Anand Giridharadas

You want to get some of them believing it.

Ideally, you want to get some of the enslaved people thinking that there's some naturalness to this order.

You think about a caste system in India.

You can't just divide people into the warriors and the priests and the laborers and the people who have to think they're untouchable.

Their shadow can't even cross someone.

They got to sweep behind themselves as they walk through the village to make sure that they don't contaminate anybody else.

You can't just divide labor and hope it all goes well.

You have to invent a story.

And so in India, the ancient caste system, there was a tremendous amount of narrative work done.

to allow that.

And even though the caste discrimination and stuff is formally illegal in India, that story is still very much in India thousands of years later.

You can feel it.

It has implications for the present.

We could go on, example, example, example.

Feudal times.

Think of Downton Abbey, right?

Think of any of these worlds from the past.

It's not enough to just split people into upstairs and downstairs.

You gotta invent the story.

And so what I was interested in is what is that story for now?