“first thing societies do” my first year anthro prof told me, “is divide and stratify.”
once i got stuck planetside for a month with a group of about 50 people. we divided into walkers, cyclists, and drivers.
the walkers broke down into walkers, joggers, and runners. they were the ones who got stuff done. the drivers were the snobby elitist leader politician authority figure types. they came in flavors like sedan, coupe, SUV, and who knows what else. it was all pomp, no driving was actually going on. we were crashed in the middle of nowhere.
i was one of the cyclists, sort of a middle class. we were a cool crew with our share of assholes. our internal separation ran from warrior bros to geeky scientists. we were armed forces, CEOs, engineers and nerds. i didn’t participate in their hierarchical dick measuring. mostly i was out on patrol doing cartography.
in the first week we’d neatly packaged ourselves up into a pyramid with civilian, government, and military levels. didn’t really talk about it, just sorta happened. thing my first year anthro prof didn’t tell us is that after you stratify, shit gets complicated.
people kept acting like i should take some sort of leadership position. i was chummy with the drivers, straight with the cyclists, and most of my good friends were walkers. no, i told them. i’m a detective. i do my work at the edges, not the middle. i’m just an explorer, not a politician. i certainly do not run for office.
we’ll never know how that would have turned out. got outta there not long after.
