Welcome to Reject City: With thoughts on hive minds.

I don’t mind this article being posted anywhere else, as long as it links back to my blog at awildhanhanhasappeared.wordpress.com. I welcome comments on this.

 

According to dictionary.com, communities are:

“a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage.”

In this article, I’d like to challenge the idea of ‘community’. Of course, I’ve already told you what community is, but it doesn’t really scratch the surface of what it feels like to be part of a community, to feel like you belong. To know where you stand. Not many people put much thought into it, but there is a lot more to any community than meets the eye.

For this article, I’m going to use two very different communities for comparison. One is that of my school, which for now I will refer to as Community A for ease. Community A is a large school which specialises in IT and Technology, and is known for it’s well-behaved and smart (aesthetically smart, not academically) students. It is run to a very right-wing agenda, with a hierarchy of a head teacher, senior staff, other staff, and then students at the bottom of the pile. Community B is an Internet forum which advocates alternative learning, through methods such as unschooling and homeschooling, and has a higher-than-average number of anarchist frequenters. It has a very vague hierarchy structure at first sight (Roughly a third of the members of the forums have moderator or administrator powers), but when you delve deeper it’s strong sense of community gives it a very complex unspoken system.

In this article, something I would like to focus on is a hive mind. A hive mind is a term for when a large amount of people begin to think the same thoughts and act as one person, basically. Now, I’m not saying the things I have observed in communities A and B are bona fide hive minds, but I am going to say that in both cases the members of the communities begin to think and act similarly, and begin to conform to unspoken rules (In Community B especially, where there are essentially very little actual written rules.) Essentially, I think that, whether it is intentional, official, or unheard of, every community has some sort of hierarchy, and every community has a hive mind.

Now for some personal background. I am a member of both communities, but I entered Community A a year later than most people my age, transferring to the school from another school at the age of twelve, while everybody else had already been attending the school for twelve months. This has allowed me to make some very thoughtful observations about the nature of the school. For ease, I am going to list the ‘official’ rules of this community. However, I don’t think ‘Official’ means ‘Real’.

1. These are our rules, and if you don’t like them, you cannot be a part of the community. This was explained to me several times during assemblies, in the slightly less intellectual sentence of ‘If you don’t like our rules, go to another school, there are plenty in the area.’ This immediately weakens the structure of Community A, as the rules are very strict and many break them without even realising. It is probably intended to strengthen the sense of community, but it doesn’t really work.

2. Wear the uniform. Adhere to every detail we list, or you will be forced to adhere to said details – refer to 1.  In Community A, there are many written rules about the uniform – such as your socks must be black – about uniform, as well as some unwritten ones as well – I witnessed one student be asked to remove their shoelaces, because they had a red and yellow pattern on them. Now, I admit, this gives a very strong sense of belonging to the students; It gives the impression of ‘If you are dressed like us, you are one of us’. A fallacy of this, however, is that the teachers are not made to wear the uniform. If this was to happen – and it won’t, because teachers cannot be forced to wear the uniform – it would actually help towards the aims of the senior staff for students to conform, because they would see the teachers as ‘one of them’ and probably treat them better. As things are, if you treat a teacher like a person rather than a teacher, you’re a pet.

3. Respect those of a higher rank than you, regardless of whether they have earned it .  Members of Community A are told that they must respect those higher than them, because they are older and more experienced. To use a crass term, bullshit. Teachers will never be truly respected by many students, because the students are specifically TOLD the teachers are better than them, and are visually distinguishable from the students in preventable ways. I’ll go into this more in the next section.

Please note that most of these rules actually promote the idea that the teachers are not part of the community – so it sort of self-completes. These rules say the people who made the rules are not One Of Us, so why do what they say?

Now, here are some of the more unwritten rules of the community.

1.How you wear your uniform defines who you are. Often, those who are high in the hierarchy of students will wear the sleeves of their jumper rolled up, their tie shorter than the teachers would prefer, leg-warmers, and other bends of the uniform rule. These students are commonly disrespected on sight by the teachers and senior staff, as to them it’s defiance. They have been asked to look smart and they do not. The girls will get away with as much make-up as possible (It is banned completely until the age of 16, where it becomes impossible to stop the students completely). Other groups of students will wear things such as legwarmers, wristbands, badges, etc. etc. The people who wear this stuff become the cliques. Often the way you wear your uniform defines who will associate with you. Recently I did some experimentation with this. For most of last year, I was excluded by 60% of the community as I was too lazy to religiously wash, blow-dry, straighten, primp my hair, painstakingly apply makeup and choose matching odd socks every single morning. I tended to wash my hair every other night and that was that. People often asked me why I did not wear make-up and why my uniform was never modified even though the ‘official’ community rules specified I was fitting in perfectly. This is where the hive mind comes in; nobody ever says that make-up and uniform mods make you ‘accepted’ nor do I think anyone discussed it! Other then to ask me why I was not conforming to THEIR rules, nobody actually said it or wrote it down, and yet it was as expected as anything. Nobody said it but the majority of the students thought it was correct, and every student was aware of it.

