status is threatened consciously recognize the danger, they will resist ing it. In societies, through time, made some improve ments in their social status, became a known artisan, a tribal elder, a wise old parent, and this rise in social status was a recognition of the person's increased value lo society. In rapidly changing societies, past experience often has little bearing on the present, and those who have earned a high status often see that status jeopardized by an innovation, and as a result, hey resist its adoption. Nowadays occupational status and age are no longer offelated. The modern business prefers highly educated employees. Not surprisingly, fear of loss of status associated with seniority and not with education may prompt resistance. People who benefited from the existing order are unlikely to welcome anything that will lower their self-esteem Bennis, 1987:37)
Resistance stenming from the fear of status depreciation can take niany fornis. For example, Raphael Patai(1989: 115-117) calls attention one of the basic features of the Beduin ethos, which is a contempt for any kind of physical labor with the exception of tending of the livestock and raiding, considered the only proper occupations for a free Person comments that among the many despised varieties of work, agricultura labor is the one most emphatically rejected. For Becluins, to engage cultivation would not only result in an irreparable loss or stauus, but i would also dishonor then. As a result of this disdain for agriculture a tempts in several Arab countries to have the Beduins settle in one plac have met with little success. The same fear of loss of status compels you people in many Arab countries to be clerks for inadequate wages ratho ihan lielpers at construction sites with considerably more pay.
In general rigid class and caste patterns tend to hinder the acceptance ol change. However, dillerent social classes in a society tend to react to d alter the course of change in diITerent ways. In highly stratified soci eties. individuals are expected to obey and take orders from those in su perior positions of authority or power. Those in position of superiority in rum. dictate to those below them. his limits the free interplay of ideas and opinions that is so important in so many change situations" (Foster 1973:127). The prerogatives of the upper strata are jealously guarded, and attempts to infringe upon them by menubers of lower socio-economic groups are often resented and repulsed. For example, under the traditional indian and Pakistani rigid caste system, menibers of dilTerent castes could nu draw water Irom the same well, go to Lhe same schools, eat together, or otherwise mingle. "The types ol work one could do were rigorously pre scribed, and any violation of rules was condemned. A somewhat similar situation existed in the United States concerning the position of blacks up to recent years.
Members of the upper classes, in general, are more likely to accept Innovations, whereas those in the lower classes or those who are downwardly nobile tend to resist them. ation is one of the bases of stratification, and rarely, if ever, have any considerable proportion of the members of group willingly renounced their established skills and knowledge in favor of some innovation that required the development of new skills and understandings(LaPiere, 1965:191). In most cases there is tendency to cherish the old ways of doing things and to adhere to the tatus quo