My Ideal Method of Teaching Myself Through Reading and Research (I'll think of a better title later)

 With all the excitement and talk going around about Isabel Wilkerson's new book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, I thought I would use my preparation to read the book and share how I ideally want to go about preparing to read this book. Now from reading the synopsis, checking-out a review or two, and watching the many promotional interviews about this book I realize that this book is looking at the concept of caste and how it is used in the United States in the formation of racial hierarchy compared to how the Nazi's would use American racism in their regime and how caste has been used in India. Now in these cases I like to apply something I will call for the sake of this blog post "the single story test." This test is to see if any knowledge I have attained over time has been left to violate Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's single-story trap that she laid-out in her lecture "The Danger of A Single Story." I ask myself:

1. Does the information or "story" I have come from one source or multiple? 
2. Does the information I have take itself as correct uncritically without any mention of any counter-narrative existing?
3. But seriously, how reliable is the place I am getting my knowledge from?

 So my thought process is like that. If I know in my heart that my information on something is very simplistic (especially if I learned it all in the school system without checking to see if it is really true) and came from a source that may have an agenda or a bias, I need to fact-check and do more research into the thing I am interested in. As an aside, The YouTube channel Crash Course as a good program related to this about Navigating Digital Information that I will recommend. But back to the subject at hand.

When I heard of this book I was very excited to read it, but I realized that though I felt comfortable in my knowledge about the American and Nazi racial hierarchy systems, I was not so sure on my knowledge of the caste system in India. So that means for me that before I start on this one book that may give me info I need, but may not, I want to study up on this myself so that I won't need to worry about if what Wilkerson is saying is correct or not because I'll already know at least the basics. At the very start I begin with books I have, podcasts I listen to that talk about it or Wikipedia (don't cringe, I'm about to address that) to start me off--basically any resource freely-available to me that talks about the Hindu caste system. Now, I have a book called The Illustrated World's Religions: A Guide to Our Wisdom Traditions by Huston Smith, I listened to a podcast on the history of philosophy in Ancient India and I've seen the the Attenborough Gandhi movie like 6 times. This isn't enough to learn about this subject...not at all. Thankfully, I have the internet. Still, I need to know how to use it correctly for the info I need (which I do). 

So now let's get this out of the way: Wikipedia is not the devil. This may be hard for folks older than me to understand, but if you know how to use Wikipedia right than it can be a crucial resource of information or at least point you in the right direction. I think of it as a map to the destination rather than the destination itself. So when reading-up on the caste system in India, I am not actually looking for the information on the page, but at the sources where that information comes from as that is where any actual research begins. I'll try to narrow down what exactly about the caste system I am trying to learn beyond how it came about and then I can go from there. Just from a cursory glance, I know that I should look at the Manusmṛiti and parts of the Mahabharata (which I own a copy of!) for primary ancient sources (I always try to get a primary source over when I can, don't care how "complicated" or "long" it is).  I can also look at other sites beyond Wikipedia and if I know where to go (I don't).

I can also ask people who are knowledgeable on this subject or who indeed live in India (the internet is convenient in that way). Sometimes folks will point you in the right direction sometimes they will refuse to help you--you have to accept both options. I had one person who did steer me into the right direction long before I even knew I was going to be interested in this subject and recommended that I read Untouchable by Mulk Raj Anand and Annihilation of Caste by B. R. Ambedkar during conversations unrelated to this subject & Wilkerson's book. 

Using all of this information, I can gather what I want to use into how much they correspond to the subject I am interested in which is currently the origin and function of the caste system in India and how it relates to the white supremacist/anti-black hierarchy of the United States of America. As I become more knowledgeable in this subject, I can add or subtract from my informal syllabus as I go along. And when I think I have learned enough on this subject, I can dive into Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents with more confidence on what is handled within it. This is, ideally, how I do any sort-of autodidacticism on a subject of interest. I say ideally because I am pretty sure that in practice, I may will not do that much prior-reading before reading Wilkerson's book. Still, this is the best way I can articulate my social sciences-oriented method of examining things that are presented before me. I can't stand being dumb and not knowing something before-hand.