In the last week I have made that effort; I have applied makeup, I have straightened my hair, I have undone that top button. And that feeling of not belonging has ceased noticeably. I am still not one of ‘them’’, but neither am I completely alien. For some reason, now I have conformed to their ideals, I can have an actual conversation with someone who does not have the same friends as me. Sometimes. The line between ME and THEM has blurred.

2. If you are not part of the same clique as another person, you do not talk to them. Now, I’ve been at Community A for more than two years now, and I still don’t know the names of many people in other social groups. And why? They will not talk to me other than in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable. and I’m sure they feel sort of uncomfortable talking to me because I’m not one of them. This is where it gets complicated; I think every social group probably has it’s own hive mind, but they are part of a greater community hive mind. This is how the community is separated. It is also apparent that the hive mind considers some groups to be of more value than others. Those who are ‘popular’ are considered more worthy of attention. One thing that happened to me was that a particularly obnoxious girl called me ugly. I simply told her exactly the same and got a response of complete uproar from the surrounding people. How dare I call her ugly?! Never mind that she had been throwing unpleasantries my way all day, how DARE I retaliate? She was better than me! Look at her uniform! This has happened more than once, by the way.

3. Teachers are not human. This sounds evil, but it’s true; I don’t think other pupils see the teachers as actual people, who go home, call a friend, go on a date, sleep. They are just machines which create work. When this illusion is broken it can have mixed results, which is probably why some teachers keep their ‘Homework Machine’ face on: Either they can act like real people, and students begin to like them, respect them, feel obliged to bring in that homework, because these people ask, not command…. or it can backfire, especially if you’re a meek person, as then the pupils just see you as a faulty homework machine and take advantage of you. Sad, but true.

I’ve never seen teachers as homework machines, and oftentimes it really gets me places. So I get called a ‘pet’, but it means teachers believe me, because I don’t manipulate. If I forgot to do my homework, I say I did. If I say the dog ate my homework, I bring in proof it did (and that actually happened once). If I claim someone has been making me feel like crap, my teacher will generally follow it up, because I have no reason to lie. If I act like an ass,I take my punishment. If I haven’t acted like an ass I kick up a fuss. It’s only fair.

However, some teachers actively strive to hide their personality. When I smile, they tell me not to smirk. For some reason they see it as disrespect. I don’t pretend to understand it. If you think putting on a mask will help, you do that, but for God’s sake don’t treat me like a heathen because I can see through it. But that’s another article for another day.

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Now, I know I’ve written a lot there, but my reasons will become apparent in a moment. When these things are combined, Community A becomes a hive mind. After a while, nobody needs to tell you there’s a fight across the school-yard. You sense it in the demeanour of the other students that you’ve never spoken a word to, and you follow. You know almost instinctively if a student is in ‘your group’ or not. You almost predict when something is going to happen.

Something that has happened in my particular ‘clique’ is we have a home base, if you will. Originally it was the school quad, but after one of the less intuitive members of our group fell down the stairs, we were banned from hanging out there (I still don’t get why!), so we moved to a covered area nearby. Recently it has mutated into a sort of strip covering one side of the cafeteria.

Now, our group is sort of strange. We are the people who aren’t quite tuned into the hive mind, or simply see no reason to conform to it. Those who look different. sound different, smell different. For that reason, one day I jokingly called our patch Reject City and, ironically, it seems to have stuck – now, whenever I talk to someone I know and ask them ’Are you coming to Reject this break?’ they understand, they nod or shake their head. I suppose it’s a good example of our own hive mind; It’s our hive mind’s name, more than the place we hang out.

And you know what? Writing that, I feel an intense sense of belonging. In some way I feel I’m sharing the secrets of Reject City with you guys. Like it’s my community, not yours. Certainly, there is a massive protectiveness of Reject City; recently one of my friends complained that the ‘other kids’ were on our turf – a few people that weren’t in Reject City before seem to be there now, and… it’s like they’re marked. I know that sounds cruel on my part, but it’s true. They haven’t noticed yet, but they have a different… aura? I think that’s the right way to describe this phenomenon but it’s true. They haven’t been accepted in the same way others have… I’ve fallen prey. They are not one of Us. I don’t think they ever will be. And I can’t explain that. Somehow, somewhere, Reject City has become a Hive Mind.

I’ve written a lot now, so I think I will elaborate on the structure of Community B and how it relates to hive minds and Community A tomorrow. I hope you enjoyed this musing and I welcome additions or comments, which I will comment on next post.