As I was reading this chapter, I stopped on the small section about peasants in China. Within this section, all that kept running through my head was how much it sounded like America today. The poor, and most of the middle class have to pay taxes, work themselves to death, and many (in the past) were drafted into wars, or feel there is no other option but the military. Because of such hardships, a lot do easily fall into homelessness (begging, as written in this section), or into gangs...something extremely common nowadays. Just in the high school I used to work at, I would see so many great kids turn to gangs because it was seemingly easier than trying to make it in this society and economy. Anyway, this section reminded me, eerily so, of today's world, and the "impoverished" who strive to make a better life for themselves.
And don't even get me started on India's caste system!! That is the most degrading, humiliating, disrespectful ruling ever to be put in place! And it happens everywhere. In my Literary Theory class, we learned about Marxism, and how the rich will always be rich, and the poor will always be poor, and religions have been put in place a long time ago by other rich people to keep the poor satisfied with their lot in life...and you know what? I COMPLETELY agree. All societies have their religion that keeps the poor "happy," with the promise of that glorious afterlife, but India especially has a particularly cruel way of keeping that promise barely dangling in their poor's faces: reincarnation. Which!! I used to think was a cool idea, now that I know how it originated, no. thank. YOU!
No comments:
Post a Comment