Tuesday - March 07, 2006
Picking Up Litter
The weather in New Orleans was pleasant. Still
cool in the mornings, making a walk pleasant. So I walked from my quarters to
the river shore and got on the boat that carried me, like it does every morning,
across the Mississippi. It's a pleasant life here, and as people wait for the
boat and walk to and from the river, they chat and discuss work and the other
little and big things that make up their
lives.
After crossing, we disembarked
and walked across the asphalt warehouse/loading dock zone to the bomb-proof
buildings that house our offices. These 1950's era buildings are a testament to
the cold war, labyrinthine and perplexing to all the newcomers who wander about
lost for a few days.
Lost in thought,
I followed behind a colonel. The grounds were generally clean and neat, as
befits a military base, but there was one piece of paper on the ground, not even
noticed by me for all its insignificance. The colonel bent over and picked it
up, and held it until he finally reached the buiding and passed a
trashcan.
Would a civilian do this?
Probably not, especially if he were in the higher strata of his organization.
Why is this so comman to see among senior military officers?
I don't believe in some special ethos among
military officers, at least when it comes to trash. I don't think that military
officers have any larger than normal regard for the environment. I think the
difference is the uniform.
Now, I don't
mean that being a Marine inspired him to pick up trash. What I mean is that he
had a status publicly displayed, legally enforced, that is not demeaned by the
act of picking up trash. He doesn't have to be so careful to project a certain
status because his status is codified and rigid.
If a sales manager were walking in
public near his place of work among people he didn't know, he would most likely
not pick up trash without risking the perceived status he was building at
work.
When I worked at Apple Computer,
for the first year I worked there I thought one of the senior engineers was a
janitor because I frequently saw him pushing out bins of trash from his work
area. I later learned that he was a brilliant software engineer and learned to
have great respect for his work, but it took a while for me to overcome that
first impression.
Without a uniform or
some other visible display of status, you can only rely on your actions to
announce your status to others.
Uniforms are neither better nor worse
than the anonymity of regular clothes, but it creates different social dynamics.
Uniforms favor leaders that don't have that rare quality of presence and
charisma to lead without example. Uniforms encourage subordination necessary
when only one can be in charge. This is why oppressive societies, from midieval
times to feudal Japan, to communist China, develop uniforms.
Uniforms oppress free people, but are
necessary in the military. We might pretend that rank denotes leadership
ability, but it's the uniform that encourages others to follow.
Picking up trash is not a sign of
servility when you wear a uniform. It is setting the example.
I despair of having to pick up trash
forever. As a major I picked up all kinds of garbage at the Marine Corps
Marathon. I suspect if I were to be a general, I'd still be picking up trash.
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