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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - VIII. Social Stratification - 31. Caste and Class - 2. The “Meaning” of the Concepts “Caste” and “Class”
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Chapter 31. Caste and Class 675
of free competition in the various spheres of life that the individual in a
lower caste cannot, by any means, change his status, except by a secret and
illegitimate ^^passing,” which is possible only to the few who have the
physical appearance of members of the upper caste. Caste may thus in a
sense be viewed as the extreme case of absolutely rigid class. Such a harsh
deviation from the ordinary American social structure and the American
Creed could not occur without a certain internal conflict and without a
system of false beliefs and blindnesses aided by certain mechanical controls
in law and social structure. To the extent, however, that false beliefs in
Negro inferiority are removed by education and to the extent that white
people are made to see the degradations they heap on Negroes, to that
extent will the American Creed be able to make its assault on caste.
Within each caste, people also feel social distance and restrict free com-
petition, so that each caste has its own class system. The dividing line
between two castes is by definition clear-cut, consciously felt by every mem-
ber of each caste, and easily observable. No arbitrariness is involved in
drawing it. The class lines, on the other hand, are blurred and flexible.
The very fact that individuals move and marry between the classes, that
they have legitimate relatives in other classes and that competition is not
nearly so restricted in any sphere, blurs any division lines that are set.
Lines dividing the classes are not defined in law or even in custom, as
caste lines are. Therefore, it is probably most correct to conceive of the
class order as a social continuum. In most communities, and certainly in the
United States as a whole, class differences between the nearest individuals
at any point of the scale cannot be easily detected. It is only differences
between individuals further away from each other that are easily observ-
able. This is true for practically every one of the factors that go to make up
the class system—income, family background, social participation, and so
on—and it is doubly true of the class system as a whole since the factors are
not perfectly correlated. There are no ^^natural” class boundaries.
For scientific purposes, of course, we have to draw lines breaking up the
social continuum of the class order. But they are arbitrary. It has been
customary for a long time to divide the population into three classes: ^^upper
class,” “middle class,” “lower class.” It would be possible, however, to have
four or five classes. The Warner group uses a system of -six classes, dividing
the conventional three classes each into two. For some purposes even more
classes would be most convenient. But we should never imagine that there
is any deeper reality in our measuring scale than there is in measuring a
distance in kilometers instead of miles. If a conventional class division
for instance, the one in three classes—entered into the popular consciousness,
people might come to think of themselves as organized in this way, which
would undoubtedly have certain consequences for the actual class situation.
In some European countries this might hold true. In America, where the
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