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the
envy of women. To the shanty-dwelling women of South America,
that pecking order bonanza is worth more than a well-balanced meal.
We should know better than to think that the citizens of
underdeveloped countries are motivated by the simple desire to escape
poverty. We have the evidence right here in the States. In Harlem, a
hotbed of deprivation, the driving desire of teenagers is not for
something of practical merit. It's for status symbols. According to
Claude Brown, author of Manchild In The Promised Land, adolescent
boys above Manhattan's 125th Street feel compelled to wear a new pair
of designer jeans twice a week, to "show fly" (to dress up), and to wear
high-priced, status brands like Fila and Adidas. One teenager told
Brown, "It's embarrassing not to have a pair." In Harlem, prestige
means more than food, shelter and clothing. Far more.139
Why shouldn't it? Exactly the same instinct works its will on the
wealthy folk downtown. These resplendent souls will waste
substantial sums of cash to purchase flimsy plastic luggage simply
because it bears the logo of Vuitton.
Claude Brown has an explanation for all this: teenage Harlem's
preoccupation with prestige is the fault of a society afflicted by
materialism. Brown fails to realize that virtually every tribe or nation
ever studied has been obsessed by some sort of status symbol. Even
naked, spear-carrying Pacific Islanders wore "penis cones" whose
decorations showed off their rank. All human cultures--including the
"classless" societies engineered by Marxism in its prime--are in the grip
of the pecking order.
So powerful is the pecking order impulse that pride has
frequently meant more than survival to human beings. Pilots in the
First World War refused to wear parachutes. Safety devices were not
"manly." The fliers chose going down in flames over slipping a notch
in the pecking order.
So have many others. In 70 AD, the Romans attacked Jerusalem.
One group of Hebrews stubbornly marched to a desert fortress called
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