Tater Cole wrote:
Downtown Abbey is a pretty good program on BBC America. However,
actual research suggests that British aristocracy treated most of the
domestic class like animals. In fact, I believe some hunting dogs had
it much better than your typical laundry maid. Yes, the Butler and
Housekeeper were treated with respect, but still, seems like this
program is quite inaccurate regarding the Victorian domestic class.
Maybe it's simply liberal Brit revisionist history at work again,
through the auspices of 'high entertainment' by the BBC.

(1) A group of bozos on a city street agree to join an social
experiment.

(2) Subjects (bozos) are divided into groups on basis of trivial
criteria like flipping a coin to deterimine if one is in Group X or
Group Y.

(3) Subjects do not interact, either within or between groups.

(4) Members of own group and other group remain anonymous.

(5) Subjects are then asked to allot money to two other subjects,
designated only by code number and group membership (X or Y). Subjects
own outcomes will not be affected by their allocation decisions.

(6) Despite minimal nature of these groups, subjects allocations
consistently favored other members of their own arbitrarily designated
groups, at the expense of members of the recently typed "outgroups".

[Tajfel] argues that the reason for this allocation strategy is to
create a differentiation between the groups which permits their group
membership to enhance their social identity.

------------------------------------------------
The Social Animal - Elliot Aronson - 8th Edition 1999
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0716733129/

Caste is an elaborate and complex social system that combines elements
of endogamy, occupation, culture, social class, tribal affiliation and
political power. It should not be confused with race or social class,
e.g. members of different castes in one society may belong to the same
race or class, as in India. Usually, but not always, members of the
same caste are of the same social rank, have similar group of
occupations and typically have mores which distinguish it from other
groups. The word caste can also just generally refer to any rigid
system of cultural or social distinctions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlUkzfITiSs

Well maybe all that is a little extreme but this is where all that can
lead when human nature is mismatched with culturally imprinted and
artificial rank, status and vertical hierarchy.