Desert Culture & Structure

All of the desert characteristics tend to point one way: toward the inability for civilization.  Low population, lack of free time, lack of resources, and nomadic life all point toward lack of specialization and technology, which are necessary for civilization. We, in America, have civilization, having plenty of water. And we also, having civilization, have laws, and structure. Civilization is what creates our rules, and lets us live in such a civilization as comfortably as possible. Desert nomads, without civilization, have a different sort of structure, a looser, ethereal set of unspoken laws that exist instinctually for survival, as apposed to comfort, safety, and fairness. And so, because there is little civilization, because there is little technology, because there is little free time, because there are few resources, because water is scarce, desert culture is wilder and less restricted. In ‘Killing Jared’ (Salon.com), there is a place just out of Vegas, in the desert, called the “Drinking Hill,” that is described as follows: “In a lot of ways, the drinking hill was a kind of Strip for teens, a place of no rules, where you could drag race cars, maybe with someone “surfing” on the top while blazing across the desert.” Even in the middle of the modern United States, the desert affects, and often removes, elements of civilization and structure, blurring and reducing the importance of the agreed laws of the civilization.

Another facet of culture that a lack of water affects is position, or social class. Because nobody ever has an excess of resources, in the desert, like we do, nobody is put in specific social classes based on resources. Instead, class is based on strength, wisdom, and feats of courage or skill. Because these characteristics are important ways in which people differ, they replace money, aka resources, as the defining value. Because one nomad does not ever have much more water or food than another nomad, resources cannot be used to separate people. In the article “The Big Gamble,” somebody describes the social class of the Agua Caliente Indians, living in the desert outside of Palm Springs, before they built the casinos and rose in class, “[They were] considered dirty, mentally retarded and the children of drunks. All the Agua Calientes had was land and dirt in the worthless desert.” Because there are resources in Palm Springs, the medium of class is changed to money, and the Aguas, having none, are low in class. If Palm Springs was suddenly decimated, and the area was bleak desert once more, they would not remain as low-class people for very long.

The desert is a good example to show this relation, but it is a very extreme case. In the middle of the city, the sections with more money, and therefore more resources, have more law and structure, while in the places that are poorer, laws are looser and more frequently broken. In places of resource excess, culture is often highly refined, restricted, and peaceful. In summary, a simple few atoms, two hydrogen and an oxygen, when combined, create water, then resources, then specialization, then technology, then civilization, and thus finally, peace.