Misconceptions and stereotypes surround some of Uni's social groups

By the Gargoyle editors
Published Friday, Dec. 16, 2005, Gargoyle, opinions

Homo Sapiens is a social species, and humans in high school are no exception. Students make friends, and some groups become closer than others. Some of these groups are very tightly knit and even become exclusive. These are known as cliques.

Uni students tend to think of cliques in a negative light. Some Uni students are highly individualistic and cannot understand the group mentality or conformity of cliques.

In any case, cliques at Uni are generally perceived to be inherently wrong. Cliques gain a mystic and dangerous quality about them because people are wary of them and are willing to assume the worst about them.

The student body's distrust trains the administration's eye on cliques. The administration, it appears to us, is always watching clique members to keep their behavior in line to ease other students' concerns. This policy seems reasonable, as a coordinated group could more easily bully others or overcome the individual wills of each member and allow them to commit harmful or dangerous acts.

However, so much attention can be diverted to studying cliques that they are solely blamed for actions that are not exclusively their own.

For example, Uni students have been partying for years. Up until recently, the administration has turned a blind eye to such incidents. It took a clique's involvement for the administration to take action.

A similar incident occurred in recent years when a “hot list” was compiled in which boys of multiple classes ranked girls based on appearance. Once again, blame was focused on a clique even though non-members played crucial roles.

It is important to keep an open mind about cliques and to remember they are composed of individual people. Though one can generalize to some extent about the interests of a group, calling everyone in a clique by the same name is as wrong as generalizing about all members of an ethnicity or a religion.

And that is exactly what is happening even now. Cliques, especially “named cliques” such as the SS and the BC, are getting in trouble for activities for which other students who are not in cliques are ignored. Cliques get a bad reputation while other individual students who perform the same actions are not caught.

It is also important to remember that many students are in cliques and don't even realize it. If one is in a longstanding group with an established social hierarchy, then he or she might as well be in a clique. Before scorning a clique for its exclusivity, check your own group of friends and see if they have done something similarly at one point. You will probably find that they have.

Cliques are only a natural extension of the groups that are inevitable in human society. They form for the same reasons that people group into one of a few political parties; they give strength in numbers.

It is easy to lay blame on cliques, because one can feel like he or she is blaming an entity rather than individuals. It is also easy when cliques obtain a bad reputation over time, often from such false accusations. More thorough analysis and understanding of cliques will focus disciplinary attention where it is due.