The Blackberry Walk

Ethnicity as it pertains to rank within a society is something common to all societies, but has its most apparent manifestation in the caste system of India. The caste system in India is ancient, dating long before histories of India were written, and were believed to have originated with invaders. The Aryans, now often known as Proto-Indo-Europeans due to the baggage of the previous word, invaded India long ago as a kind of ruling invading caste above the local populations. These local populations were likely Dravidian, but it's hard to say - many races of people have disappeared over time, just like many of the ethnic enclaves in China being wiped out by the Han. Once conquering the area, the Aryan invaders placed themselves at the top of the hierarchy, enshrining their position in religion, arguing the Brahmins, the highest caste, could commune with the gods, and as the caste ladder was descended - wherein there'd be less Aryan blood in the individual - they were further and further from the gods, and they became more dirtied and profane. It would always be inevitable there'd be a spectrum of caste, since however strict a law code of marriage and child-bearing, there'd always be exceptions where part local, part Aryan, children were born. As a result, a hierarchy was brought into being. Given that such a process was pre-historical, it's hard to attempt to know how this process occurred; all we have left is the effects, the outcomes, preserved dormant in our language and customs, which have to be excavated carefully like an archaeological dig. But such a pattern is common worldwide, with the modern equivalent to the Aryan expansion: the expansion of Western Europe. When the Spanish colonised the Americas, a sort of caste system naturally came into being, wherein those of pure Spanish blood stood at the top, whilst those of African slave blood were at the bottom. In between are all many Spanish-derived ranks, like Mestizos, who are part European and part Native, or Mulattoes, who are part European and part African; in Spanish, this was known as casta. What we see is an occupation - a military invasion - where the ruling class is foreign. The idea of being ruled by foreigners is certainly not foreign to the English: William the Conqueror was no Anglo-Saxon. Invading Britain, harrowing the North, and then inviting many of his mates over to rule as lords - was Britain not subject to the same caste system long ago? The class differences we see today can trace their way back to French verbiage of the invaders in the language of the middle classes, compared to Germanic words of the working classes - is this not a caste system, echoing down the ages in the habits of their offspring? Does our class system not see a long lost ancestor in the caste system? It's taboo of me to say this, but it is quite pertinent; in the UK, one can often tell class from facial features. Working class and middle class Britons have quite visibly different facial features, beyond the Norse blood in the north/south divide. Could these differences also be down to caste? Most peoples across history haven't been ruled by their own ethnicity. The Han Chinese, whilst always having been a multitudinous people, have very rarely in history ruled themselves, being ruled by Mongols like Kublai Kahn's Yuan dynasty, or by the northern Manchus in the Qing dynasty. India also has very little history of self-rule, having been ruled by Mughals for longer than the British ever did. Under Cyrus the Great, the Medes were ruled under Persians, creating break from Persians being ruled under Medes. The Arabs ruled over the Egyptians until the Turks came and ruled over the Arabs and the Egyptians, only to later give way to the British. Foreign powers across history nest themselves into local power structures and rule over local populations which in turn forms castes. What can be gleaned from this, then? Nowadays, the Wilsonian/Smuts idea of home rule is paramount, where each country seemingly deserves to govern themselves. But in many ways this has been a smokescreen for covert rule, where the ruling elite infiltrate and nest themselves where the real levers of power lie. It is wrong to imagine that parliament is where modern British power lies - take Liz Truss' somewhat recent accident, where the financial community decided her economic policy was wrong and flogged the pound. But it isn't just banks - networks of multinational institutions determine the fates of weaker nations, these institutions being outside of democratic control. This is the occupational class, the Anglo-American establishment of Quigley, who orchestrate many world happenings behind the scenes. To much of the world, the Western power structure is the ruling ethnic caste, although they rule from afar. It's not a point of dishonour to rule from afar, however; rather, it's something only made possible through modern communications technology, and warheads that can be sent across the earth at a moments warning. Leaders of the past would've employed similar tactics if they were available; oh how technology debases us! Here in the UK for instance, we are ruled by a caste behind the scenes, however they aren't an ethnically distinct group who have become the occupational class. Rather, they are a kind of secret - or rather not-so-secret - society who have values at heart at odds to the ordinary man. Not to give to much phantom esteem and power to the organisation, but the WEF has concepts so at odds with ordinary people (despite infecting many), that one must consider at what point they do become a caste in of themselves. Ethnicity is intertwined with concepts and ideas, ideas which manifest across the ages, wherever that person may be born, whoever their parents may be. And when a group detaches so completely from ordinary thinking and values, at what point do they speciate, to borrow a concept from biology, and become distinguished in of themselves? To sum up, let's see the dynamic across history of the oppressor and the oppressed, or the pastoralist and the farmer, of Abel and Cain. Farmer societies across history have always had stable food sources, able to grow a reliable amount of food, even if that food might not be as nutritious as the pastoralist. They are however sedentary, and the average farmer has little need to study war. The pastoralist's food is far more erratic, depending upon animals which owing to their complexity can go wrong in far more ways. However, the pastoralist is trained in war; his tribe can invade a farming settlement, aided by their superior diet and strength, and in most eras skill upon horseback. The Mongols are a brilliant example of this impetus, wherein nomadic pastoralists can take over a city, or even a civilisation, and place themselves on the top. We see this phenomenon when we see the landed gentry of England go on hunting expeditions - even if it's merely for sport, they will hunt on horseback in a way familiar to any pastoralist. They'd never be seen dead farming! Farming and toil in the field is antithetical to nobility - the nobility are there to milk the people. After all, they are pastoralists. Recently I've been imagining it very much like Minecraft, wherein free pastoralists can take over Villagers and breed them and curate them to their own ends. Much like how the pastoralists milks his flock, so too can he milk the farmer-like working classes through taxation. In a sense, they become masters of the human herd. How the herd is guided, nourished and bred is the duty of the elites - but there been an absconsion of duty. No longer are we ruled by a noblesse oblige wherein the herd is pointed towards virtue and good living; the nobility has fully given way to the chthonic forces of capital and temptation, no longer caring to protect us from them. The flock bequeathed to them has been led astray not necessarily by sinister vision, but by negligence due to a failure to understand their mission. The people look to the elite for guidance, but little is offered, and society descends little by little into lawless anarchy, waiting for the next elite to show us the path.