The castes play a crucial role in evolution; despite the politically correct “science” claims, they are dysfunctional.

Castes belong to the non-progressive (conservative) culture and are understood by science and not by scientism.

The first point:

From a Western (progressivist) perspective, castes are arranged vertically, whereas in a conservative culture, they are arranged horizontally.

The Ultimate Refutation of Progressivism

The Western mind understands any system as an arrangement that tends to order itself from the bottom up, with the top being the final destination. A poor beggar can become president; a receptionist aspires to become the company’s CEO; an older woman is frustrated at no longer being young. These are all symptoms of the Western mind that places the ideal outside its horizon.

A displaced Christian God as an ideal is an example of this, as is the view of humans as the species at the top of the hierarchy. After all, we Westerners inherently believe that the amoeba evolved into a man over millions of years. We believe that there is an aspiration for every species to evolve to the level of man over time, as if man’s level were at the top among all other levels. We cannot understand how the amoeba has evolved over millions of years into a “better” amoeba than it was. If the amoeba really aspired to become a human, there would be no more amoeba. “Better amoeba” means the amoeba has horizontally adapted to environmental changes, including the recent arrival of humans.

Castes and Evolution

Am I saying that casts are like species? Am I saying that there are barriers within the human species, like between a bird and a reptile?

Yes and no.

Just as there are subtle connections between phenotype and extended phenotype, I can say that my cell phone memory is an extended phenotype of my brain; we should understand that all boundaries are borderline. There are BORDERS, there are Borders, and there are borders. The phenotypic boundary between my brain and my cell phone capacity is much smaller than the boundary between your cell phone and mine. The natural border between two species is harder to cross (inbreeding is rare and rarely produces anything that can adapt to the environment), but that doesn’t mean there aren’t boundaries between castes.

Inbreeding between castes is fairly common and largely effective, but it does not mean that there are no boundaries.

More importantly, however, if boundaries between castes are understood as gravity, as a property of nature, immediately such boundaries cease to represent something bad, something that must be crossed if one is to act as a free human being.

Gravity is horizontal

Gravity is not a burden. Without gravity, we cannot jump, drive a car, or evolve. Castes play a similar role in evolution. I can’t be a good consultant if I feel and act like a banker at the same time. I have to evolve (identity) within the confines of counseling if I want to be a good consultant. If a good car washer is needed and not a consultant, then the car washer is much higher in rank than I am as a consultant.

That is, there are no higher or lower ranks (castes) in a society. There are only the necessary and less necessary ranks/professions/casts. The car washer would fail (not adapt well to the environment) if he aspired to become a consultant or a banker, if he aspired to “move up,” because there is no “up”. All castes are on the same horizontal line. Ten thousand years ago, there were only a few of them, and now there are hundreds. Horizontal. Each is equally important to the human species, just as the brain is no more important to humans than the liver. In the brain, the frontal cortex is no more critical than the thalamus, and the neuron is no more critical than the neurotransmitter.

I don’t pretend to see the logic of caste systems, even in societies that declare themselves democratic, anti-caste societies.

Castes and Evolutionary Stable Strategy

We know from evolutionary theory that there are always boundary crossings. If there are no such boundary crossings, the ecosystem freezes, unable to adapt to environmental changes, and slowly dies out. If there are too many boundary crossings, such an ecosystem cannot stabilize its mutations (e.g., cancer) and becomes chaotic, dying even faster. Finding an evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) regarding such mutations (boundary crossings) is the “goal” of any ecosystem. (We know there are no goals in evolution.) There is a need for “new blood” (mutation) in any caste, but too many mutations will not allow such a caste to develop a stable “know-how” of its caste.

I can become a pretty good consultant because I am the son of a father and mother from different castes. Still, I could have done much better if my mental, tactile, and knowledge had been supported by a stack of consultants’ family meme heritage. It is not the best evolutionary strategy for any ecosystem to have individuals choose their role ( caste) in that ecosystem after they have reached the highest point of their mental and physical potential. A cell in a tumor feels extremely good, but that feeling is not shared by the body that houses that cell. Likewise, an individual who has the freedom to choose their profession feels good. But from an evolutionary perspective, a society (ecosystem) with more substantial barriers between castes is much more stable than one that allows individuals to break those barriers as they see fit.

So, castes are beneficial when understood conservatively.

And what happens to individual freedoms in such a conservative society? They are hampered from a Western point of view but not from a conservative one. On the contrary, only within a conservative system can liberal values develop their full power. But more on this topic in other posts.