Is obfuscation about status true of all times and places? My impression is that the ancient Greeks and Egyptians (yes, a lot of people spread over a long time) were content to be blunt about status.
Possibly our current situation is a result of Christianity and beliefs about the value of all people.
We also have pretty blunt approaches to larger status gaps! Larger status gaps are generally much safer to talk about for reasons I'll get into in upcoming posts
Yes, I was thinking about ancient Rome instead where status was entirely obvious and also global by the patronage system - your patron was obviously higher status than you and he was in turn a client of another patron (except for the very top senators) These shifted over time and with age, but were clear and even had legal weight. At the same time the Romans called their subjugated vassals "socii", allies (they had a fairly good deal compared to other vassals at the time but they were clearly inferior in status to Rome).
I think Romans had a strange mix of trying to pretend everyone is just friends (they would use those words to refer both to their clients and patrons) while explicitly recognizing a clear order. The Greeks were more "everyone is either equal or way superior/inferior", the Roman system was more gradual and fluid and that probably introduced the politeness of calling your social inferiors friends or allies (in the former case you might end up their clients in a couple of years, something that was much rarer in the more rigidly stratified Greek population).
It strikes me that not only is status 'local', it also switches dynamically - sometimes even within the same interaction between the same people. If we hold onto our status inflexibly in our interactions (in either direction - either insisting on and maintaining high status, or insisting on low), they become staid and boring. (The loud obnoxious guy at the party who won't listen to anyone else and just keeps banging on about things no-one else cares about like which jiu-jitsu move would be most effective in a fight with an invertebrate, the brilliant but speechless software engineer on the other side of the room). Keith johnstone says "acquaintances become friends when they agree to play status games with each other". Most people are socially conditioned to play low status (especially with strangers), and when both partners play low the interaction is generally polite and boring. A part of the allure of 'confidence' (especially in romantic contexts) is the willingness of one partner to temporarily take on the riskier role of high status (riskier because they stand to *unintentionally* lose status if they fail), but real confidence is really about being in control of the status dynamic itself.
Is showing vulnerability in your framework high status or low status? It requires confidence to share your vulnerability with people, but at the same time, vulnerability -> weakness -> low status?
Countersignaling. If you have no strength (for whatever definition of strength), you show vulnerability because you have to. If you need to stand out from the vulnerable weaklings you show strength to prove you can. If you need to stand out from the people showing strength, you show vulnerability to demonstrate that you *can* be vulnerable without being mistaken for a weakling.
It's like how poor people who come into money show it off, but people who come from a rich family don't.
The gnarlyness of this whole topic is partly semantic (and how it operates at different levels) - I fudged this a little by saying 'confidence' is the ability to control status dynamics, but I'd say that intentionally lowering your status by showing vulnerability is actually a power move and itself 'high status'. You know this because when you show vulnerability intentionally in a group, others will typically immediately attempt to lower their own status to match yours, for example by sharing their own vulnerabilities with you (which happens to lead often to deeper human connections, because we've all temporarily agreed to let go of our high-status armour)
Have you heard about power and rank theory? It clarified a lot for me.
By this theory, there are three types of rank: social, psychological, and spiritual.
Social is what your immediate environment predetermines, as you well notice in your essay. It varies when you move between groups, depending on their values.
Psychological can trump social. You can cross normal limits with various skills and personal predispositions. Once it might be assertiveness, the next time compassion, or wit.
Spiritual can't really be learned like a skill; it's part of maturing and manifests as a special kind of charisma that's not imposing or arrogant. It's a type of presence that trumps both other types of power.
And all of these are contextual: you might be at the top of the game in one group but a minute later you'll be at the bottom of another group. It's wise to be able to adjust so your ego wouldn't suffer too much.
--
And ... you must have some luck, too.
When I was younger, I remember being the lucky guy ending up with the girl who was at the top of the hierarchy at a small festival that I attended. I didn't know that, but all of a sudden, I was the top male, and other girls started flirting with me.
in places like china, status is usually more explicit, though it manifests differently. it follows a similar “don’t make too big a deal of it” (organically, as you wrote) but people are relatively open and direct about it. they don’t really avoid it, rather falling in line with it, generally speaking. so status changes based on cultural context to a certain extent.
a bit odd, but understandable in the context of their culture! explicit expression of status supposedly can help in the maintenance of social structure, i guess? but i couldn’t tell you the exact reason.
I think we can somewhat accurately measure “status” as “the amount of work other people are willing to do for someone when they need it.” For example, if a popular person needed to move a couch, the number of people that were willing to assist them with it and how enthusiastic those people would be to do so could determine how popular that person was. If someone were to punch someone else in the face, how the victim feels about the experience might tell us something about the popularity of the assailant. Of course, money makes this easier.
In Mean Girls, nobody really liked Regina George or thought she was kind. She maintained her high status by looking pretty, paying those around her the occasional fake compliment, and staying with her group of similar friends. When asked about what she has done, all the girls and teachers in the school raised their hands to indicate that they have felt personally victimized by Regina at least once. When Janis tells the crowd about all of the pranks she has played on Regina over the course of the year, they cheer for her and let her crowd surf.
