There is another element to this, of course. The word clique is overused as an insult, IMHO.
It has often seemed to me that the accusation of 'cliquishness' is regularly levelled at groups by excludees who wish to blame other people's arrogance for their inability to make friends and keep them, rather than having to face up to their own objectionableness.
The perceived moral superiority is usually on the side of the plaintiff, since exclusion which cannot be overtly justified (short of saying something like: "but you suck pears out of Satan's cock and besides your pits stink enough to make a Polar Bear hurl and nobody likes spending time with you because you'd irritate the hell out of the underworld" - none of which can obviously be stated in polite company, whether it be true or not) cannot be acceptable. Thus, this prompts well-meaning people who like to come down on the side of 'the people' to take up arms against the oppressors. i.e. the clique.
Which may in actual fact just be a bunch of pals trying to have a quiet party with people they enjoy being with. Nothing wrong with that.
In fact, I would argue that the difficulty in pinning down exactly what a clique is *is* due precisely to this political complication. It is one of those words which is used to manipulate, and is therefore (perhaps) quite difficult to define in absolute terms.
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timeasmymeasure
tuppence
Date: 2003-09-01 07:31 am (UTC)It has often seemed to me that the accusation of 'cliquishness' is regularly levelled at groups by excludees who wish to blame other people's arrogance for their inability to make friends and keep them, rather than having to face up to their own objectionableness.
The perceived moral superiority is usually on the side of the plaintiff, since exclusion which cannot be overtly justified (short of saying something like: "but you suck pears out of Satan's cock and besides your pits stink enough to make a Polar Bear hurl and nobody likes spending time with you because you'd irritate the hell out of the underworld" - none of which can obviously be stated in polite company, whether it be true or not) cannot be acceptable. Thus, this prompts well-meaning people who like to come down on the side of 'the people' to take up arms against the oppressors. i.e. the clique.
Which may in actual fact just be a bunch of pals trying to have a quiet party with people they enjoy being with. Nothing wrong with that.
In fact, I would argue that the difficulty in pinning down exactly what a clique is *is* due precisely to this political complication. It is one of those words which is used to manipulate, and is therefore (perhaps) quite difficult to define in absolute terms.