which frivolous values of school spirit and appearances are grossly exalted while the traditional values of free, nonconformist thinking and curiosity are severely ridiculed. In a sense, the lower circles of segregation may have formed in response to athletes enforcing the social code in most high schools. Yet the only thing that all cliques have in common is the way they define high school and provide a framework for friendship (true or otherwise), prom dates and a consistently-packed weekend social calendar. Cliques were born with the invention of high school over sixty years ago. Perhaps as a result, we have grown up with and become so accustomed to the social apartheid that we have even embraced its power to deny people of an ideal childhood. Some cliques think popularity is genetic. As in any other school, fitting in or being popular is really a gift. You have to be blessed with strikingly good looks that will cause massive salivation in the opposite sex or have the muscle mass to indulge yourself in team sports in order to start wearing the "jock" label. These traits supposedly shower a sense of elitism upon those who possess them, instantly making them people with the most clout and giving them the authority to revile those who are different as geeks, freaks, punks or other unmentionable expletives. The lucky ones slip through the cracks and go unnoticed (although rarely); the unfortunate are hopelessly harassed, humiliated and assaulted both literally and socially. In the tyranny of normality, to be different is dangerous. It means succumbing to belittling and being constantly unhappy. Social cruelty and alienation has set in and high school is a seemingly-never-ending nightmare of exclusion, cruelty, warped values and anger. I believe school ...
