On the one hand, sure, status probably is a trap and won't bring "true happiness." And I think this is well meaning advice.
But on the other hand, I think it's possible that an Ivy League educated founder/VC partner/executive coach might not be in the best position to see the whole picture. To paraphrase the Aviator[1], you don't care about status because you've always had it. I think that for many people who have experienced precarity, rather than being driven by vanity, this pursuit of status is a rational way to increase security.
I come from a pretty precarious background but through circumstance and luck I've ended up in much higher status environments from a fairly young age. (private school, later tech jobs)
The one thing I always cared more about than a lot of kids was money but not status. People who grow up poor tend to really be aware of how much it sucks to not have money. You see it in entrepreneurs in China or former Eastern bloc countries. People who grew up in insecurity tend to be very conscious about access to resources and are very competitive.
But status is a different thing. Most people who come from precarious backgrounds in my opinion hate status games because the people who play them the most are anxious upper-middle class people afraid of falling downwards. I think I've probably harmed my career prospects by just being allergic to networking or not going to posh events because of how fake they seem.
Also important to point out that status is a complex thing in the sense that a lot of high status people are "performatively broke" because that's paradoxically the only way to flex even more if you're rich (tech CEOS living in crap houses and sleeping on old mattresses etc), so that makes advice like this even more complicated because it's difficult to tell if it's genuine.
True. The way I see is one category of people who would need first hand experience to know status really matters or not. They wouldn't find this advice much useful. But there is other group who would rather take the word of someone with status to believe status doesn't matter if they are saying so. Simply because they have status so they know better about it.
I think at core most of advice from haves to have nots has different effect on smart vs average have nots. Smarts tend to see a kind of hypocrisy in these proclamations. Whereas average folks just see the real world the way it is. So these advise seems useful info coming from important people.
>I think that pursuit of status is a rational way to increase security.
I agree, I would recommend increasing security as the priority, not status. Status doesn't pay the bills necessarily when the recessions hit, security does. If you can get security without status, that's better than status without security.
I'd argue they are probably in the best position to talk about the 'empty bowl' status is. I mean if you switch to the admin-view for a moment, status is basically the increasingly rare thing that others cant have by definition. that is statistically impossibly for commoners to have. and their advice of seeking contentment can/is always countered with 'sour grapes' style retort. We need more calming message from people who have been there and done it. after all I dont really need to get a Range-rover when my Hyundai gives me most of what I want.
I think the issue is that while the advice is literally true, most people aren't in life for "true happiness". Most people, if observed closely, are in it for the status.
The people who are in it for happiness tend to be ascetics.
Status is a completely artificial construct that completely melts away the minute you run out of money. It's an unfair advantage, but it offers no security whatsoever.
When you look at individuals who have achieved things you admire, it's so often true that they themselves came from outside the status system that existed at that time.
They now sit within, or atop the current one, but it's often something they themselves have created to a greater or lesser degree.
There's a huge lesson there, I think. Being in that position in the current status system is not and never was their goal. It came as a consequence of acheiving real goals, real success. It was a reality they created.
If you want to emulate them, you won't do it by 'getting in' to that current system, that's for sure. Instead focus on doing your own thing, and maybe one day finding yourself within or atop a new one.
Ibn Khaldun's 1377 work Muqaddimah is a very old book that essentially says this.
The concept of "ʿasabiyyah" (Arabic: "tribalism, clanism, communitarism", or in a modern context, "group feeling" , "social cohesion", "solidarity" or even "nationalism") is one of the best known aspects of the Muqaddimah. As this ʿasabiyyah declines, another more compelling ʿasabiyyah may take its place; thus, civilizations rise and fall, and history describes these cycles of ʿasabiyyah as they play out.
Ibn Khaldun argues that each dynasty has within itself the seeds of its own downfall. He explains that ruling houses tend to emerge on the peripheries of great empires and use the unity presented by those areas to their advantage in order to bring about a change in leadership. As the new rulers establish themselves at the center of their empire, they become increasingly lax and more concerned with maintaining their lifestyles. Thus, a new dynasty can emerge at the periphery of their control and effect a change in leadership, beginning the cycle anew.
