0:05

Before becoming a musician, I worked as a

0:07

face painter, sometimes dressed

0:09

as a butterfly, sometimes wearing shiny

0:12

red boots and pigtails, decked out in holographic

0:14

robbins. I did it for roughly ten

0:17

years. It was pretty good at it. I paid

0:19

well as a freelance gig, mostly company parties,

0:22

and being a face painter is like serving

0:24

as an embedded spy in the republic of childhood.

0:27

Kids speak freely around you, don't even register

0:29

you're an adult. They're sweet, they're weird,

0:32

they're funny, they're mean, and even though they're

0:34

pint sized, they're already real sensitive

0:37

to social status and hierarchy. I

0:39

remember this one kid, let's call him

0:42

Charlemagne, pulling ranked

0:44

on another boy by explaining that his

0:47

dad worked in a corner office. And

0:49

I kept painting. But it occurred to me that this

0:51

kid would have no idea why a corner

0:53

office was even desirable. He hadn't

0:56

spent any time in his sunless cubicle, yet he

0:58

just heard the boast at home and trotted

1:00

it out. Here is evidence that Charlemagne

1:02

Sr. Was higher up on the corporate ladder than

1:04

this other kid, who was also waiting

1:06

in line for me to paint a glitter batman on his cheek.

1:14

I'm Dessa. This is deeply human,

1:17

and we're talking about social status,

1:19

prestige, influence and

1:21

dominance, and our personal lives and

1:24

our work lives and our societies at

1:26

large. Why do we form social

1:28

hierarchies. We're

1:30

born into the many hierarchy of our homes.

1:33

We're parents of the de facto bosses. And

1:35

as a little kid myself, I was

1:38

very eager to level the family organizational

1:40

chart, constantly campaigning my mom for

1:42

an equal vote in domestic policy decisions.

1:45

Let's all just are your case and trust

1:48

the best plans will rise to the top. And

1:50

I cannot tell you how much I hated her reply,

1:53

I'm your mother, not your friend. I

1:56

hate that now. I hate saying that now. But

1:59

when I was five and a half years old, Maxie

2:02

was born, promoting me to middle management

2:09

halfway around the world. A few years later,

2:11

a little girl named Shenyang was born

2:13

into a very different family, and

2:16

when she was about five, she spent

2:18

a night wrapped in her grandfather's coat hiding

2:21

from a government raid. They

2:25

came at night, and I was really

2:27

scared because my Grandpa took me to

2:30

the top of the roof and we were hiding there, and

2:32

that was one of the horrible

2:34

scenes in my childhood. They flipped

2:36

to my grandparents bed. They

2:39

flipped it because they thought I were hiding

2:41

underneath the bed. Of course they don't

2:43

know my dame. They're just saying, where's the kid? Where's

2:45

the kid? When you hear a kid, of course you are

2:47

scared. Okay, let's get the context

2:50

that led to that scene on the roof. Can

2:55

I ask you where year you were born? January

2:57

the one I

3:00

was born in Shandong, Jining,

3:02

a small city, And if somebody was

3:04

picturing China on a map, it's

3:06

in B two in Beijing and Shanghai. And

3:09

did you have siblings when you grew up? Uh?

3:15

That's usually an innocent, getting to know

3:18

you kind of question, But for Shen Young,

3:20

it's complicated because legally

3:23

she was not allowed to have siblings. By

3:25

the mid eighties, China had a strict one

3:27

child policy. Each couple was permitted

3:30

only one kid and would face serious

3:32

fines for any additional births. But

3:34

Chanyang was the second of four

3:36

girls. My grandma used to say,

3:38

Guanti and Guandi guan. You

3:41

control the heaven, you control the earth.

3:44

You cannot control people's belly. But

3:46

the government did try to control pregnancies.

3:49

It launched huge propaganda campaigns

3:51

to dissuade couples from having what we're called

3:54

excess birth children. And the

3:56

slogans were really really intense.

3:59

One x as birth and the whole

4:01

village gets their tubs tied. They're

4:04

not just threatening, they're really taking

4:06

people to get their tubes tied. Literally.

4:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah, some villages really did

4:10

that. Girls were more likely to

4:12

be aborted, abandoned, or given

4:15

away during those years. Boys

4:17

who could carry on the family line recorded

4:19

higher status. Boys have to have all

4:21

the privileges. They are like the spoilt

4:24

light of the family. At dinner

4:26

table, boys always

4:29

get to eat chicken legs,

4:31

so you know, the meat the

4:33

boy gets to eat first. There are many

4:36

families in the countryside that the sisters

4:38

sacrifice themselves not to

4:40

go to school, but they go to work

4:43

so they can pay the tuition for the brother.

