I think the defining thing about a clique is that it is unwelcoming.
There are certainly cliques I've met where ethical considerations such as fairness, not to mention purely practical considerations such as people's abilities are disregarded in favour of clique hierarchy. Our second year at a certain re-enactment even run by a lady of legendary cliquiness was a classic case of clique over talent - we'd escaped the politics by being too far North to be called upon to take sides, so we were still invited to do the show, but many of the other mature, talented people who had been there the year before had been replaced by younger yes-men, whose sole historical craft related talent appeared to be finger-braiding. Now, bringing in a couple of youngsters and letting them learn other skills on the job would have been a good idea, but bringing in loads of them, simply on the basis that they didn't argue when randomly bossed around, was not good for either them or the event as a whole.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2003-09-01 02:34 am (UTC)There are certainly cliques I've met where ethical considerations such as fairness, not to mention purely practical considerations such as people's abilities are disregarded in favour of clique hierarchy.
Our second year at a certain re-enactment even run by a lady of legendary cliquiness was a classic case of clique over talent - we'd escaped the politics by being too far North to be called upon to take sides, so we were still invited to do the show, but many of the other mature, talented people who had been there the year before had been replaced by younger yes-men, whose sole historical craft related talent appeared to be finger-braiding.
Now, bringing in a couple of youngsters and letting them learn other skills on the job would have been a good idea, but bringing in loads of them, simply on the basis that they didn't argue when randomly bossed around, was not good for either them or the event as a whole.