CONDITIONS FAVORING OR OPPOSING THE GROWTH OF CASTE
THREE CONDITIONS AFFECTING THE INCREASE OR DIMINUTION OF CASTE—RACE
CASTE—IMMIGRATION AND CONQUEST—GRADUAL DIFFERENTIATION OF FUNCTIONS;
MEDIÆVAL CASTE; INDIA—INFLUENCE OF SETTLED CONDITIONS—INFLUENCE OF THE
STATE OF COMMUNICATION AND ENLIGHTENMENT—CONCLUSION.
There seem to be three conditions which, chiefly, make for the increase
or diminution of the caste principle. These are, first, likeness or
unlikeness in the constituents of the population; second, the rate
of social change (whether we have to do with a settled or a shifting
system), and, finally, the state of communication and enlightenment.
Unlikeness in the constituents, a settled system and a low state of
communication and enlightenment favor the growth of caste, and _vice
versa_. The first provides natural lines of cleavage and so makes it
easier to split into hereditary groups; the second gives inheritance
time to consolidate its power, while the third means the absence of
those conscious and rational forces which are its chief rivals.
The most important sorts of unlikeness in the constituents of the
population are perhaps three: differences in race; differences, apart
from race, due to immigration or conquest, and unlikeness due to
the gradual differentiation of social functions within a population
originally homogeneous.
Two races of different temperament and capacity, distinct to the eye
and living side by side in the same community, tend strongly to become
castes, no matter how equal the social system may otherwise be. The
difference, as being hereditary, answers in its nature to the idea of
caste, and the external sign serves to make it conscious and definite.
The race caste existing in the Southern United States illustrates the
impotence of democratic traditions to overcome the caste spirit when
fostered by obvious physical and psychical differences. This spirit is
immeasurably strong on the part of the whites, and there is no apparent
prospect of its diminution.
The specially caste nature of the division—as distinguished from those
personal differences which democratic tradition recognizes—is seen in
the feeling, universal among the whites, that the Negro must be held
apart and subordinate not merely as an individual, or any number of
individuals, but as a race, a social whole. That is, the fact that
many individuals of this race are equal, and some superior, to the
majority of whites does not, in the opinion of the latter, make it
just or expedient to treat them apart from the mass of their race. To
dine with a Negro, to work or play by his side, or to associate in any
relation where superiority cannot be asserted, is held to be degrading
and of evil example, no matter what kind of Negro he may be. It is the
practice and policy of the dominant race to impress upon the Negro
that he belongs by birth to a distinct order out of which he can in no
way depart. There or nowhere he must find his destiny. If he wishes to
mingle with whites it must be as an acknowledged inferior. As a servant
he may ride in the same railway car, but as a citizen he may not do so.
Thoughtful whites justify this attitude on the ground, substantially,
that a race _is_ an organic whole—bound together by heredity and social
connection—and that it is practically necessary to recognize this in
dealing with race questions. The integrity of the white race and of
white civilization, they say, requires Negro subordination (separation
being impracticable), and the only available line of distinction is
the definite one of color. A division on this line is even held to be
less invidious—as involving no judgment of individuals—as well as more
feasible, than one based on personal traits. Particular persons cannot,
in practice, be separated from their families and other antecedents,
and if they could be the example of mixture on an equal footing would
be demoralizing.
This argument is probably sound in so far as it requires the
recognition of the two races as being, for some purposes, distinct
organisms. In this regard it is perhaps better sociology than the
view that every one should be considered solely on his merits as an
individual.
At the same time it is only too apparent that our application of this
doctrine is deeply colored with that caste arrogance which does not
recognize in the Negro a spiritual brotherhood underlying all race
difference and possible “inferiority.” The matter of unequal ability,
in races as in individuals, is quite distinct from that sharing in
a common spirit and service from which no human being can rightly
or Christianly be excluded. The idea that he is fundamentally a man
like the rest of us cannot and should not be kept from the Negro any
more than from other lowly orders of people. Science, religion and the
democratic spirit all give him a right to it; and the white man cannot
deny it to him without being false to his own best self. Anything in
our present attitude which does deny it we must hope to be transitory,
since it is calculated, in a modern atmosphere, to generate continuing
disquiet and hatred. It belonged with slavery and is incongruous with
the newer world.
These may be subtleties, but subtlety is the very substance of the race
question, the most vital matter being not so much what is done as the
spirit in which it is done.
The practical question here is not that of abolishing castes but of
securing just and kindly relations between them, of reconciling the
fact of caste with ideals of freedom and right. This is difficult
but not evidently impossible, and a right spirit, together with a
government firmly repressive of the lower passions of both races,
should go far to achieve it. There seems to be no reason in the nature
of things why divergent races, like divergent individuals, should not
unite in a common service of the ideals to which all human nature bears
allegiance—I mean ideals of kindness, fair play and so on. And the
white man, in claiming superiority, assumes the chief responsibility
for bringing this state of things to pass.
