Far from the madding crowd

The fanaticism of religious people never ceases to amaze you. A cow is holy and so that justifies someone being dragged from their home and beaten to death. Human life is not sacred, one has to remind oneself.

Of course, the love affair with India continues (partly because of its markets but partly because it has cultivated this image of spirituality and holy poverty-at least in the West). Swamis, gurus, pundits, spiritual healers and the whole mystical East dance into town on the back of a society that is exhausted after two world wars and the fears that it is morally and spiritually bankrupt (is this so very different from Late Antiquity?) 

But there's something more than that and it's this: the Mystical East is attractive because it provides "inner" change and does away at once with all the messiness of the real world. One can go on one's monthly retreat, or continue to be an executive in a ruthlessly exploitative company and still practice "mindfulness", find personal salvation. No calls for radically altering the institutional and power structures of society since society is in some sense an illusion, the realm of maya (Thatcher (and Bentham before her): society is a fiction).

In that sense we have just another version of the Protestant "religion of the heart", Arendt's "second turning inwards". Everyone's a latter day saint, baby. 

What surprises you is that no-one will ever talk about the caste system in India. It's as if it's taboo to even mention it. A vast system of exploitation and remarkably intense demarcations goes unnoticed and is barely commented upon because it doesn't sit well with the prevalent notion in the west of "inner Enlightenment". 

No, let's not mention the estimated 80,000 people who have been killed in Kashmir and let's not talk about the acts of unspeakable cruelty toward the untouchables, Dalits, lower castes. 

~

Symbolic acts of sharing:

How prevalent is envy in human history? And how does one escape being envied?

1. concealment (eat with your back to someone, don't show off)
2. denial
3. symbolic sharing
4. true sharing

There are cultural, symbolic and institutional forms of warding off the evil eye.

The Harvest Supper (this reminded of you Hardy and Far From the Madding Crowd):

"They sit at the same Table, converse Freely together, and spend the remaining Part of the Night in dancing, singing & without any Difference or Distinction". 

This is temporary, of course, a way of establishing the inherent power relations by keeping them in ritual abeyance for a specific time period (somewhat similar to the point Eliade makes in the Myth of Eternal Return).

How else do you keep the "losers" from destroying you or at least harming you with their envy of your good fortune? 

Offer them a token, perhaps?

A wooden spoon, a bridal bouquet for the bridesmaids or unmarried friends, a postcard ("wish you were here"), the Boxing Day present, a tip to a waiter...).

Or, the institutionalized forms of redistribution, the disbanding of excess (potlatch, the welfare state as away of preventing revolution).  

Another institutionalized mechanism is to emphasize solidarity within one's own caste or class or club. In the eternal order everyone (especially women) know their place. There is little envy between unequals (or the sting is taken out of it) because the differences between the classes and castes are ordained, or entirely natural. The lines of demarcation are maintained by the idea of "pollution", the terrible act of crossing the boundaries (of good taste). But they're also maintained by institutionalized violence (think about how black people were segregated and considered to be not fully human by white people). What is required for the boundaries to be maintained are particular discourses and practices of power. Not too dissimilar to the idea of the settlers making a "holy journey" across the plains, through the wilderness. 

Who can eat what and in whose presence then becomes a question of maintaining boundaries. I think that much is obvious. The real question is, for me: why is there this heightened sense of violation and vulnerability right now?

{Quotes from Foster: Envy}