I *completely* understand that there needs to be a hierarchy, but there seems to be a big discontinuity between these different classifications. When I was in the Navy, I noticed this extended to eating accommodations, and even how ships were built (different hallways for enlisted and officers to walk down). This may have made sense “back in the day”, but why does this separation continue to exist today?
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Several reasons.
1. The private sector has a management and labor divide which extends into the social sphere. Members of management are subtly or openly told not to be seen as too close to members of labor, or they will be viewed as compromised (since their roles are seen as inherently antagonistic at times). The military version of management/labor is officer/enlisted. They take the social taboo against fraternization to an extreme level; it’s literally a crime under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (in certain instances).
2. This, by the way, is also the reason that officers who were prior enlisted have an odd reputation in the military. They’re often given more deference on technical matters (fairly or unfairly, because one of the dumbest officers I had was prior enlisted from the exact same unit we were in), but somewhat socially estranged. Think Rudolph the Reindeer; they don’t always get to play in all the reindeer games that West Point/Annapolis grads do. They still have a whiff of the working class about them.
3. The military is the closest to descendant to medieval nobility/serf relations that exists in the modern Western world today. That’s how officers are entitled to perks that no sane company would tolerate in the private sector, and it’s also why there is a very, very real (albeit technically unofficial) difference in how rulebreaking is punished.
4. The nice term for it is “different spanks for different ranks”; there are example after example of how officers will only face career consequences for misconduct (reprimand, lack of promotion, forced exit from service) that will result in actual prison time for enlisted committing the same crime. Look at Abu Ghraib; enlisted who committed prison abuse were sentenced to years in jail; officers who oversaw or in cases ordered it (or were at the very least aware of it) faced official and unofficial career consequences but no jail.
The Navy, which does hold onto some antiquated traditions harder and longer than any other service, tends to be the worst at all of the above, which is why wardrooms, chief’s mess, the sanctity of the chief’s coffee cup, and other forms of silliness still exist.
It’s continually being lessened through military generation after generation, largely due to the volunteer military. It’s harder and harder to get modern 18 year old Americans to tolerate the kind of medieval he’s-literally-a-better-person-than-you-because-he-has-a-degree culture that the military has. And the stark difference in education and income levels is flattening, as more enlisted obtain college degrees (and more of the officer corps is made of prior enlisted).
So it is gradually getting better; I’ve noticed it’s better now than when I was in, and it was better when I was in than when my father was. But there’s still plenty of sickening bullshit that’s tolerated.
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