Social Stratification and Inequality
After the lecture about social stratification, our instructor asked us to bring out a piece of paper and to write our names on it. I thought we were going to have a short quiz but to my surprise, he asked us to crumple it. Whoever gets to land the paper on the ledge of the board will get 20 bonus points.This should be done without standing or changing our seats. Crumpled papers started flying over our heads. Out of 45, only 1 person successfully landed his/hers on the ledge.
We were used to his unusual ways of giving away bonus points so I assumed he was just giving us some sort of breather. Apparently not. After we all calmed down, he started talking. “After I’ve given out instructions at the start of the activity, something happened, which you did not notice…. ” He then explained that he heard complaints from the people at the back about how unfair it was that they were not allowed to change positions. Some even added weights to their papers out of desperation. The people in front (like myself), were the only ones enjoying the task. Not a single complaint was heard from us.
A correlation to our lesson was eventually made. Our instructor pointed out that such is also happening in the different social classes. People from the higher strata are often times apathetic about the conditions of those from the lower classes. Like the ones who were lucky enough to be seated in front, they forget to sympathize for the underprivileged since they are already comfortable in their positions in life.
That struck me. Deep.
