FOREVER HIGH
Is it me, or does the
phrase “God, it’s High School all over again” seem to be far more of a normal
reaction than it used to be? It used to
be, you went through the Hell On Earth that was the mandated experience, and
you moved on with your life never to be reminded of it. Sure, some Jock Boy or Pretty Barbie had the
best experiences of their life in High School, but they are the exception to
the rule that those were probably the worst four years of your life if you were
not a gregarious type personality. Even
if you were more social, they were still pretty bad because of one simple
thing.
*
Cliques. While you are a jar of hormones on feet,
cliques seem to be the most important thing in your universe. Since everyone is labeled, dismissed and
pigeonholed, the exclusivity of most of the opposite sex just makes the
prospect of procreating that much more impossible. Now, social stratifying isn’t necessarily a
bad thing. It is really quite
natural. You hang out with Your Kind (
economically, although usually racially too-but that is a feature of
multiculturalism which is a feature of Bad Governance. Bad enough when the elite hump you
financially, but then they have to be idiots as well? ), and it is just natural
that you are going to hook up and spawn.
*
Why do you think you meet
most people at work? Your Kind hangs out
there. Of both genders. Cliques are just a natural product of the US
( and a lot of other western civilization nation states ) where the
socioeconomic layers are allowed to mix.
Cliques un-mix them, and everyone goes back to the norm of
stratification. We really are no
different than pre-colonial India with its “born to class”, or any of the old
loyalty regions. Children are not class
conscious, socialize with most other kids ( the post-WWII egalitarian period,
short lived as it is turning out, was similar to pre-Industrialization when
most folks were the same-just Poor then, rather than Rich In Appearance in our
youth ).
*
So if, in your youth, you
mixed with other classes, High School was the time where you learned the hard
way ( nobody seems to want to share with you the experience to come-probably
because by that time your parents are tired of looking at your face and if they
warned you, you wouldn’t leave the house every morning ) that this condition
cannot continue. Classes mixing really
IS a poor idea. You cannot mix cultures
with success. The rich business owner
doesn’t want a son in law that sympathizes with The Help, and who the hell
wants a daughter in law coming to Thanksgiving dinner that Puts On Attitude
about the families blue collar lives?
*
There might not be any
High School cliques any more. Perhaps
everyone quickly learns that you must tow the PC line, believing it or
not. No one has mixed classes since the
economic trend for generations has been to segregate into like class
neighborhoods. I don’t know. But we all know what it was like Back
Then. Like England after WWI, after the
second war we gave in to demands by the masses that were drafted and died to
act less servile. It worked for exactly
one generation until the normal order of the universe was restored and the
economy tanked and poor people were put back in their place.
*
So, our generation might
be about the only ones who really were subjected to this vicious re-ordering
back into the natural classes order.
Perhaps that is why there can’t be another set of John Hughes films-it
wouldn’t resonate with any other generation.
Nonetheless, regardless of any of the above, cliques are something we
can all relate to ( unless you are some young whippersnapper and are actually
wiser than we were at your age and early on Came To The Light of severe,
no-foolin collapse survivalism ).
*
See what I just did
there? I self identified with a niche
group, included you, and we all walk away feeling better about ourselves
because we are better ( yes, it is an artificial tribal identity, but the
Internet allowed that which was a necessary transition phase from Nation State
back to tribe. No one ever DIDN’T seek a
tribe-that is a natural human trait.
That is what we evolved in.
Cliques were, to some degree, also a tribal group. But they were unnatural in that is was class
based. Class can make a tribe, but there
is an artificiality to it that makes it a poor substitute.
*
We’ve always had piss poor
substitutes for tribes, ever since the Agricultural Age ushered in the
civilization structure ( 90% poor farm labor, 1% ruling elite, 9% soldiers and
merchants and etcetera ) which killed tribes in any area suitable for crop
surpluses ( or the adjacent, controlled areas ). Class has been one. It was the only one available most
times. Since western civilization
brought in enough surplus food by industrializing war with gunpowder so as to
colonize the globe, there arose a larger middle class from the old merchant class
and expanded the class layers, and allowed the nation state to be a subunit of
control within empire, also used as a tribal substitute.
*
The last twilight years of
the Oil Age also brought in the Internet, exploding the decentralization of
tribal identities, and allowing us to less stressfully transition away from
colonization ( compared to if we only had the state as a tribal substitute
). It is STILL just a tribal
substitution, but the success and popularity of it does underscore the problems
other markers had. They were too broad,
large and indistinguishable. Now, of
course, the tribes are the correct size, but too geographically dispersed. Nothing is ever easy, right?
*
Continued tomorrow, with a
discussion into how society seems to be mirroring High School, and the
reversion to tribal self-programming ( willingly accepting Group Think ).
END ( todays related link http://amzn.to/2Db5kd3 )
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there
Damn - theses people are living my dream
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/13/style/washington-olympic-peninsula-queer-intentional-community.html
That's the first thing I thought when I read the article.
DeleteWhy does literally everyone feel the need to brag / talk? Those hippies are/were on a good thing but soon they won't be as people try to join them or the authorities come in and shut down their village.
