I think that in the military, the “no fraternizing with enlisted personnel” rule might be one reason why a hard separation is useful. This kind of rule requires a cutoff and can’t easily be replaced with a rule like “no fraternizing with people of a rank three or more below your own.” For instance, how would you set up the housing arrangements? Also, promotions would be awkward under this system, since you would always have a group of people you previously could fraternize with but no longer can.
Yes, creating this arbitrary dichotomy keeps lieutenants from fraternizing with enlisted men. But it doesn’t keep Chief Master Sergeants from fraternizing with privates or generals from fraternizing with lieutenants. So, taken merely as a way to prevent fraternization across ranks, the dichotomy is of little value.
Well, just because the rule doesn’t by itself prevent all possible cases of inappropriate cross-rank fraternization doesn’t mean it has no value. There are other norms and practices that discourage generals from hanging out with lieutenants, e.g. generals usually get fancy lodging separate from the lieutenants. I suspect that cutting off lower-ranking officers from fraternizing with enlisted men prevents what would otherwise be one of the more common problematic cases.
If the military were even more concerned with this problem, it could have three or more groups instead of two, say, enlisted, officers and super-officers. But there are also tradeoffs to having more groupings, so the military sticks with two (part of this might be historically contingent, maybe three groups would work just as well but everyone is just copying the consensus choice of two).
I suspect that cutting off lower-ranking officers from fraternizing with enlisted men prevents
what would otherwise be one of the more common problematic cases.
That’s plausible, though we should be cautious of reverse reasoning: Did the Lieutenant/Sergeant border arise to prevent fraternizing across those levels, or is fraternizing across those levels considered extra-bad becauses it crosses the officer/NCO border?
I am not convinced that this is a good explanation for why the dichotomy exists in the first place.
I think that in the military, the “no fraternizing with enlisted personnel” rule might be one reason why a hard separation is useful. This kind of rule requires a cutoff and can’t easily be replaced with a rule like “no fraternizing with people of a rank three or more below your own.” For instance, how would you set up the housing arrangements? Also, promotions would be awkward under this system, since you would always have a group of people you previously could fraternize with but no longer can.
Yes, creating this arbitrary dichotomy keeps lieutenants from fraternizing with enlisted men. But it doesn’t keep Chief Master Sergeants from fraternizing with privates or generals from fraternizing with lieutenants. So, taken merely as a way to prevent fraternization across ranks, the dichotomy is of little value.
Well, just because the rule doesn’t by itself prevent all possible cases of inappropriate cross-rank fraternization doesn’t mean it has no value. There are other norms and practices that discourage generals from hanging out with lieutenants, e.g. generals usually get fancy lodging separate from the lieutenants. I suspect that cutting off lower-ranking officers from fraternizing with enlisted men prevents what would otherwise be one of the more common problematic cases.
If the military were even more concerned with this problem, it could have three or more groups instead of two, say, enlisted, officers and super-officers. But there are also tradeoffs to having more groupings, so the military sticks with two (part of this might be historically contingent, maybe three groups would work just as well but everyone is just copying the consensus choice of two).
Good points. But they don’t explain this arbitrary dichotomy.
Indeed it does -- 23 or so groups, which are the ranks.
That’s plausible, though we should be cautious of reverse reasoning: Did the Lieutenant/Sergeant border arise to prevent fraternizing across those levels, or is fraternizing across those levels considered extra-bad becauses it crosses the officer/NCO border?
I am not convinced that this is a good explanation for why the dichotomy exists in the first place.
You should read up on the notion of Schelling point.