Rules Of The Game #12: Jocks And Burnouts

[koganbot]

My latest column, where I try to justify my nonstandard use of the word "class."

The Rules Of The Game #12: Jocks and Burnouts

I'm curious if you think the social map that Eckert provides and the social dynamic that I identify (the basic form being "jocks vs. burnouts" [w/ different category names in different times and places], but there being an unsettled effect when a third group, the "freaks," appears in strength) have anything to do with the situation at the high school you went to. If not, what was the social map? Also what sort of map(s) would you apply to situations you've been in after high school?

Oh yeah, and here's another chance for you to help me figure out what the hell it is I'm trying to say about Elvis.

EDIT: Here are links to all but three of my other Rules Of The Game columns (LVW's search results for "Rules of the Game"). Links for the other three (which for some reason didn't get "Rules Of The Game" in their titles), are here: #4, #5, and #8.

UPDATE: I've got all the links here now:

http://koganbot.livejournal.com/179531.html

Comments

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

I don't feel it fits with my school experience much. Judging by exam results, I was the smartest kid in the school, and some of my best friends were the only rivals. We were all hugely into punk and would smoke and drink and do drugs and take oppositional stances to the teachers (well, some of us) and the perceived establishment (partly as embodied in this venerable fee-paying boarding school). I was also in the football first team, and was a class clown, and seemed to be very popular particularly for that last reason - but for me the clowning was almost entirely tied in to the oppositional stance, it was about mocking and undermining authority. I think I had more stern talkings-to from the top teachers than anyone else there, and I'd probably have been expelled had I not been a serious Oxbridge candidate (for those who don't know, one of the key criteria for judging posh fee-paying schools is how many students they get into Oxford and Cambridge - I was 50% of the success rate for my year). I know I was the first Oxbridge candidate the school had had in its 300 years who wasn't offered a prefectship, something I take some pride in. (My friend Dave, the only one who has stayed a friend for the 30 years since those days, was apparently the first person ever to turn a prefectship down. He was the other person to get to Cambridge that year, and was very punk-bohemian.)

I mention all this because there didn't seem to be so much of a distinction, and being hard-left and a punk didn't stop me being friends with the rich kids. There were groupings, but they were more based on certain activities - people who'd go down the pub, people who'd play football, people who'd go to gigs. I was in all three of those, though I'm not sure I can think of many more who were. The outsiders, I think, were those uninterested in all of those things, the ones who stayed in and spoke politely and did their homework diligently and never got in trouble. That was a minority, and not one with much impact. They'd be jocks in the scheme you discuss, but they were almost entirely distinct from the sports-jocks (who also tended to be among the cleverest kids).