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| Subject: | A Story From My Childhood: Pandering Is an Age-Old Profession That Pays Well |
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| Date: | Thu, 31 May 2012 15:56:23 -0700 |
| From: | Jas Jain |
A Story From My Childhood: Pandering Is an Age-Old Profession That Pays Well
I grew up in a village in part of Rajasthan, India, that maintained traditional culture better than most parts of British India and that culture still existed for several years after the dependence of Indians was transferred from the Brits to Westernized Indians educated in England.
As you know, we had a caste system, and it was fully functional when I was a young boy. Different castes, specially the untouchables, performed different tasks. One of these untouchable castes was dholis, who would play big drum to lead various processions, especially weddings. The dholi-in-chief of the village was also my family dholi (there might have been only one family, but I can't be sure). Before or after the procession the dholi would sing the praises of the ancestors, by naming generations, and the family, basically pandering, and would get a gift for his services. Once I remember my father paying the dholi with a gold coin, or gold jewelry.
Our dholi also had a teenage son. What was noteworthy to a curious kid like myself was that both were strong and a bit fat in an area where there were extremely few fat people (only among wealthy). I don't recall any other untouchable family with fat people in it. We can be sure our dholi family was well fed and I wouldn't be surprised if it had more savings than most families (these gifts can lead to a small fortune). As time passed the teenage son of our dholi-in-chief became the lead dholi with a great authoritative voice.
Democracy was God-sent for our younger dholi. He became a politician of some repute in our area. Ability to pander is very highly prized in a democratic society, but it has been prized in all societies thru ages, IMO. The key difference in a democratic society of basically neech (beneath, akin to untouchables but not for their bodies, as most of them engaged in dirty jobs, it is their lowly moral values) is that one can pander to one group and then mercilessly attack other groups clearly revealing his, or her, low morality. I use the term dope dealers for the panders and propagandists. Examples of dope dealers are Ann Coulter, Alan Greenspan (there is a book on Greenspan titled Panderer to Power), Paul Krugman, Rush Limbaugh, etc. With rare exceptions these dope dealers are neech (of low moral character) and they have to be dishonest to succeed in the business. One should avoid dope dealers for more reasons than those that untouchables shouldn't be touched. People that get their beliefs from dope dealers are intellectually unclean, or uncouth. Dishonesty is highly contagious if one is not careful.
Jas
Kirk here: It is the debt.... read: Despite
First Budget Surplus Since 2008, U.S. Still Borrows 34 Cents Of
Every Dollar Spent
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