Are you a brahmana (intellectual)?

Varnashrama Dharma is the quintessential sociology or science of social analysis. All other descriptions of human society flow from this original basic understanding.

Are you a brahmana (intellectual)?
Are you a ksatriya (government man)?
Are you a vaishya (businessman)?
Are you a sudra (laborer)?

According to varnashrama dharma all societies are broken into these four basic classes. Marx's analysis that there are only two basic social groups, the proletariat (laborers or sudras) and the bourgesie (businessmen--vaishyas) is actually quite inadequate to understand the full depth of human society. A society requires all of the four classes to function effectively.

In the social body these groups are compared to the head, arms, belly and legs. The brahmanas are compared to the head of society. They are meant to give direction for the entire being. The ksetriayas are meant to give protection and are compared to the arms of the social body. The Vaishyas are the productive class and are compared to the belly of the social body. And the sudras, the laborers, are meant to co-operate with the other three classes.

By Vedic understanding in order for a member of any one of the groups to function successfully as a member of that group he should only discharge activities designated for one that group. Just as it would be foolish for the different parts of the body to go on stike against the stomach and try to enjoy foodstuffs on their own. Similarly the ksatriyas or sudras should not attempt to perform activities designated for vaishyas. Or vice versa. In order for the stomach to properly ingest food, digest it and distribute it to the different parts of the body, it should cocentrate only on that one function. Each varna (brahmana, kshetriya, vaishya, sudra) is ruled by one of the modes of material nature, goodness, passion or ignorance and when attempting to perform activities requiring one of the other modes, his activities become tinged by the secondary mode and therefore his activities become tinged by the secondary mode and thereby becomes flawed. For example if an intellectual (brahamana) is required or forced to perform administrative activities his thinking which is meant to be conducted by the mode of goodness becomes influenced by the mode of passion, the ruling mode for kshetriyas (administrators). The Vedic scriptures provide guidelines by which a member of one group may conduct his activities according his particular position in society as well by qualities that are found in a person of that particular group. When someone performs multi tasking or tries to perform activities of more than one varna, his own quality becomes mixed and whatever task he performs becomes tinged by the quality of the second varna.

Under such social divisions and guidelines for their proper behavior a person's basic social identity becomes primary before other identities even national identity which is based on birth location or religious identification. By colonial British calculation this so-called "caste" system is based on birth and thereby destroys social mobility so much glorified by the Western thought. But in actuality national identification is based on birth and destroys the uplifting priciple of varnashrama dharma which recognizes the eternality of the soul and allows libeation from the material tabernacle by performing ones varna-prescribed duties for the glorification of God who is the architect of the varnashrama institution. There is never a mention anywhere in Western thought that national identity is anything different than a man-made creation that manipulates its followers to the drumbeat of the welfare of the nation or national group with no shred of an idea that the "nation" will deliver anyone from the cycle of birth and death only achieving the "gratitude" of the nation. Then when the nationalist dies perhaps he'll take birth again the same nation but there's no certainty of what sort of body he'll obtain.

That a person acts as a member of one particular group should not be by birth of force be to his liking. He is simply manifesting his personality according to his own predeliction, by training, quality and by his work not by some outside force such as his family or some artificially imposed social force. He adopts the activities and qualities of one group or another by his own inclination. And this identity becomes primary in his life. After deliberation, identification with a nationality is in most cases based on birth or locality whereas identification with one's own varna or class is actually primary and through the agency of varnashrama dharma becomes the key to one's liberation from the material world.

As Krishna says in Bhagavad-gita, only by quality and work can someone be recognized as belonging to one group or another. It's a mistaken notion to think that someone belongs to one group or another by birth. This mistaken notion is current in many circles when there is a discussion of the "caste system" as found in India.