4:47

To enforce the one child rule, government

4:49

officials raided homes if

4:51

they found an excess birth child. They

4:53

could demolish the house, take the family's

4:55

furniture, food, or even the baby itself.

4:59

Chan Yang's parents, who kept trying for a boy

5:01

after she was born, sent her to live in

5:03

a village with her grandparents to hide. They

5:05

didn't file any paperwork to register her birth,

5:08

but as we've heard, the authorities

5:10

found her grandparents house and they

5:12

came looking for her. To

5:16

evade them, n Young was then sent to

5:18

an aunt, far away from any family

5:20

that she knew. She was scrappy and

5:22

strong willed, but she was essentially a

5:24

five year old fugitive in hiding and undocumented

5:27

in her own country. People

5:29

used to call me latle

5:32

black child. Yes, we also

5:34

have black children. It means we illegal

5:37

children, and they mobbed me for all.

5:39

She's the little black girl from Shandong Province.

5:42

The term black children wasn't associated

5:44

with skin color. It was a comment about Shen

5:47

Yan's position in the social hierarchy.

5:49

She wasn't only perceived as inferior like

5:51

there wasn't even a proper wrong for her. She

5:54

wasn't supposed to exist at all. We

5:56

were like the invisible generation, the ghost

5:59

child. But like many other

6:01

excess birth children, Shen Young found a

6:03

way to hack back onto the grid and

6:05

reinserting herself into the social order

6:08

would involve assuming a new identity.

6:14

Shen young story will provide a dramatic

6:16

example of how status and leverage

6:18

and authority can affect a human life. But

6:21

all of us are sensitive even to the minor

6:23

differences in power dynamics that surround

6:25

us within

6:27

the first ten, fifteen, twenty

6:29

seconds, Like people already know what

6:32

is the status situation in this room.

6:35

That's Dr Joey Cheng, sociologist

6:37

at RK University in Toronto, Canada.

6:39

When we first enter a room, were likely

6:41

to rely on demographic shorthand guessing

6:44

who's in control based on age and race

6:46

and gender. Then you start paying attention

6:49

right as people speak, to their body

6:51

language, to their non verbal cues.

6:53

So you know, is this person sitting up

6:56

right? Are they expanded? Do they look like they're

6:58

taking up a lot of space? Being

7:00

extroverted is big, especially

7:03

in North American culture. So there's

7:05

even this thing called the Babbler effect

7:08

where the person who speaks the

7:10

most is the

7:13

one who's likely to be a leader in a

7:15

room. Joey worked on a study that

7:17

also found we tend to spend more time

7:19

looking at the high status individuals

7:21

in a group, but we may have read our gaze

7:23

if they look directly back at us in a subtle

7:25

sign of submission. We take

7:28

note of how others speak as well. Are

7:30

they lowering the pitch of their voice

7:32

as they speak? Then studies we find

7:34

that when you measure the

7:37

pitch of people's voice when

7:39

they first speak compared to how

7:41

it changes over time, the

7:44

people who lower their voice they

7:46

actually get seen as more

7:49

dominant and they end

7:51

up having more influence over a group. So

7:54

when you think about, you know, when we're in trouble,

7:56

right, how do people call our names?