From studying history a bit, I do agree that it's striking how often new powerful civilizations are formed from groups of people that existed on the periphery and had very little institutional power a generation or two beforehand. The Mongols, the Ottomans, and Napoleonic France are just a few examples.
“Things you admire” is an extraordinarily broad category, so yeah, you probably could.
But within the world of VC-backed tech companies, I do think “traditional” status markers are still very influential, and that when you dig into the About pages, the majority of founders/investors/current-high-status individuals come from high status backgrounds.
A Yale degree is not the end-all be-all, and “Ex-Google” is not a magic key. But I do think it’s important to acknowledge that a lot of people in tech (myself included!) benefit from very, very privileged backgrounds.
Please show me a new status system. Not just different people on top of an already existing one.
I could see brand new status systems existing for, say, a new video game. Everyone starts out equally as newbies and works their way up. Maybe someone could leverage their position in a current status system (such as wealth or free time) to boost their potential in this new system.
Brand new industries could create new status systems, though I don't know how often they really do (for instance, the female programmers of the early computer era tended to bring their lower status into the system, not get status from the new system).
I suffer from the problem of not paying attention to status. Which kind of puts me on the outskirts of any status system, or at the very least not able to recognize my status within current systems.
Unfortunately, this is rare because status traps blind people to these possibilities.
I mean, look at this article’s comments: defense after defense of status as the most important thing.
Bluntly: this article isn’t for you if you’re so invested in the idea of status. Given the quasi-finance values that tech represents now, I can’t say I’m super surprised. The author speaks of a life beyond such pursuits.
I think there was a historical change that has complicated our conversation about status.
In the 50's, the peak of this, it seemed like many people got a 'deal' that went something like this: you & your work colleagues could afford a house, car, and the costs associated with several children, starting in your 20's. All of those things at a pretty high level actually (ie not a terrible unsafe house, not a broken down jalopy, etc.) In fact, only one of you in a marriage would have to work: one salary was enough.
In that situation - and this is where a lot of these attitudes to status first evolved - high status can be treated as a "who cares?" thing. You and the 1950's CEO making 5x as much as you do both have a few well fed & healthy kids, right? In a hand-wavey sense you can say you're 'the same.'
Well, times have changed.
Now the fight is a lot more desperate. Higher status can be the difference between affording a house, or not; having kids, or not. The ability to live a middle class life is much more on the line.
So while in the 50's, the advantages to being more high status seemed almost cosmetic, today, they're anything but.
>So while in the 50's, the advantages to being more high status seemed almost cosmetic, today, they're anything but.
I disagree. There's plenty of people who are secure in their finances that you would never know about just by looking at them or hearing their name. Status is for the ego, security is way more important. You can go for status after you've achieved financial security if you so desire. The only status you need is when someone asks someone you worked with if you are good at your vocation, they say yes. If you are honest, they say yes. If you are a good person, they say yes.
> Seek wealth, not money or status. Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. Money is how we transfer time and wealth. Status is your place in the social hierarchy.
My note: wealth is options; options are freedom, and buying your time back. Only play status games if you’re playing for fun, but don’t confuse it with success and freedom.
Most things are tied up with status games, even if they don't look like it at first glance.
Nietzsche gives the example of the self-renouncer, who might seem to go beyond status games by renouncing material things. But this renunciation of one status game is just replaced by another. It's the same desire for status, but aimed at a different object. The self-renouncer's object is the status of being seen as the exalted person who soars above everyone else, free from vulgar worldly desires.
> What does the self-renouncer do? He strives after a higher world, he wants to fly longer and further and higher than all men of affirmation—he throws away many things that would burden his flight, and several things among them that are not valueless, that are not unpleasant to him: he sacrifices them to his desire for elevation. Now this sacrificing, this casting away, is the very thing which becomes visible in him: on that account one calls him the self-renouncer, and as such he stands before us, enveloped in his cowl, and as the soul of a hair-shirt. With this effect, however, which he makes upon us he is well content: he wants to keep concealed from us his desire, his pride, his intention of flying above us.—Yes! He is wiser than we thought, and so courteous towards us—this affirmer! For that is what he is, like us, even in his self-renunciation
I can recommend the book The Status Game by Will Storr if you want to read more about status.
