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Quote by Isabel Wilkerson

Work

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

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Author

Isabel Wilkerson
Isabel Wilkerson

Isabel Wilkerson is an American journalist renowned for her profound insights into racial and social issues. Born in New York in 1961, she graduated from Columbia University with a Master's degree in journalism. Wilkerson's work, 'The Warmth of Other Suns', which meticulously documents the mass migration of African Americans from the Southern United States in the mid-20th century, won the Pulitzer Prize. more

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“बर्दाश्त कर लेने का इतना हौसला था कि आज मैं सोचता हूँ तो हैरान रह जाता हूँ। कितना कुछ छीन लिया है मुझसे इस बर्दाश्त कर लेने की आदत ने!”

“How does Plato solve the problem of avoiding class war? Had he been a progressivist, he might have hit on the idea of a classless, equalitarian society; for, as we can see for instance from his own parody of Athenian democracy, there were strong equalitarian tendencies at work in Athens. But he was not out to construct a state that might come, but a state that had been—the father of the Spartan state, which was certainly not a classless society. It was a slave state, and accordingly Plato’s best state is based on the most rigid class distinctions. It is a caste state. The problem of avoiding class war is solved, not by abolishing classes, but by giving the ruling class a superiority which cannot be challenged. As in Sparta, the ruling class alone is permitted to carry arms, it alone has any political or other rights, and it alone receives education, i.e. a specialized training in the art of keeping down its human sheep or its human cattle.”

“The communism of the ruling caste of his best city can thus be derived from Plato’s fundamental sociological law of change; it is a necessary condition of the political stability which is its fundamental characteristic. But although an important condition, it is not a sufficient one. In order that the ruling class may feel really united, that it should feel like one tribe, i.e. like one big family, pressure from without the class is as necessary as are the ties between the members of the class. This pressure can be secured by emphasizing and widening the gulf between the rulers and the ruled. The stronger the feeling that the ruled are a different and an altogether inferior race, the stronger will be the sense of unity among the rulers. We arrive in this way at the fundamental principle, announced only after some hesitation, that there must be no mingling between the classes.”

“साहित्य में नरक की सिर्फ कल्पना है। हमारे लिए बरसात के दिन किसी नारकीय जीवन से कम न थे। हमने इसे साकार रूप में जीते–जी भोगा है। ग्राम्य जीवन की यह दारुण व्यथा हिन्दी के महाकवियों को छू भी नहीं सकी। कितनी बीभत्स सच्चाई है यह!”

“भारतीय समाज की क्रूर–व्यवस्था व्यक्ति की योग्यता को नकार रही थी। उनकी दृष्टि में डॉ. अम्बेडकर जन्मना महार थे। भले ही उनकी विद्वत्ता आकाश जितनी ऊँचाई पा जाए।”