2010-03-15 Archive, Reading, Queen Bee Moms and Kingpin Dads

Reading - Queen Bee Moms and Kingpin Dads.

Wow, what a breath of fresh air after the anti-religion ranting of "The God Delusion." This book, "Queen Bee Moms and Kingpin Dads," is full of good examples of people behaving badly. And guess what? Religion is not the cause of bad behaviour.

So, I would propose Rule #3: People are People. That is, People behave like people regardless of whether they are Christians, Muslims, Jews or atheists. All people seem to have the same propensity to behave well or badly, regardless of race, religion or gender. Everyone is comfortable with people who are like themselves, and some (but not all) people behave badly toward people who are different from themselves.

This book is the adult version of the book, "Queen Bees and Wannabes," which outlined the social structures of high school age young people. But the interesting thing is this, these social structures and the habits of how people relate to each other in high school are obviously carried forward in life into other areas. The social dynamics of large companies, or churches, or any large group of people is still similar to high school.

I once spent a half hour listening to a man describe the dynamics of life in prison --- it was much the same as in high school. He said that everything in prison was divided by race. Where you sat in the cafeteria was tightly controlled by the same unwritten rules. Blacks sat with blacks, Asians with Asians, Mexicans with Mexicans, Whites with whites, and there was usually one kingpin who ruled each group. He himself was one of the very few who were accepted by all of the sub-groups --- he was a chiropractor, and a Christian, who helped everyone for free. I was amazed that the dynamics within the prison population were the same as the dynamics within a high school.

This is a good, and very educational, book.

Read well,
Logan