The Gospel teaches a similar idea with the notion of charity. Matthew 6:3
“But when thou doest alms, let not thy
left hand know what thy right hand doeth”
It helps if you’re familiar with the analysis, but I think the idea translates. The teaching being that if you’re going to be charitable, you shouldn’t do it as a means to advance your status. The people who give simply for recognition aren’t being charitable at all, they’re seeking status in the same way everyone else does.
I think status is our main currency as human beings.
All that really matters is what others think of us. The main thing you have to figure out is _which_ status hierarchy you want to compete in, not _if_ you want to compete in a status hierarchy.
Even people who claim not to care about what people think, actually do care what _some_ people think.
I rather have money and security, status is a means to that end, because sometimes there are gatekeepers or people who can help you but will write you off if they think you are not a peer or in group
I always am reminded of billionaire heirs, who shirk status games and give false last names to be treated as a normal person instead of a valuable business contact or such
> when our status is challenged, our body reacts like it's in physical danger
While it's not 100% certain, the fact that there appears to be a biological adaptation that makes us seek status and avoid losing status strongly suggests that the author is underestimating the importance of status in human society.
For example: "we find that status is significantly associated with men’s reproductive success, consistent with an evolved basis for status pursuit."
That adaptation may not be appropriate for the modern environment.
When exposed to modern/ internet-scale communities, it could be that there are so many false-positive threats to one’s status that the advice to (generally) not worry too much about it is good advice.
Status is an intermediary step between behavior and true goals. In some cases status might be an effective part of the path in actualizing the real goal (for example, community organizing). In many cases status distracts and becomes a goal of its own, much like money and pleasure tend to do in our lives.
As a personal exercise I find it useful to trace my behavior to end goals (and back the other way), and then disregard false goals/traps while problem solving other obstacles.
I suspect the common real goal on the other side of status from one’s behavior is to be loved. All humans share this goal with widely varying strategies, and some of those strategies expose the individual to the status trap. The most effective means to overcome this trap is to accomplish the real goal, and in the case of being loved one convenient solution is to appreciate the people in our lives, from acquaintances to close family. From appreciation comes kindness and openness, and from there we experience love and feelings of belonging. Status then becomes either irrelevant, or a tool one can now effectively wield.
Status seems like a 'zero sum game'. For me to win, you have to lose. There are a lot of other things where everyone can come out better off, but status is all relative.
Kind of like sports, where maybe both teams play really well, but only one is going to win. But at least that's just entertainment at the end of the day.
That's the problem I've always had with competitive, hierarchy based value systems. If we value status relative to other humans as a positive good that must be achieved, then no amount of technological, social, or any kind of progress could ever make things better overall. To reward relative superiority insists that the joy of the few requires the misery of many. Anyone who longs for this kind of structure is one who doesn't care for the betterment of any society or humanity as a whole, but rather relishes the superiority of the successful minority of those who found themselves one day at the top of the pyramid.
Every time we applaud some student who got accepted into Harvard, we are implicitly degrading the quality of all schools below it. Even if we lived in an ideal world where every school were equivalent to Harvard, we would cease to care about admittance to any of them except for the one deemed "the best".
I've read stories about people having "glow ups" and realizing they really were attractive all along, an inspiring tale that requires this lucky individual be placed above every unfortunate ugly person who didn't miraculously grow into their features. The point being that the ostensible value of this kind of story, whenever I read it, seems to be not that the individual "made it" by merit of becoming more attractive than their past self, but rather their success is only valid if they become attractive relative to others.
This kind of thinking is pervasive, yet thematically addictive. The climb above others seems to be self-evidently desirable.
Well, there's a minimum acceptable bound for status. Not only in a social hierarchy, literally "status" in the sense of lifestyle and being.
