My kinakapatid and I were talking awhile ago about the evolution of social classes in the Philippines since his generation to mine today. He started enumerating the different social classes and their attributes from class A to class C. He said it was simpler before because when you did not own a business and lived by wages then you were part of class C, if you owned at least a small business and earned from it to feed yourself and your family then you were part of class B, and if you were like the ones who lived in mansions and threw their money in casinos yet still have lots to spare then you were part of class A. But as time went by, the divisions became more and more complicated. At first there was the emergence of class D, on which he joked was used to connote the word "dead" because those who were in class D had nothing to live by and were just plainly waiting for death to come. Then he added how class B was further divided into different class of B+ and B-, class C into C+ and C-, the differentiation could have went on and on. Then i told him that our conversation in a nutshell would just be that it would be hard to go on dividing society into social classes, society has become so complex.
So who screwed it all up? He firmly believes it was democracy that did it, i thought otherwise (although it was hard to argue with him so i just kept the thought to myself). Looking at the bigger picture, with or without democracy, humans, ever since Adam and Eve screwed up in the Garden of Eden, have been destined to entropy (entropy- moving towards destruction; one of my favorite words since highschool 2ndyear). I am grateful to have learned in SA21 the significance of food getting to our human life, it gave me a broader perspective in viewing things. Anyway, I just think that regardless of who was in charge, this continuous perpetuation of social classes that are becoming more and more complex are a given since it is our nature to grow more in terms of population and technological advancement.
On a side note, it is hard to look at the bigger picture (and talk about it with others) when most of the people you talk to face reality heads-on. Questions such as "and why should this matter to me?" and "who cares about that?" surface and it becomes increasingly hard to even see the importance of the bigger picture yourseld.
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