Ally

Office anthropology™ →Go uptown WW2 allies: Britain, America, pre-communist China, Soviet Union and Free France. The JC puts on his pith-helmet, grabs his butterfly net and a rucksack full of marmalade sandwiches, and heads into the concrete jungleIndex: Click ᐅ to expand: Work anthropology Tell me more Sign up for our newsletter — or just get in touch: for ½ a weekly 🍺 you get to consult JC. Ask about it here.

Ally
/ˈalʌɪ/ (n.)

Politics: Of a state, playground faction, fashionable political cause or marginalised constituency or community, to formally cooperate with another such community of which you are not a part for a military or other purpose.

We are frequently invited these days to declare ourselves “allies”. But to “ally” is to take sides, which it to accept the premise that there is a side to take — that is, that there is some kind of war going on.

The JC has a hard time accepting this premise — at any rate, not between the factions he is usually invited to suppose are at war, especially since he seems, by accident of birth — or, cough, arbitrary gynaecological identification — to have been lumped in with the one most of them feel they are at war against, so if there is a war (and let’s say it again: there doesn’t seem to be) then declaring oneself an ally for the opposition doesn’t seem an awfully smart move. Does it not make one a traitor?

I mean, do you know what the secret society senum pallidorum does to people who break its sacred oaths? These dudes don’t muck around, you know. They’ve been sacrificing virgins in a Bavarian castle since the fourteenth century.

See also

• Senum pallidorum
• Community