A house, a car, a family. Most people want that. If they don't have that, they will almost certainly be unhappy. If they do have it, they may still be unhappy, but for different reasons.
The perversion is that somehow having basic 20th century necessities such as a house and a family is now seen as some sort of privilege. If you believe that, you've been brainwashed.
Strictly, yes, it doesn't flow from the stars, someone has to build and produce the structure, but ideas that people should simply be okay sharing accommodation / living in micro flats / eating bugs / foregoing children to 'save the planet' etc are simply misguided in a world in which a huge number of people (not some microscopic elite, but like, half of the UK, US, etc) have more than that and treat more than that as being a basic standard.
I wonder if the inner ring trap for retirement is "well, maybe I should wait until I have another $AMOUNT invested just to (be sure, be able to do more, etc.)."
Anyone who is interested in status, I recommend “Impro: Improvisation and The Theatre” by Keith Johnstone. The tldr is in almost every social situation there are “status” games.
This question has been central to me for a long time.
Reading Impro by Johnstone and Inner Ring by C.S. Lewis yourself is central to understanding this topic.
First thing to understand is that status follows power law dynamic, instead of being normally distributed. Thus, in social status games, there is typically winner-take-all mentality. The bigger the game, the more the distribution is skewed.
You can easily understand why, if you think about blogs. The first blogs have a huge advantage. Everybody wants to link from the popular ones, so they befriend the people maintaining those blogs. So if you are already popular, people will want to connect to you, so you will get even more popular, as more people join the community.
It is easier to talk about this in the context of social dancing, because the feedback on your status is more immediate and visible. If you have high social status, you are sought after as dance partner by the opposite sex. If you have less than high social status you are either not sought after, or even avoided as dance partner. Interesting thing is that your social status is dynamic, it depends on status of others.
For example, in some dance parties I may be one of the high status males. In other dance parties I can be some of the medium status males. Sometimes I may even be a low status male. If I don't know anybody in a place, then women might be less than willing to take a risk and dance with me. If I cannot easily find a partner, and I am left without a partner, women start thinking there is something wrong with me, and start actively avoiding me. So there is negative status spiral as well.
The thing to understand here is that nothing in my skill has changed. Only the environment has changed. People are highly influenced by the environment. People use the interest of others (i.e. status) as a heuristic to gauge whther they should be interested in somebody (i.e. grant them status).
However, the inner truth here is that ultimately none of this really matters. I am not kinesthetically gifted, my dancing is not visually very attractive, so I cannot get high status by showing off.
My strength is that I appear to be a little bit more emotionally open so that something I call "emotional connection" in the dance happens more often and is deeper. The dancers who are emotionally more open in this sense is actually the circle of "sound craftsmen" which C.S. Lewis talks about. And they recognize each other, regardless of social status. And "emotional connection" is something that really brings happiness in the dance.
Pursuing external validation in whichever form will never bring true happiness. Things that might have been important a thousand years ago and will probably be important to people a thousand years in the future probably translate to happiness
People and marketing mix happiness with joyfulness, which fades into emptiness thus requiring increasingly stronger stimulants.
One test of happiness might be sitting on the grass looking at e.g. the trees or the sea for one hour. If you can't, you are stressed. If you can for ten hours you are depressed.
one of the hacks i always suggest for social anxiety is fixing status to a middle or lower value. socially anxious people, are always assessing their status and that puts lot of stress, in addition to anxiety. assuming a fixed but middle or lower status gives some stability and reduces the stress part. it at least frees part of your brain and you can focus on what is going on around you.
Status and money is essential, people with high status make good money, and you need it just to get to retirement, money that is. I do not like X good think will not bring happiness, its a pattern of X where X = working hard, money, status, etc does not bring happiness. Its dangerous and bad to teach people to be anything other than selfish in a constructive way.
I share your skepticism to some extent, but where I think I also think the perspective of the post has some merit is in recognizing that those things you equate with X are not all the same, and not interchangeable.
In my experience, you can work hard, be smart, work smart, and that still doesn't necessarily equate into money or status. This is more true the more that the system you're operating in is broken or corrupt.
