Does America have a caste system?

[Belsnickel]

(01-29-2018, 04:31 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I'm glad to see such a consensus on this subject and I thank Matt for bringing it up for discussion.  One thing I didn't point out in my first response, and it troubles me, about this article and its supposition is that it falls right into place with the current trend to abdicate personal responsibility.  It also provides the perfect excuse for a person's lack of success, "I'm the victim of a caste system, thus my failures are not my fault".

As was excellently pointed out above, we celebrate a person raising themselves from humble, or poor, beginnings and achieving great success.  This, on its own, obliterates the idea of a caste system existing in this country.  We really don't need more "victims" giving up before they even begin because the system "won't allow" them to succeed.

I always think it's important to have these conversations. An article like this can be thought provoking, even if you don't agree with it. It's just one of those things where I like to discuss why we don't agree, because I think that gets lost in some threads.

I will say that there are systemic problems in place, structural violence if you will, that do make things more difficult for some than others when it comes to this socioeconomic mobility. But that conversation is one that is more nuanced than what the author of this piece brings forward. It's why it has been so difficult to attack from a policy position, because broad answers don't seem to exist.

Claims like those made by this author do more to discredit legitimate positions coming from the social sciences that show these societal issues than they do to help resolve them, and that is a problem.