7:59

This stuff am to more than just academic

8:01

trivia. Judicial researchers

8:03

have investigated why some jurors

8:05

seem to hold outsized influence on

8:07

jury deliberations. Former

8:10

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher hired

8:12

a speech coach to help her lower her pitch

8:14

to create a more authoritative presence, and

8:17

Joey herself notes that when hierarchical

8:19

cues are built into the language, they

8:21

might even affect our intimate relationships. So

8:24

I think of the informal too

8:26

in Spanish versus the formal. THID

8:29

languages like Thai and Japanese have

8:31

many complicated levels of deference

8:33

and respect. Apparently

8:37

even for Japanese speakers, like kids

8:39

growing up in Japan, that is a

8:41

tricky thing they have to learn to as they grow

8:44

up. Is like okay for this person, is

8:46

this a context where I use that

8:49

hierarchical language or is this

8:51

not? And also it gets complicated

8:54

after people get married. They kind of the figure

8:56

out like all right, do I start using cago,

8:58

which that hiwardic language with

9:00

my in laws or do I drop

9:03

it? Like it's tricky. You contributed

9:05

a chapter to this book called Towards

9:07

a Unified Science of Hierarchy,

9:10

and essentially you wrote that having

9:12

an organizational structure in

9:15

a hierarchical form was a

9:17

tool to resolve conflict. Whereas

9:20

I think right now in the modern world, we imagine

9:22

like hierarchies as the source of a lot of

9:24

conflict. Can you explain when

9:27

you show submission

9:30

that is a way to prevent

9:32

conflict in the absence

9:34

of that hierarchy while figuring

9:37

out somebody's going to get hurt. So

9:40

think about like in a workplace

9:43

meetings. Right when your

9:45

assistant, for instance, knows they're

9:47

your assistant, you're not going to be butting

9:50

heads with them. It's like if you had to remind

9:52

them that they're your assistant

9:55

because they've somehow forgotten, then that's

9:57

where you might have issues. Why

10:01

and how does some people land higher than

10:03

others in the social hierarchy. Scholars

10:06

like Joey identify two classic

10:08

strategies to achieve or maintain

10:10

a high status position. The first

10:13

is dominance. Dominance refers

10:15

to the use of threat and

10:18

intimidation to gain

10:20

influence over others, typically

10:22

by instilling fear. Does it have to

10:24

be physical? It doesn't. So when

10:27

your boss says to you, you're not getting that

10:29

raise next time, if you're not going to work

10:31

extra hours this weekend, or you might even

10:33

think of parents who you know when

10:36

you're threatening your kid that you're going to ground

10:38

them. So the implied threat

10:40

often in humans that tends to be verbal, right,

10:43

but that is nevertheless still a form of dominance.

10:46

The second strategy to achieve status

10:48

is prestige. That's where you earn

10:50

respect and influence based on your skills

10:52

and talents. So when

10:54

my mom was sternly reminding me I'm

10:56

your mother, not your friend, she

10:59

was flexing eminence. Whereas when I proposed

11:01

that we discussed the bedtime protocols.

11:04

I was hoping to be judged on my merit

11:06

and awarded some prestige.

11:10

All human communities form hierarchies,

11:13

and on this we turned to Dr Zach Garfield,

11:15

behavioral scientist and evolutionary

11:18

anthropologist at the Institute for Advanced

11:20

Study and to Lose France. He says

11:22

that even in hunter gatherers societies that

11:24

might not have fixed rules like chieftain

11:27

people don't live together as complete equals,

11:30

there are still leaders still varying

11:32

levels of status. The hierarchy

11:34

is just more dynamic. Social influence

11:37

might be more often based on just individual

11:39

capacities and the context. So what

11:42

are we doing now? Are we trying to clear feel?

11:44

Are we trying to hunt? Do we have a problem that needs

11:46

to be resolved? Who can best coordinate

11:49

this collective action dilemma? And whoever it kind

11:51

of is there and can get the job done might be chosen

11:53

as a leader. Every culture operates

11:55

by its own rules, but there are some patterns

11:57

to how societies organize themselves. Cultures

12:00

that developed in environments where food

12:02

and resources are plentiful tend

12:04

to form more rigid and stratified

12:07

hierarchies. This trend can be seen,

12:09

for example, in some of the Native American

12:11

societies of the Pacific Northwest.

12:13

The classic example is the northwest

12:16

coast of North America, where you have

12:18

salmon runs. Many populations in the

12:20

Northwest coast did practice institutionalized

12:23

slavery both before and

12:25

after European colonization. Some

12:28

native tribes enslaved people and forced

12:30

them into lives of labor. Some

12:35

form of lightered social order is observable

12:38

in every human society, and in non human

12:40

ones too. The term pecking order, for

12:42

example, This coined just over a hundred years

12:44

ago by a Norwegian researcher studying

12:47

chickens. He noted, there are

12:49

no two individual birds of any given

12:51

species which, when living together, did

12:54

not know which of the two has precedents

12:56

and which is subordinate. I have a

12:58

shape in my head for high archy, like I'm

13:00

imagining like a pyramid. Is

13:03

that what you imagine or do you have like a totally different shape.

13:05

I think the pyramid is not a bad way to conceptualize.

