>It is far from being pure poppycock Glen.
Hey, whoa! Who the hell are you talking to? I believe you were talking to
_Gerry_ not little ol' me. Try not to get us egalitarian people confused.
Hmm, but methinks that this subconscious slip-up on personal nomenclature
reflects a yearning to bring ol' Glen into the discussion and see what great
wisdom he can impart on this topic (yeah, right)...
>Ascriptive vs achieved status systems are common categories in the
>sociological literature. Achieved status seems to have been the >state
>found in most hunter-gatherer societies that are not pressing >on the
>carrying capacity of the natural environment. It is also the >case in most
>social species.
Hmm, "most" social species... Mm-hmm... Sounds nifty so far...
>Ascriptive status systems are found only in humans and are an >artifact of
>agrarian or horticultural societies, linked to the >social stratification
>systems we usually call "social
>class".
John? Now you're getting me confused. If achieved status "seems to have been
the state found in most hunter-gatherer societies that are not pressing on
the carrying capacity of the natural environment" and
"it is also the case in MOST social species", wouldn't that mean that social
species has class irregardless of humanness?
Wait, just a minute, let's continue reading. Maybe John didn't really mean
that...
John:
>>These distinctions are important, as otherwise we would say that
>>"class" is found in Chimpanzees where the alpha male and his
>>henchmen dominate (and sometimes terrorise) a chimp foraging band, >> or
>>in Gorillas, where the silverback males dominate their harem of >> females
>>and subdominant non breeding males. Clearly such cases
>>are not "social classes".
Gerry:
>>What's wrong with class being found in Chimpanzees? Are you
>>being discriminatory? Do those alpha males of yours take turns in
>>being alpha?
John:
>>Not at all, except that "class" is a cultural construct, uniquely >>
>>human.
So species have no class at all and humans, contrary to modern day science,
are unique against the primieval backdrop of our lowly ape ancestors...
John, even I have to say "poppycock" now and side with Gerry. Make up your
mind. Do animals have social classes or not? We know they can't eat at the
dinner table all too well but I'm very sure they have social class.
Many social animals must and do _organize_ themselves in some way in order
to interact with each other in an orderly fashion. Social organization is a
survival thing for the sake of the entire species and that much is common
sense as well as modern knowledge about social animals.
It would follow that this necessary organization be called "class". Do you
think they just do whatever random thing that pops into their head because
they don't have the brain capacity for such "evolved" things?? They wouldn't
survive as well as they do if they didn't have some time of "class", which
is another word for "organization".
Gerry:
>>What a negative attitude towards class! Them proles are
>>mystified and confused because they were born mystified and confused.
Hmm, I think I would side with John and say no to that one though.
Kind of reminds me of that movie, I think it was called "Time Machine" or
something and it was made in the 50's thereabouts. Anyways. This guy in the
19th century makes this time machine and he decides one day that he'll
travel a million years into the future. So off he goes and starts up some
really bad claymation special effects zooming around him as he travels
across the mysterious fourth dimension. The world wars go by and then a
mountain forms over him (and amazingly he isn't smothered to death) and then
it deteriorates and out before him is a beautiful and natural landscape with
some odd futuristic building in the distance that pecks at his script-driven
curiosity.
So, yadayadayada, he befriends a ditsy but scantily clad Aryan girl named
Weena or Weenie or something, thus establishing himself as a noble white
heterosexual in order to be the eventual hero of the dated movie. Now, Mr.
Man learns that Weenie's part of this special "social class" where they
don't have to think about anything because they get everything handed to
them on a platter. Some annoying kid starts drowning in the river but nobody
saves them because they don't have to think about anything and because they
needed to give the producer's son a film debut.
Anyways, turns out that there are another group of creatures ("blue color",
I believe, or is it "blue collar"?) that became sensitive to light because
they had been working for a million years and had evolved into cute furry
little ewoks that knew how to use other species for their greedy purposes.
Shocked as I am, this species is established as evil. The Aryan-heads to
which Weenie belonged were ditsy people who became the underclass or
something and they didn't evolve very well at all and couldn't talk about
heady topics like linguistics or social classes like we can or make run-on
sentences and things.
But in the end, the ditsy Aryan-head people won and... erh, oh no, that's no
good. That movie doesn't speak too well for both genetics nor past racist
attitudes. Come to think of it, it could have been called "Das Hitler Zeit
Maschine", can't remember, it's been a while...
But anyways, I guess my point is that for a class to be genetically
"breeded" into humanity, you need at least a million years, a good time
machine and a membership card at Blockbuster's. So make it a Blockbuster's
night!
- gLeN
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