At some point you question what it is you're doing, and what the payoffs are or whether or not they're worth it. Maybe getting to retirement financially is better done through a different circle with different status markers.
The thing about status is it's inherently heterogeneous. Although there are ideas of status that are more or less prevalent, everyone has a different idea of what status means at some level. I can think of very concrete, real examples that are objectively very high status under very reasonable definitions, but to me come across as gauche, immoral, and unintelligent.
The article feels very coherent to the point that I want to follow its advice. But will it work?
>Status, like money and power, is a form of capital. If we can learn to tolerate our feelings of “not-enoughness,” we can then use status in service of what we care about, rather than being addicted to it as an end in itself.
If we can tolerate 'not-enoughness', what would be there that needs change? As a society, don't we have to tolerate addiction because that's the loop that drives our progress?
>Casey Rosengren is a founder and executive coach based in New York. If you’d like to learn more about ACT and values-oriented coaching, drop him a note.
'founder' - Does he use the title 'in service' or is he still trapped in the status game? In the latter case, is his advice still valid?
One can't talk in terms of true or untrue happiness. People seek status to access happiness. What happens all the time is this: after you achieve such a status, you lose access to happiness. Now you will seek other things to access happiness. Rinse and repeat.
[+] [-] tqi|2 years ago|reply
But on the other hand, I think it's possible that an Ivy League educated founder/VC partner/executive coach might not be in the best position to see the whole picture. To paraphrase the Aviator[1], you don't care about status because you've always had it. I think that for many people who have experienced precarity, rather than being driven by vanity, this pursuit of status is a rational way to increase security.
[1] https://youtu.be/br-ljup5Bow
[+] [-] Barrin92|2 years ago|reply
The one thing I always cared more about than a lot of kids was money but not status. People who grow up poor tend to really be aware of how much it sucks to not have money. You see it in entrepreneurs in China or former Eastern bloc countries. People who grew up in insecurity tend to be very conscious about access to resources and are very competitive.
But status is a different thing. Most people who come from precarious backgrounds in my opinion hate status games because the people who play them the most are anxious upper-middle class people afraid of falling downwards. I think I've probably harmed my career prospects by just being allergic to networking or not going to posh events because of how fake they seem.
Also important to point out that status is a complex thing in the sense that a lot of high status people are "performatively broke" because that's paradoxically the only way to flex even more if you're rich (tech CEOS living in crap houses and sleeping on old mattresses etc), so that makes advice like this even more complicated because it's difficult to tell if it's genuine.
[+] [-] geodel|2 years ago|reply
I think at core most of advice from haves to have nots has different effect on smart vs average have nots. Smarts tend to see a kind of hypocrisy in these proclamations. Whereas average folks just see the real world the way it is. So these advise seems useful info coming from important people.
[+] [-] Clubber|2 years ago|reply
I agree, I would recommend increasing security as the priority, not status. Status doesn't pay the bills necessarily when the recessions hit, security does. If you can get security without status, that's better than status without security.
[+] [-] DesiLurker|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] roenxi|2 years ago|reply
The people who are in it for happiness tend to be ascetics.
[+] [-] magic_hamster|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davnicwil|2 years ago|reply
They now sit within, or atop the current one, but it's often something they themselves have created to a greater or lesser degree.
There's a huge lesson there, I think. Being in that position in the current status system is not and never was their goal. It came as a consequence of acheiving real goals, real success. It was a reality they created.
If you want to emulate them, you won't do it by 'getting in' to that current system, that's for sure. Instead focus on doing your own thing, and maybe one day finding yourself within or atop a new one.
[+] [-] keiferski|2 years ago|reply
The concept of "ʿasabiyyah" (Arabic: "tribalism, clanism, communitarism", or in a modern context, "group feeling" , "social cohesion", "solidarity" or even "nationalism") is one of the best known aspects of the Muqaddimah. As this ʿasabiyyah declines, another more compelling ʿasabiyyah may take its place; thus, civilizations rise and fall, and history describes these cycles of ʿasabiyyah as they play out.