13:08

It's just that there's going to be many pyramids,

13:11

all inside of each other at the same time, along

13:13

different axis. Right, It's like a rubics

13:15

cut pyramid in your head. Yeah, it's like a

13:17

erubics creup pyramid. Yeah, and I've

13:19

just got a child's drawing of a triangle on

13:22

a white sheet of paper. Hierarchies

13:24

can overlap their complex and though

13:27

they can sometimes be oppressive, they also

13:29

help us get a ton of stuff done. One

13:32

clear advantage of hierarchies is they

13:35

help us coordinate as a group to achieve

13:37

some what we often call collective action.

13:39

And humans, like many other social species, Like all

13:41

social species, we need to live in a group. We can't survive

13:44

on our own. We can't consume enough calories

13:46

on our own, we can't raise our children on our own. We

13:48

generally can't be happy on our own. So we were

13:51

bound to this group living physiologically

13:53

and psychologically. Lots of evidence

13:55

suggests that social hierarchies allow

13:58

us to coordinate groups have been the angels

14:00

with non completely overlapping

14:02

interests in a more effective way.

14:16

Hierarchies are clutched when a bunch of us

14:18

try to pull off something big. Listening

14:20

to Zach reminded me of a filmmaker friend, Lucian,

14:23

who directed a music video for one of my singles,

14:26

and it was like this last minute, little budget thing

14:28

elusion wrote in a couple of film friends to

14:30

crew and their girlfriends generously agreed

14:33

to help, and we plan to like right around

14:35

shopping carts at a parking lot while lipstick

14:37

totally goofy. But as soon as the cameras

14:39

started speeding, Lucian stops

14:42

using people's names, Like when he needs

14:44

something, he just tails them by their role on set

14:46

p A or I see or gather, and

14:49

to them, this is clearly totally normal. When

14:51

I asked him about it later, he laughed

14:54

and said he forgot how weird that might look from the

14:56

outside, but that the rigid structure

14:58

was actually part of what attracted at him to film in the

15:00

first place. It provides order to

15:02

this big community of freelance artists

15:05

and technicians that need to perform their

15:07

jobs essentially interchangeably, and

15:09

film is a relatively new medium, he reminded

15:12

me, so that strict hierarchy just

15:14

sort of emerged to make it all possible. But

15:16

yes, it was funny when he thought about it, that he was

15:18

shouting PA to get the attention

15:21

of the woman that he'd be going home with later. On

15:24

a proper movie set, people might be hoping

15:26

to be recognized for their skills and then promoted

15:28

on the next shoot the assistant director

15:30

with an eye on the director's chair. All

15:32

individuals compete for status, pursue

15:35

some social influence or some social rank. We

15:37

all can't strive to be the next

15:39

Lebron James. We know we all can't

15:42

strive to be the next nuclear physicist. But everyone

15:44

can find some domain in which they can compete for

15:46

status. And I think that is a universal feature of who

15:48

we are. Why just

15:50

built in, like, what is this appetite

15:52

for status? So by finding some domain

15:55

in which we can develop some expertise, it

15:57

makes you a valuable social partner. I'm just gonna

15:59

allow you to develop that social capital.

16:02

And if you can do that, then you'll be more likely to

16:04

survive, have greater well being

16:06

survived, and reproduce. So I think that's

16:08

part of it. The

16:11

motive to form hierarchies maybe universal,

16:14

but as we've heard, the resultant structures

16:16

look really different around the world. One

16:19

of the most formalized institutional

16:21

versions of social stratification is

16:24

the cast system of South Asia.

16:28

I'm aside that many

16:30

economists and Ashoka University.

16:33

When you meet someone on the street, can

16:35

you tell immediately what cast

16:37

that prison is from. No, you cannot.

16:40

For example, in urban India, you get into

16:42

the metro commuter train and you would

16:44

not be able to tell looking at people

16:46

which costs they belong to. Absolutely not. A

16:52

Shweeny lives in Delhi and she wrote a book called

16:54

The Grammar of Cast. There

16:56

isn't a straightforward counterpart for cast

16:59

in the West. It's not quite like race

17:01

or class, though there are overlaps. Cast

17:04

is something you're born into, something that can't

17:06

be changed, even if your circumstances do

17:08

like blood type. And

17:10

there are thousands of jetty or individual

17:13

cast designations, and historically

17:15

each was linked to a particular vocation

17:17

priest or warrior, builder, farmer.

17:20

The system is ancient, but it's

17:22

very much survived in modern India, even

17:24

if it functions less visibly than it used to.

17:27

A lot of contemporary modern

17:29

occupations have no cost counterpart. There

17:32

is no cost of dentists or rocket scientists

17:34

or nuclear scientists, graphic designers,

17:37

so if you want to encountered a graphic designer,

17:39

you wouldn't know what costs they belonged to.

