Microcosm Societies

Before I had ever lived in a camp, I read Microserfs by Douglas Coupland. The title is far more clever than I ever gave it credit for while reading it. It is a play on Microsoft, on feudal social structures, and general computer nerd-dom, which, I suppose, is as far as I took it while reading the book. Living in camps though, the idea of microserfs, the peasants of the smallest microcosms of a society, becomes fascinating, far from the confines of computerized LEGO programming in Silicon Valley.

Like Coupland's imaginary startup, a camp has its visionaries, its leaders, its middle class and its serfs. The social structure is a rigid caste, and the only thing that keeps the society functioning is that there is the promise of life after camp. People come to a camp to pay for what they do when they go home. To pay for lives that do not include the people they spend most of their time with. It is a weird dynamic. Imagine a water cooler conversation where no one will ever know anything about anyone else, where no one did anything over the weekend, and where there are not plans for the coming weekend. One functions in this environment because they have to.

In all camps, there is a hierarchy. It is essential that people have a leader, as anarchism simply does not get a job done. These duchesses and feudal lords can be brutal or kind, just as any others. They may plan for the winter, or their fiefdoms may starve. It is impossible to know before one has been in the camp what the leadership is like. Leadership though, is strange. In the Medieval period, these microcosms worked because an army backed the leader, and the leader backed the army. A symbiosis occurred at all levels of the chain, where the over- and underlying social strata agreed where everyone was. In a camp there is no army, instead, there is the upcoming Visa bill.

We are all Visa's indentured servants in these microcosms. Maybe a person has no debt, maybe a person always pays cash, but in the end, we owe now or in the future, and we know that we must fill our role in order to make that payment. It is the army of creditors that keeps a camp in check, there is no symbiosis.

This, makes something of a leadership vacuum. The camp leaders lead only by directing the work, yet s/he who directs the work does have power. If the leader is a fan of a football team, days when that team plays may end early, the basketball enthusiasts lose out. If the leader likes to run in the mornings, the morning meeting will be later. If they like an early dinner, workers will be early to their jobs, but back at the mess when the food is served. The power comes from the little things.

Who gets the power? How do they keep it? Like in any political struggle, the key players start to show their hand, and the knights, rooks, and pawns move into position. The power positions in a camp are the same as chess, and society. The king is all powerful, but crippled by the burdens of leadership. Their second, the queen is more powerful, s/he faces the conundrum of Lady Galadriel, to be pure and good, a champion of the pawns, or to become all powerful dark sorceresses. In either case, the queen may, intentionally or not, seek to usurp the king. Lastly, are the bishops. These are the hidden players, they control the conscience of the serfs, and thus, wield power that the king and queen can only demand. Pawns are the first to choose sides.

In minerals exploration, the pawns are usually the locals. They are infinitely replaceable, yet impossible to control. They see the whole camp establishment as outsiders. Often, race or ethnicity complicate relations between the monarchy and the serfs. They have nothing to lose in their meager existence, and so they are eager to choose sides with the person who gives the most present, and often petty rewards. If the bishop offers a workday that is 10 minutes shorter, the bishop will win the pawns. Yet, the pawns are the downfall of s/he who controls them. For the locals want things that are often contrary to the desires of the more loyal, more skilled knights, who will triumph against the pawns every time.

Knights in the camp society get the work done. They have a platoon of serfs behind them, but they get samples submitted, they log core, they run the computers, they collect the data, and deliver the goods. In the camp power struggle, the knights will win the battle. Yet, an exploration campaign, like a war, is not about a battle, but the compound effect of many battles. In order for one to win the war, a strong position must be held through many skirmishes. For these, one looks to the rooks.

Rooks, in the camp society are consultants and technical experts. The knights can win the battles fought today, but the rooks win the battles that will be fought tomorrow. The rooks are motivated by entirely different things. Rooks are motivated by professional reputation, by what happens outside of camp, more than within. From the top of their battlements, a rook can see what tomorrow will bring beyond the confines of the short field campaign.

From my tower, for I fancy myself a rook, I can watch the battles ebb, and the tides turn. I see racial and ethnic tensions flare, and the knights rally around their banner. I have time to sit, and ponder, in this microcosm society, who are the allies I want to maintain when I leave this camp? Who will bring me the most benefit when I deliver my fealty? It will never be the bishop, s/he lacks the wherewithal in my networks. It may be the king or queen, or with enough ambition, I can usurp even these leaders. So I, and the other fortresses watch, listen, and wait.

All of this, requires that outside force. The creditors, whether they be from the Bank of America, or the Society of Economic Geologists, we all seek the value placed on us by those outside camp. In this way alone, we are truly a microcosm of society. The technicians are microserfs, not only because we are a microcosm, but because they are more insignificant than the feudal serf. They are nameless, and ephemeral, they are but leaves on a tree, inconsequential today, and forgotten by fall. The brave knights, who fight for the banner of their fancy, they are no more influential in society. They are not minuscule because this is a camp of 50, but because this is a country of 300,000,000. This microcosm functions not independent of society, but dependent upon society.

While I wile away hours with an iPod, and an endless cylinder of rock, I contemplate why people work. Why people live in these camps the way they do. I watch the power struggles, and I come back to the same idea again and again, they do this because they will leave here. I wonder then, what would a truly micro-society look like? What will be the dynamics of the Mars One team, when they land with no intention of returning? What will keep them going? There is no creditor, there is no army, there is no future, just today, for the rest of their lives. In this strange world, I wonder, will there be microserfs?