Ibn Khaldun argues that each dynasty has within itself the seeds of its own downfall. He explains that ruling houses tend to emerge on the peripheries of great empires and use the unity presented by those areas to their advantage in order to bring about a change in leadership. As the new rulers establish themselves at the center of their empire, they become increasingly lax and more concerned with maintaining their lifestyles. Thus, a new dynasty can emerge at the periphery of their control and effect a change in leadership, beginning the cycle anew.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muqaddimah
From studying history a bit, I do agree that it's striking how often new powerful civilizations are formed from groups of people that existed on the periphery and had very little institutional power a generation or two beforehand. The Mongols, the Ottomans, and Napoleonic France are just a few examples.
[+] [-] ketzo|2 years ago|reply
But within the world of VC-backed tech companies, I do think “traditional” status markers are still very influential, and that when you dig into the About pages, the majority of founders/investors/current-high-status individuals come from high status backgrounds.
A Yale degree is not the end-all be-all, and “Ex-Google” is not a magic key. But I do think it’s important to acknowledge that a lot of people in tech (myself included!) benefit from very, very privileged backgrounds.
[+] [-] anonymouskimmer|2 years ago|reply
I could see brand new status systems existing for, say, a new video game. Everyone starts out equally as newbies and works their way up. Maybe someone could leverage their position in a current status system (such as wealth or free time) to boost their potential in this new system.
Brand new industries could create new status systems, though I don't know how often they really do (for instance, the female programmers of the early computer era tended to bring their lower status into the system, not get status from the new system).
I suffer from the problem of not paying attention to status. Which kind of puts me on the outskirts of any status system, or at the very least not able to recognize my status within current systems.
[+] [-] mattgreenrocks|2 years ago|reply
I mean, look at this article’s comments: defense after defense of status as the most important thing.
Bluntly: this article isn’t for you if you’re so invested in the idea of status. Given the quasi-finance values that tech represents now, I can’t say I’m super surprised. The author speaks of a life beyond such pursuits.
[+] [-] julianeon|2 years ago|reply
In the 50's, the peak of this, it seemed like many people got a 'deal' that went something like this: you & your work colleagues could afford a house, car, and the costs associated with several children, starting in your 20's. All of those things at a pretty high level actually (ie not a terrible unsafe house, not a broken down jalopy, etc.) In fact, only one of you in a marriage would have to work: one salary was enough.
In that situation - and this is where a lot of these attitudes to status first evolved - high status can be treated as a "who cares?" thing. You and the 1950's CEO making 5x as much as you do both have a few well fed & healthy kids, right? In a hand-wavey sense you can say you're 'the same.'
Well, times have changed.
Now the fight is a lot more desperate. Higher status can be the difference between affording a house, or not; having kids, or not. The ability to live a middle class life is much more on the line.
So while in the 50's, the advantages to being more high status seemed almost cosmetic, today, they're anything but.
[+] [-] robotresearcher|2 years ago|reply
Is this the same Fifties with white and colored water fountains, and where women had to leave office jobs when they married?
[+] [-] jgil|2 years ago|reply
> So while in the 50's, the advantages to being more high status seemed almost cosmetic, today, they're anything but.
The “deal” you are referring to was largely codified racism. [1]
And only cosmetic inasmuch as being granted pollution-free, affordable housing based on skin color would be considered “cosmetic.”
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-02/how-the-f...
[+] [-] Clubber|2 years ago|reply
I disagree. There's plenty of people who are secure in their finances that you would never know about just by looking at them or hearing their name. Status is for the ego, security is way more important. You can go for status after you've achieved financial security if you so desire. The only status you need is when someone asks someone you worked with if you are good at your vocation, they say yes. If you are honest, they say yes. If you are a good person, they say yes.
[+] [-] jseliger|2 years ago|reply
This is a tragic statement on the way we've made abundance illegal and mandated scarcity instead—points further articulated in more detail here: https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-every...