17:42

But it still matters. Families aim

17:44

to marry within their own cast, and when

17:46

people apply for jobs, private employers

17:48

try to suss out the cast of the applicants. The

17:51

system is culturally pervasive in South Asia.

17:53

Some Muslim and Christian communities and that part

17:55

of the world have cast structures. But

17:57

the philosophical roots of the system

18:00

connect to the religious concept of reincarnation.

18:03

And so what you are today it must be

18:05

because you're either being rewarded for

18:07

being good in the past life of you are being punished for

18:09

being bad in the past life. It's got my basically

18:12

in that world view, it would then follow

18:14

that the people born into the most empoverished

18:16

and disrespected casts somehow

18:19

deserve it. The

18:22

most severe consequences of the system

18:25

are born by those that were historically regarded

18:27

as untouchable. Untouchability

18:30

is a set of practices that deems

18:33

any interaction with a certain group

18:35

of people polluting. If

18:38

they had to cross the street in the village, they would

18:40

have to take their shoes off if they were wearing

18:42

any shoes at all, so that their footwear

18:45

doesn't pollute the grounds, etcetera, etcetera. So

18:48

it was the most degrading experience

18:50

of living. What is the source of that? It's

18:52

the occupations that these groups were

18:54

doing so basically everything that

18:56

deals with dead animals

18:59

or per sins or excreta

19:02

of any bodily fluid things

19:04

that are literally dirty. All

19:06

of those occupations were considered

19:08

untouchable because these occupations

19:11

were considered impure. But

19:13

India's Constitution of nineteen change

19:16

that untouchability has been deemed

19:18

illegal in independent India. Well

19:21

on paper itegal, but

19:23

many, many people still practice untouchability.

19:26

Discrimination is rampant, unapologetic,

19:29

and totally over it. A teacher might

19:32

send an untouchable boy to sit

19:34

behind in the class and say, what are you doing

19:36

here? You know you're going to grow up and become a sweeper.

19:39

Why do you need to get educated? There is

19:41

documentary evidence where

19:43

students who belong to untouchable groups,

19:45

boys and girls, are made to clean toilets,

19:48

a job that janitors in school

19:50

should be doing, not children. Members

19:52

of casts that were considered untouchable

19:55

often call themselves dallets, which means

19:57

oppressed, and it's a term of pride. But

20:00

evidence of the continued depression is everywhere.

20:02

Often on roadside stalls that

20:05

sell t you will see that

20:07

there are two kinds of tumblers

20:09

kept there. There are some inferior tumblers,

20:11

and everybody knows that these tumblers

20:14

are for the formerly untouchable

20:16

groups, and someone breaking the unstated

20:19

codes risks violence. He

20:21

could just get beaten up. It happens

20:24

literally every day. So cast based

20:26

violence is all

20:28

pervasive for forgetting

20:31

your place in society, and sexual

20:34

violence against the women by upper

20:36

cast men is also a way

20:39

of showing the lists where they belong.

20:42

You better not forget your position,

20:44

otherwise will humiliate your women. Today,

20:47

dalets are organizing campaigning for fair

20:49

treatment, building a dalt middle class, which

20:51

of course comes with its own resentments and complications.

20:56

Do you think the caste system

20:58

reveals something about out human nature,

21:01

not just about India or South Asia. Yeah,

21:04

many of us benefit from inequality,

21:06

and whether we are

21:09

consciously aware of that or not,

21:12

we wouldn't be desperate

21:14

to change the system that

21:16

would take away many of our benefits.

21:20

It may not happen in my lifetime, but hopefully,

21:23

you know, we will

21:25

see strives to us day equality.

21:29

Back to Chenyang, the second or four

21:31

daughters who grew up hidden from the authorities,

21:34

big changes would in fact happen in her lifetime,

21:37

but will rejoin her story where we left it when

21:39

shen Yang was a little girl, so

21:42

in my family household registration,

21:44

I don't exist. To attend

21:46

school, however, children needed a household

21:49

registration document, so the aunt and

21:51

uncle that chen Yang was living with I bought

21:53

the document from a distant relative named

21:55

wun Ying, as she herself

21:58

was buying someone else's a document that

22:00

would register her in a big city, which would

22:02

give her more opportunities in her own education.

