    48

    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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