However, it would be wrong to say that Regina is “unpopular.” Toward the beginning of the movie, we see a montage of the widespread admiration she faces from students and teachers. Regina’s popularity is so significant that she could punch a girl in the face and leave the girl thinking about how awesome it was. Clearly, a less popular person would not be able to get away with the things that Regina does, but her status gives her incredible influence.
Your piece on status has so much more depth and nuance than mine, I have half a mind to delete it. Looking forward to more from you on this. At any rate, we agree status is one of most powerful forces on earth.
This seems like it is missing something really important and obvious to me: we are uncomfortable talking about status because status is a socially constructed consensus, so talking about status is necessarily playing status games.
"Why are we uncomfortable talking about status?" has a similar answer "Why are we uncomfortable with people shoving each other?" Status games in general are stigmatized, and our norms are designed to only allow pro-social, nonthreatening forms of them. Framing status-as-such is an especially aggressive act, because it implies all forms of social recognition are commensurable and purely positional, which is a very zero-sum outlook.
Status seems to have a gateless gate dynamic: if you care about status, it seems high status not to care about it. if you are high status because you dont care, people who care dont seem low status to you.
I find the dominance vs prestige framework useful. Within prestige, I understand that there is status associated with usefulness to the tribe, and with being an examplar and (re)inforcer of tribal norms and values.
Two useful reads - Will Storr's "The Status Game", and Alain de Botton's "Status Anxiety" (the latter a quirky exploration of the things people get into, to deal with status anxiety).
In terms of the genesis of fetishes- it is like any other aspect of personality- complex and multi factorial. What creates a foot fetish in one person does not create it in another (I explored this in a case file I recently wrote on foot fetish). Fetishes are formed from a range of psychosocial factors, genetics and during times of formative psychological years (usually around 6-8years old - i'd love to know if your data backs this up). One of my favourite classes in Psychology was individual differences, and it's important to always factor this into any explanation of psychological phenomenon. Sure-there are patterns that we can pick up on but we must always leave space for individual differences- especially as they are often the most interesting!
Is obfuscation about status true of all times and places? My impression is that the ancient Greeks and Egyptians (yes, a lot of people spread over a long time) were content to be blunt about status.
Possibly our current situation is a result of Christianity and beliefs about the value of all people.
We also have pretty blunt approaches to larger status gaps! Larger status gaps are generally much safer to talk about for reasons I'll get into in upcoming posts
Or democracy, where one man is as good as another -- or better!
Yes, I was thinking about ancient Rome instead where status was entirely obvious and also global by the patronage system - your patron was obviously higher status than you and he was in turn a client of another patron (except for the very top senators) These shifted over time and with age, but were clear and even had legal weight. At the same time the Romans called their subjugated vassals "socii", allies (they had a fairly good deal compared to other vassals at the time but they were clearly inferior in status to Rome).
I think Romans had a strange mix of trying to pretend everyone is just friends (they would use those words to refer both to their clients and patrons) while explicitly recognizing a clear order. The Greeks were more "everyone is either equal or way superior/inferior", the Roman system was more gradual and fluid and that probably introduced the politeness of calling your social inferiors friends or allies (in the former case you might end up their clients in a couple of years, something that was much rarer in the more rigidly stratified Greek population).
It strikes me that not only is status 'local', it also switches dynamically - sometimes even within the same interaction between the same people. If we hold onto our status inflexibly in our interactions (in either direction - either insisting on and maintaining high status, or insisting on low), they become staid and boring. (The loud obnoxious guy at the party who won't listen to anyone else and just keeps banging on about things no-one else cares about like which jiu-jitsu move would be most effective in a fight with an invertebrate, the brilliant but speechless software engineer on the other side of the room). Keith johnstone says "acquaintances become friends when they agree to play status games with each other". Most people are socially conditioned to play low status (especially with strangers), and when both partners play low the interaction is generally polite and boring. A part of the allure of 'confidence' (especially in romantic contexts) is the willingness of one partner to temporarily take on the riskier role of high status (riskier because they stand to *unintentionally* lose status if they fail), but real confidence is really about being in control of the status dynamic itself.
Is showing vulnerability in your framework high status or low status? It requires confidence to share your vulnerability with people, but at the same time, vulnerability -> weakness -> low status?
Countersignaling. If you have no strength (for whatever definition of strength), you show vulnerability because you have to. If you need to stand out from the vulnerable weaklings you show strength to prove you can. If you need to stand out from the people showing strength, you show vulnerability to demonstrate that you *can* be vulnerable without being mistaken for a weakling.
It's like how poor people who come into money show it off, but people who come from a rich family don't.
The gnarlyness of this whole topic is partly semantic (and how it operates at different levels) - I fudged this a little by saying 'confidence' is the ability to control status dynamics, but I'd say that intentionally lowering your status by showing vulnerability is actually a power move and itself 'high status'. You know this because when you show vulnerability intentionally in a group, others will typically immediately attempt to lower their own status to match yours, for example by sharing their own vulnerabilities with you (which happens to lead often to deeper human connections, because we've all temporarily agreed to let go of our high-status armour)
The classic example of wanting status to seem innate rather than consciously sought is aristocrats who resent merchants.