22:05

To use wun Yang's papers, shen

22:08

Yang had to pretend the details written on

22:10

it were her own, including her age

22:12

and birthday. They changed my birthday

22:15

to night four, so by law

22:17

and miss Huang's niece

22:20

and I don't have parents, shen Yan's

22:23

teachers called her by the other girl's name

22:25

in school. When she got a driver's license,

22:27

it was printed with the other girl's name, and

22:29

when she was married, the other girl's birthday

22:31

was read out loud at the wedding. And Shenyong

22:34

started to write a book about what her life

22:36

has been like as an excess child. And

22:38

none of us tell our own life stories with academic

22:41

terms like elevated social rank.

22:43

But shen Yang's position in the social

22:45

hierarchy does look different now.

22:48

There were people who used to look down upon

22:50

me. You want to publish a book? Who do you think

22:52

you are? Status

22:56

is so often informed by old

22:59

forces and actors ideas

23:01

about class, race, gender. But

23:03

this strange rule that's so defined

23:05

Shen Young's position in society was

23:07

enacted only a few years before she was

23:10

born, and then it

23:12

evaporated

23:14

in the government started to

23:16

relax the one child policy, and

23:18

then last year two thousand twenty

23:21

one, on May the thirty one, the

23:23

government released the New Potter City allow

23:25

every couple to have three children. How

23:28

is your status different now the

23:30

one child policy is over. You live in a big

23:32

city. You have published a

23:34

super rad book that has been translated

23:37

into at least one other language. People

23:39

think, oh, she's a writer now, because before

23:41

I was nobody. I don't want to be famous.

23:44

I just want to tell a story that is

23:46

worth teddy. But

23:49

of course, no shift in policy can retroactively

23:51

revise a childhood and a comment

23:53

she read online particularly resonated

23:56

with Chenille. Once the New

23:58

Potter says out the sky I off

24:00

Guangjo has stuned our som

24:03

immediately, and it's really havin It's

24:05

the tears of the eighties and Manetes generation.

24:15

Human hierarchies help us collaborate

24:17

on goals we'd never be able to achieve on

24:19

our own. They can also minimize

24:21

conflict by establishing clear roles

24:23

and expectations, and of course,

24:25

sometimes they can simply help people

24:27

in powers stay that way at the expense

24:30

of those without the means to topple the pyramid.

24:33

Our hierarchical rules are sometimes codified

24:36

boss versus assistant, mother versus

24:38

friend, and sometimes they're fluid. The

24:41

homie whom majored in film studies gets to pick

24:43

the movie. The foodie picks the place to order in.

24:46

I am technically writing this

24:49

in my own corner office, but

24:51

only that I am sitting in a corner of my apartment,

24:54

and wherever I am working is functionally rendered

24:56

an office. Now, when I think

24:58

back on that kid bragging about a dad, it's

25:01

a little bit more sympathy. We're

25:03

all, in some sense, little Charlotte

25:05

Magne's and Charlie Mindy's trying to earn some respect,

25:07

so we've got something to offer. The

25:10

trick is to eke out some space for yourself

25:12

without pushing someone else overboard. Years

25:15

ago, after the death of a family

25:17

friend, rocked my world pretty hard.

25:20

I went to India and stood for a long

25:22

time at the burning gods, watching

25:25

the recently dead be incinerated in the open

25:27

air by carefully tended fires. And

25:29

I loved India. The beauty and the drama

25:33

move me. Staring into

25:35

the fires, I was brought back to myself

25:37

by a man. I hadn't heard. Approach you

25:40

know cast, he asked. I

25:42

told him that I did, and he explained he

25:44

was a dom, a member of the untouchable cast

25:46

that for generations and generations lit

25:48

the funeral pyres. The low

25:51

cast bodies were burned right on the sand, he

25:53

explained, but where the high cast

25:55

ones were burned, they could afford sandalwood.

25:57

And he gestured for me to inhale deep

26:00

to note how good the high cast fires smell.

26:03

When we parted, we were both covered

26:05

in a fine layer of ash, partly

26:08

the remains of the deceased and

26:10

status as sandal would perfume

26:13

still rising from the fires. Deeply

26:19

Human is a BBC World Service and American

26:21

Public media co production with I Heart Media.

26:24

It's hosted by me Jessa. Find

26:27

me online at Tessa on Instagram

26:29

and Dussa Darling on Twitter Next

26:37

time, I'm deeply human. We're talking about

26:39

all your stuff, about the human

26:41

impulse to acquire, collect even

26:43

horde. Is that impulse driven by

26:45

modern marketing or by older, deeper

26:47

forces. Meet me at the junk

26:50

drawer for our next little chat