Gaze of the Mob

Exclusivity grants its holder fully private access to whatever. That way those inferiors out there won't sully it with their presence. Jed Rasula asks "Were the eternal verities of antiquity imperiled by the corrosive gaze of the mob, like pigment on the cave walls at Lascaux?"

Accreditation/adulation help intensify the gratification of triumph. It seems to matter that you are known to have won: winning in and of itself is less when not bathed by adoration of the lower castes.

"Mine!", a major shout from toddlers becomes an unvoiced "hurrah" from whoever succeeds in walling the others off. It forms the basis for institutionalization.

A tragedy of the times is that Institutions (especially the "total" kind), even though they range from "Schools for the Feeble Minded" to "Institutions of Higher Learning" reify exclusivity and the outcomes are often really ugly when abuse/neglect rule. The "need" for prisons borders on the ludicrous when you learn that a huge proportion of the inmates are there for "offenses" against society delineated by legal definitions that make caffeine OK but cocaine something the possesion of which can put one away for most of a lifetime.