Status is funny, yes!
Have you heard about power and rank theory? It clarified a lot for me.
By this theory, there are three types of rank: social, psychological, and spiritual.
Social is what your immediate environment predetermines, as you well notice in your essay. It varies when you move between groups, depending on their values.
Psychological can trump social. You can cross normal limits with various skills and personal predispositions. Once it might be assertiveness, the next time compassion, or wit.
Spiritual can't really be learned like a skill; it's part of maturing and manifests as a special kind of charisma that's not imposing or arrogant. It's a type of presence that trumps both other types of power.
And all of these are contextual: you might be at the top of the game in one group but a minute later you'll be at the bottom of another group. It's wise to be able to adjust so your ego wouldn't suffer too much.
--
And ... you must have some luck, too.
When I was younger, I remember being the lucky guy ending up with the girl who was at the top of the hierarchy at a small festival that I attended. I didn't know that, but all of a sudden, I was the top male, and other girls started flirting with me.
in places like china, status is usually more explicit, though it manifests differently. it follows a similar “don’t make too big a deal of it” (organically, as you wrote) but people are relatively open and direct about it. they don’t really avoid it, rather falling in line with it, generally speaking. so status changes based on cultural context to a certain extent.
That feels ironic, given how individualistic our western culture is, and how collectivist their culture is.
That feels ironic, given how individualistic our western culture is, and how collectivist their culture is.
a bit odd, but understandable in the context of their culture! explicit expression of status supposedly can help in the maintenance of social structure, i guess? but i couldn’t tell you the exact reason.
I think we can somewhat accurately measure “status” as “the amount of work other people are willing to do for someone when they need it.” For example, if a popular person needed to move a couch, the number of people that were willing to assist them with it and how enthusiastic those people would be to do so could determine how popular that person was. If someone were to punch someone else in the face, how the victim feels about the experience might tell us something about the popularity of the assailant. Of course, money makes this easier.
In Mean Girls, nobody really liked Regina George or thought she was kind. She maintained her high status by looking pretty, paying those around her the occasional fake compliment, and staying with her group of similar friends. When asked about what she has done, all the girls and teachers in the school raised their hands to indicate that they have felt personally victimized by Regina at least once. When Janis tells the crowd about all of the pranks she has played on Regina over the course of the year, they cheer for her and let her crowd surf.
However, it would be wrong to say that Regina is “unpopular.” Toward the beginning of the movie, we see a montage of the widespread admiration she faces from students and teachers. Regina’s popularity is so significant that she could punch a girl in the face and leave the girl thinking about how awesome it was. Clearly, a less popular person would not be able to get away with the things that Regina does, but her status gives her incredible influence.
Your piece on status has so much more depth and nuance than mine, I have half a mind to delete it. Looking forward to more from you on this. At any rate, we agree status is one of most powerful forces on earth.
https://bloxblog.substack.com/p/the-demons-name
This seems like it is missing something really important and obvious to me: we are uncomfortable talking about status because status is a socially constructed consensus, so talking about status is necessarily playing status games.
"Why are we uncomfortable talking about status?" has a similar answer "Why are we uncomfortable with people shoving each other?" Status games in general are stigmatized, and our norms are designed to only allow pro-social, nonthreatening forms of them. Framing status-as-such is an especially aggressive act, because it implies all forms of social recognition are commensurable and purely positional, which is a very zero-sum outlook.
Status seems to have a gateless gate dynamic: if you care about status, it seems high status not to care about it. if you are high status because you dont care, people who care dont seem low status to you.
I find the dominance vs prestige framework useful. Within prestige, I understand that there is status associated with usefulness to the tribe, and with being an examplar and (re)inforcer of tribal norms and values.
Two useful reads - Will Storr's "The Status Game", and Alain de Botton's "Status Anxiety" (the latter a quirky exploration of the things people get into, to deal with status anxiety).
"So we end up in a world where we’re all secretly believing we are a 6.5/10, despite the fact that the average must be 5."
Average doesn't must be 5 if the distribution is skewed. Leaning towards a higher number makes sense from an evolutionary point of view.
Wait, Aella is in the EDUCATION category?! - (Guess that raises status. Or not?)
In terms of the genesis of fetishes- it is like any other aspect of personality- complex and multi factorial. What creates a foot fetish in one person does not create it in another (I explored this in a case file I recently wrote on foot fetish). Fetishes are formed from a range of psychosocial factors, genetics and during times of formative psychological years (usually around 6-8years old - i'd love to know if your data backs this up). One of my favourite classes in Psychology was individual differences, and it's important to always factor this into any explanation of psychological phenomenon. Sure-there are patterns that we can pick up on but we must always leave space for individual differences- especially as they are often the most interesting!
Status... I think it used to be called "respect" or "respected". Perhaps that clarifies a little.
David Pinsof has imo the best work on status.
E.g. https://www.everythingisbullshit.blog/p/status-is-weird
I am genuine status blind