Social Capital

Bhavna Ma’am taught Pierre Bourdieu to the class. She explained it well and it stuck. But at the time, I was not that concerned because I had no idea how much it would explain so many things in adult life. Nor how much it would reverberate in my brain as the years passed.

The Social Capital of it all, I mean.

Social capital is perceived capital. It is symbolic. But as all symbols go, its significance and worth rest on how other people view it. View it, yes, and more importantly, value it.

In my own life, I have had the privilege of being an officer’s kid. And in Mizoram, to have grown up and based in Aizawl. I don’t know how far other people also acknowledge their own entitlement and advantages by the virtue of their birth very much in their own lives but in mine, I know it has, in so many cases, shaped the way people view me. First impressions, at least. The rest, unfortunately, is up to me.

There is a leg up that I have that a lot of people don’t have. It is easier to float through life if people assume that you are worth it. If they deem you unworthy later, that was on you. But if you have to start anything with people thinking you might not be enough, it is very difficult to change their perspectives. 

In my own life, I have experienced this for myself in North India. There, street urchins would look at you and catcall you. Chinky! Momo! Ching Chong! I mean… they were not even subtle about it. People just assumed you were not worth shit just because you were from the Northeast. You had to be twice as good as other people, as they say, to be considered half as good as them. They usually say that about women in “men’s fields” but it applies here too. As with all prejudices.

You learn to live with it, of course, either ways, easy and tough. The easy part is undemanding. Well, duh. But if you’re self-aware, it is sometimes difficult to accept when you notice this negative inequality of treatment meted out to people, especially people you actually are fond of. Or even if you’re not fond of, if you’re aware of the disparity, worth for worth, it just makes you uncomfortable.

You do build your own social capital, of course. It is very possible. People with little to no social backgrounds break out, develop incredible PR, mold impressive Images and build up their own Inheritance. But where you start out is so important. As Paris Hilton would say, tongue firmly in cheek, the first step to being an heiress is to choose your genes. 

You can’t argue with that.