In rural Hindu villages in India…widows are expected
to be perpetual mourners, austere in their habits, appetites and dress;
even so, they often jockey for position, said Richard A. Shweder, an
anthropologist in the department of comparative human development at
the University of Chicago.“Many
compete for who is most pure,” Dr. Shweder said. “They say, ‘I don’t
eat fish, I don’t eat eggs, I don’t even walk into someone’s house who
has eaten meat.’ It’s a natural kind of social comparison.”
The article focuses on the psychology of fame-seeking.
One of the things that struck me most when I read Sylvia Naser’s Beautiful Mind was the intensity of the competition for status among mathematicians.
Reminds me of the mourning competition between families in Taiwan reported by Chin Ning-chu in one of her books. When an elderly aunt died, who was not particularly well-known or well-liked, everyone at all closely related went over to her house and wailed and lamented as loudly as possible all day for several days. At a prearranged time, they stopped cold. If they hadn’t done this, they couldn’t have held their heads up in society.
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