When peoples of the same race mingle by migration, the effect, as
regards classes, depends chiefly on their states of civilization and
the character of the migration, as hostile or friendly. The peaceful
advent of kindred settlers, like the English immigrants to the United
States, creates no class divisions. If they differ in language and
customs, like the Germans, or are extremely poor and ignorant, like
many of the Irish, they are held apart for a time and looked down upon,
but as they establish themselves and gradually prove their substantial
equality with the natives, they may become indistinguishable from the
latter. Of recent years, however, the arrival by millions of peoples
somewhat more divergent—especially Italians, Slavs and Jews—has
introduced distinctions in which race as well as culture plays an
appreciable part.
Much depends, of course, upon the special character of the institutions
and traditions that thus come into contact. Some societies are rigid
and repellent in their structure, while others, like the United States,
are almost ideally constituted to invite and hasten assimilation.
Conquest has been one of the main sources of caste the world over.
The hostile tradition it leaves may continue indefinitely; servile
functions are commonly forced upon the conquered, and the consciousness
of superiority leads the conquerors to regard intermarriage as
shameful. A servile caste, strictly hereditary, existed even among
the primitive German tribes from which most of us are descended, and
intermarriage with freemen was severely punished. “The Lombard,” says
Mr. Gummere, “killed a serf who ventured to marry a free woman, ...
West Goths and Burgundians scourged and burnt them both, while the
Saxons punished an unequal marriage of any sort with death of man and
wife.”[107]
The unlikeness out of which caste grows may not be original, as in the
case of race difference or conquest, but may arise gradually by the
differentiation of a homogeneous people. Any distinct social group,
having its special group sympathies and traditions, has some tendency
to pass on its functions and ideas to the children of its members,
promoting association and intermarriage among them, and thus taking on
a caste character.
Accordingly, any increase in the complexity of social
functions—political, religious, military or industrial—such as
necessarily accompanies the enlargement of a social system, may have
a caste tendency, because it separates the population into groups
corresponding to the several functions; and this alone may without
doubt produce caste if the conditions are otherwise favorable.
Something of this sort seems to have followed upon the conquest by the
Germanic tribes of Roman territory, and the consequent necessity of
administering a more complex system than their own. As the new order
took shape it showed a tendency toward more definite inheritance of
rank and function than existed in the tribal society. This was due
partly, no doubt, to the influence of Roman traditions, but the very
nature of the civilization required it. That is, functions became
more diverse and of such a character as to separate the citizens into
distinct classes, the principal ones being warriors of various degrees
(combining military functions with the control of land), clergy,
artisans and peasants. The military and landholding class, uniting the
force of arms with that of wealth, naturally dominated the others;
the artisans, especially in the towns, maintained a free status which
served later as the nucleus of a democratic tendency; the peasants
became serfs. As the conditions did not permit organization on any free
or open principle—there being little facility of travel, diffusion
of knowledge or unfixed wealth—the hereditary principle naturally
prevailed. Only the clergy, monopolizing most of the knowledge
and communication of the time and fortified by celibacy against
inheritance, maintained a comparatively open organization. It is well
known that lands, and the local rule that went with them, held at first
as a personal trust, gradually became a family property, and we are
told that when the Emperor Conrad, in 1037, issued his edict making
chiefs hereditary in Italy, he only did for the south “by a single
stroke what gradual custom and policy had slowly procured for the
north.”[108] Offices, armorial devices and other privileges generally
followed the same course, and the servile status of serfs was also
transmitted to children.
The feudal system was based on inheritance of function, and had two
well-defined castes, the knightly, consisting originally of those whose
ability to maintain a horse and equipment placed them in the rank
of effective warriors, and the servile. Between these marriage was
impossible. Intercourse of any kind was scanty and, on the part of the
superior order, contemptuous. “A boy of knightly birth was reared in
ceremony. From his earliest childhood he learnt to look upon himself
and his equals as of a different degree and almost of a different
nature from his fellow creatures who were not of gentle condition.
Heraldic pride and the distinction of degree were among his first
impressions.”[109] Socially and psychologically the mediæval nobility
lived in their caste, not in the world at large. It was the sphere of
the social self; the knight looked to it and not to a general public
for sympathy and recognition: he was far closer in spirit to the
chivalry of hostile nations than to the commons of his own. But the
plain people were out of all this, and were regarded with a contempt
at least as great as that felt in our day for the Negro at the South.
