And also the idea, as you say, in the book, the Savage Lands is the description for basically a Zuni Pueblo in New Mexico.
And I stayed with friends for a long time in a Zuni Pueblo outside Santa Fe back in the ’90s, so I know that it was far from right.
So they didn’t join the gang, they didn’t develop this caste-based system.
The idea then became, well, let’s imagine 300 years in the future, all of American society has become savage in the sense that America is the one country that seceded from the world state.