like to think that paradigms are slowly changing even more, it is hard
not to feel passionately about the subjects presented in this last chapter.
The comparison between the social systems of China and India
to were interesting because of the different ways in which they were ordered
(192-203). In China, there was more of a chance for upward social mobility
through education and scholarship, and landowning. In India, the rigid caste
system with the jati (occupational based groups), made it harder for that
mobility to be possible. It was shocking to find out that it was rarely
possible, but could be done after several generations (202). The idea of
untouchables (200) and polluted labor was both shocking and not shocking, as I
had heard of it, just without the accompanying background knowledge to make
sense of it. As with other cultural traditions, it has developed and has been
so steeped into the society from which it was born that it has amassed into the
thinking and actions of all who follow that tradition, without them really even
recognizing or questioning it for so long.
This is the case for other unequal systems discussed in this
chapter as well. Slavery, for one, which has been around for millennia, and
that which was so intensely represented in the Roman Empire, has only in recent
centuries been questioned. I have to ask myself why this is. Was it borne in
earlier times out of conflict or necessity, or as a type of punishment or some
perverse or primal need to be above others? Was it an expression of greed? Was
it perhaps because the prominent figures, religious writers and thinkers, and
state creators and innovators of those times further influenced the situation
by intensifying and justifying the need for these types of hierarchies by
comparing other human beings to animals, who were by the time of the
agricultural revolution being domesticated?
And these same speculations may similarly if not completely
be attributed to the subordination of women through patriarchy. Take “the
father of western philosophy,” or Aristotle. I don’t know how popular he was
back in the day, but just look at the title we have given him. He thought that
some people were “slaves by nature” (205). To him, the inferiority of women
came from them being “infertile men,” as in, since women do not produce sperm,
they are inadequate (213). There is also another insinuation there, that men
exist first or at the center, as he did not say instead something like “men are
fertile women” –what an interesting notion that would be. This was because,
apparently, sperm held the soul, and therefore their (men’s’) contribution was
much greater than the vessel that carried the baby (214). If this was the way
they thought about it at the time, I can imagine that even women, who probably
believed this too, were less likely to fight for a more equal position. And
perhaps that is why in so many societies, for so long, that that has been the
case. Very little questioning, and very little resistance of these ways of
thinking. I cannot help but wonder, if the rational thinking men of Athens and
elsewhere were not so blinded by their efforts to separate and subordinate,
they may have taken the time for the thoughtful study of what was right in
front of them, instead of focusing so much on what was going to make them more
masculine. They may have had some intriguing findings.
I do want to mention very quickly, that though the system of
patriarchy irritates and at times infuriates me, that men did and do not have
it so easy either. The incredible expectations of meeting all the criteria of
being “masculine,” whatever that meant in their respective societies, must have
been extremely harsh and stressful, and might have just hardened their souls.
This, of course, is no excuse in my opinion, for appropriating systems of
oppression, but nonetheless that might have been there experience. Take Sparta
for example. Young boys being taken away at the age of seven to be trained as
warriors until they were thirty years of age (215). What must it have been like
in those early developing years where the military raised them? Or China, where
if you were trying to achieve prestige as a scholar, whether you were a peasant
being sponsored by a village or an elite who could afford education easily,
what would the social humiliation and implications for those people who were
supporting you be like if you failed the examinations to become an official? Even
then though, in comparison to women, at least men were given the opportunity to
succeed or fail.
As I am not a historian nor a Greek classical thinker, and I
do not have all the information available to me to ponder these questions
further (plus, dinner is waiting, and I am lucky enough to have a dinner), I
will not comment on this any further today. It is food for thought though.
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