The Unabomber - caught because he just had to put out his manifesto. The Police shows - demonstrate how they catch crooks. I mean, I never knew that sniffer dogs had trouble tracking people over concrete (the scent doesn't get caught up in anything) or that crossing an area where a lot of people have been (say a bus stop) throws the dog off. Or that being pursued by the dog squad generally drives a bad guy into an ambush of waiting general duties officers (ie keep your wits about you when you're fleeing). Seriously, i'd have been ignorant of all that but the Police want to be on TV as well
There's serious business being conducted by special forces in Syria and the like. You don't hear boo from them and whatever they're doing they get to keep doing because their enemies are dead thereby not able to warn others.
Similar to the use of hobby drones as weapons. A hobby drone can be rigged up to drop a grenade on a target. Again, most wouldn't think of that but thanks to idiots wanting to be famous.....
I blabber but then it is Sunday
I just on the Spec Op's guys. It seems that they doubled in numbers from 35k to 70k since 2001. To me, they are to be feared LESS now. Way more bureaucratic and they are also stretched too thin ( I didn't know we've been in Somalia again this whole time ). The Rangers where already in trouble-too many officer Ticket Punchers watering them down. Of course-this is nothing new. It started in Vietnam. It just got a whole lot worse recently.
DeleteThere is a whole lotta truth to what you're saying bro. Back when I was a Ranger/ASA LRRP dude. There were only ten of us graduated each year for the entire Army. Of course not too relevant now , as our whole group was phased out after the war. The enlisted were Marines on our recon ventures with two being jar heads accompanied by an Army officer of at least 1st Louie status. Now days I dunno...totally different circumstances fighting the sand terrorists.
DeleteAs they don't seem to have the support of the ChiComs or Rooskies like the NVA did.
One of these days I gotta have that discussion with my boat lift neighbor. We are around the same age, he being like five years older.
Be interesting to know where he fit into that part of my life. He sure is good at digging and tunneling tho. Not to mention improvised arms.
Maybe I don't wanna know eh ? Might ruin a good relationship !
I would say the difference between the VC and the Jihads today would be the NVA. The north could utilize guerrilla or conventional warfare as the situation merited. The Jihads are ONLY guerrilla. But I'm not sure how much another nation state resupplying them would matter. Guerrillas always arm up. State militaries need another State to supply logistics, guerrillas make do.
Delete“Soft-spoken and elegant, Koontz brought up the Radical Faeries movement. A countercultural organization founded in the late 1970s by Harry Hay, Radical Faeries advocated the formation of rural back-to-the-land queer sanctuaries, many of which still exist.”
ReplyDeleteSounds like a rather shitty place to live. I’ll not be joining them :D
"Queers", "shitty place"...I got it :) Now, while I agree that if you don't have the sense God gave a rock what hole you need to stick your junk in, there is little hope for you, you still have to admire their core convictions. At least some Hippies didn't give up the good fight.
Delete“still have to admire their core convictions. At least some Hippies didn't give up the good fight.”
DeleteI read an article on this a while back Jim, and out of all of the communes that the hippies formed, it was the rare one that lasted even a year. So this particular community is the rare exception to the rule. I guess they must really have their shit together 😀
Now compare that to the religious communes such as the Amish and other Anabaptist groups. Short of losing a few of their youth permanently to the “Rumspringa” each year, they’re actually quite successful, and continue to thrive and grow. They also have rather stable communities with virtually no crime, as did we prior to the counter-culture revolution of the 1960’s. Now to be honest, I’m completely non-religious. But to me it seems that if religious folks are left alone, and are not infiltrated by leftists (The so called “liberal Christians” that you see in the big cities) or tainted by the polluted pop culture, as are the mainstream denominations they do quite well.
As someone that is not religious, such a group would never work for me. However, if I were religious, I’d give serious consideration to joining such a group. That’s why in my opinion, these leftist groups never make it for long. They might share the same values, but when your values are rooted in anti-nature philosophies (feminism being the most destructive of the lot) it’s just not gonna work.
Meh, he looks old. He can't enjoy it all night long-more like an hour or two :)
Delete9:27-okay, so Hippies, being leftist, being unnatural ( anti-biology ), can't last as a group. So, the gay hippies lasted how? The only thing I can think of is fear of prosecution, but that doesn't make sense as Gay-dom is not persecuted any longer. Thoughts?
DeleteDamn-antiquated reference! I had to look it up. Now, if you had said "General Hospital" or "Melrose Place", I would have got it :)
DeleteI wish I could tell every high school freshman student this quick lesson - HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS DO NOT MATTER.
ReplyDeleteAs in the people you want to be friends with, be seen with because they are 'Awesome' will not matter one bit after you graduate. Most of them won't ever be seen by you after graduation. And you will find out that all of that effort you put out to conform and meet their expectations was completely wasted.
So be who you are naturally. Meet and be friends with people who are like you. And don't sweat it one bit.
Of course, they would listen to you as well as they did their parents :)
Delete