The whole institution of chivalry, with its attendant ideas, ideals and
literature, was a thing of caste which recognized no common humanity in
the lower orders of society, and whatever it did for the world in the
way of developing the knightly ideal of valor, devotion and courtesy—an
ideal later transformed into that of the gentleman and now coming to
pervade all classes—was a product of caste spirit.
The feudal courts, large and small, the tournaments, festivals and
military expeditions, including the crusades, were facilities of
communication through which this caste, not only in single countries
but throughout Europe, was enabled to have a common thought and
sentiment.
Without doubt, however, the lower caste had also its unity and
organization, its group traditions, customs and standards; mostly
lost to us because they never achieved a literary record. This was an
inarticulate caste; but it is probable that village communities were
the spheres of a vigorous coöperative life in which the best traits of
human nature were fostered.
In India also the elaborate caste systems, although due in part
to conquest, seem also to have come about by the hardening of
occupation-classes. The priests, powerful because of their supposed
intercourse with superhuman powers, taught their mystic traditions
to their children and so built up a hereditary corporation, known,
finally, as the Brahman caste. The military caste was apparently formed
in a similar manner, while in industry “veneration for parental example
and the need of an exact transmission of methods”[110] rendered all
employments hereditary. In fact, says one writer, the caste system was
in its origin “simply an instinctive effort for the organization of
labor.”[111] In the case of so intricate a caste society as that of
India much may also be ascribed to the reaction of the theory upon the
system. When the idea that caste is natural had become prevalent and
sanctified, it tended to create caste where it would not otherwise have
existed.
A settled state of society is favorable, and change hostile, to
the growth of caste, because it is necessary that functions should
be continuous through several generations before the principle of
inheritance can become fixed. Whatever breaks up existing customs and
traditions tends to abolish hereditary privilege and throw men into a
rough struggle, out of which strong, coarse natures emerge as victors,
to found, perhaps, a new aristocracy. Thus the conquest of southern
Europe by northern tribes led to a period of somewhat confused
readjustment, in which men of natural power bettered their status. The
classes which emerged were as much the result of competition as derived
by inheritance from those of tribal society. And so the openness of
classes in our own day _may_ be due as much to confusion as to a
permanent decline in the caste principle.
That a low state of communication and of enlightenment are favorable
to caste, while intelligence—especially political intelligence—and
facility of intercourse antagonize it, becomes evident when we consider
what, psychologically speaking, caste is. It is an organization of the
social mind on a biological principle. That functions should follow
the line of descent instead of adjusting themselves to individual
capacity and preference, evidently means the subordination of reason to
convenience, of freedom to order. The ideal principle is not biological
but moral, based, that is, on the spiritual gifts of individuals
without regard to descent. Caste, then, is something which, we may
assume, will give way to this higher principle whenever the conditions
are such as to permit the latter to work successfully; and this will
be the case when the population is so mobilized by free training and
institutions that just and orderly selection is practicable.
The diffusion of intelligence, rapid communication, the mobilization
of wealth by means of money, and the like, mark the ascendency of the
human mind over material and biological conditions. Popular government
becomes possible, commercial and industrial functions—other things
equal—come under more open competition, and free personal development
of all sorts is fostered. The general sentiment also, perceiving
the superiority of free organization to caste, becomes definitely
hostile to the latter and antagonizes it by public educational and
other opportunities. The most effective agent in keeping classes
comparatively open is an adequate system of free training for the
young, tending to make all careers accessible to those who are
naturally fit for them. In so far as there is such a system early
education becomes a process of selection and discipline which permits
ability to serve its possessor and the world in its proper place.
In our own society—we may note in passing—this calls for a great
development of public education, especially in the way of trade schools
and the like, and also for an effective campaign against child-labor,
bad housing and whatever else shuts off opportunity.
But before this mobility is achieved, caste is perhaps the only
possible basis for an elaborate social structure; the main flow of
thought is then necessarily in local channels. The people cannot grasp
the life of which they are a part in any large way, or have a free
and responsible share in it, but are somewhat mechanically held in
place by habit and tradition. Those special relations to the system of
government, religion or industry which are implied in classes, since
they cannot be determined by rational selection, must be fixed in some
traditional way, and the most available is the inheritance of functions.
We may expect, then, that complex, stationary societies of low mental
organization will tend toward caste. That this is true, in a general
way, is shown by the prevalence of caste in Oriental nations to-day,
and in the later history of the great empires of antiquity. It goes
without saying that each society has its peculiarities which only
special study could elucidate.
FOOTNOTES:
[107] Germanic Origins, 154.
[108] Tout, The Empire and The Papacy, 59.
[109] Cornish, Chivalry, 183.
[110] Samuel Johnson, Oriental Religions, India, 241.
[111] _Ibid._