[+] [-] unknown|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] toomuchtodo|2 years ago|reply
> Seek wealth, not money or status. Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. Money is how we transfer time and wealth. Status is your place in the social hierarchy.
https://twitter.com/naval/status/1002103627387813888
> Ignore people playing status games. They gain status by attacking people playing wealth creation games.
From @naval’s Twitter thread “how to get rich (without getting lucky)”
https://twitter.com/naval/status/1002103360646823936
My note: wealth is options; options are freedom, and buying your time back. Only play status games if you’re playing for fun, but don’t confuse it with success and freedom.
[+] [-] nonethewiser|2 years ago|reply
Got it. Puts on Google here we go.
[+] [-] puppymaster|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fogzen|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maximilianroos|2 years ago|reply
We have a whole mechanism in our brain dedicated to chasing status — harness it!
[+] [-] amelius|2 years ago|reply
Yes. The part of our brain that we have in common with monkeys.
[+] [-] elevaet|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dotsam|2 years ago|reply
Nietzsche gives the example of the self-renouncer, who might seem to go beyond status games by renouncing material things. But this renunciation of one status game is just replaced by another. It's the same desire for status, but aimed at a different object. The self-renouncer's object is the status of being seen as the exalted person who soars above everyone else, free from vulgar worldly desires.
> What does the self-renouncer do? He strives after a higher world, he wants to fly longer and further and higher than all men of affirmation—he throws away many things that would burden his flight, and several things among them that are not valueless, that are not unpleasant to him: he sacrifices them to his desire for elevation. Now this sacrificing, this casting away, is the very thing which becomes visible in him: on that account one calls him the self-renouncer, and as such he stands before us, enveloped in his cowl, and as the soul of a hair-shirt. With this effect, however, which he makes upon us he is well content: he wants to keep concealed from us his desire, his pride, his intention of flying above us.—Yes! He is wiser than we thought, and so courteous towards us—this affirmer! For that is what he is, like us, even in his self-renunciation
I can recommend the book The Status Game by Will Storr if you want to read more about status.
[+] [-] joenot443|2 years ago|reply
“But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth”
It helps if you’re familiar with the analysis, but I think the idea translates. The teaching being that if you’re going to be charitable, you shouldn’t do it as a means to advance your status. The people who give simply for recognition aren’t being charitable at all, they’re seeking status in the same way everyone else does.
[+] [-] d357r0y3r|2 years ago|reply
All that really matters is what others think of us. The main thing you have to figure out is _which_ status hierarchy you want to compete in, not _if_ you want to compete in a status hierarchy.
Even people who claim not to care about what people think, actually do care what _some_ people think.
[+] [-] tsunamifury|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Rastonbury|2 years ago|reply
I always am reminded of billionaire heirs, who shirk status games and give false last names to be treated as a normal person instead of a valuable business contact or such
[+] [-] mpweiher|2 years ago|reply
While it's not 100% certain, the fact that there appears to be a biological adaptation that makes us seek status and avoid losing status strongly suggests that the author is underestimating the importance of status in human society.
For example: "we find that status is significantly associated with men’s reproductive success, consistent with an evolved basis for status pursuit."
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1606800113
[+] [-] mirror_neuron|2 years ago|reply
When exposed to modern/ internet-scale communities, it could be that there are so many false-positive threats to one’s status that the advice to (generally) not worry too much about it is good advice.
Our innate desire for sweets comes to mind.
[+] [-] arthurofbabylon|2 years ago|reply
As a personal exercise I find it useful to trace my behavior to end goals (and back the other way), and then disregard false goals/traps while problem solving other obstacles.
I suspect the common real goal on the other side of status from one’s behavior is to be loved. All humans share this goal with widely varying strategies, and some of those strategies expose the individual to the status trap. The most effective means to overcome this trap is to accomplish the real goal, and in the case of being loved one convenient solution is to appreciate the people in our lives, from acquaintances to close family. From appreciation comes kindness and openness, and from there we experience love and feelings of belonging. Status then becomes either irrelevant, or a tool one can now effectively wield.
[+] [-] davidw|2 years ago|reply
Kind of like sports, where maybe both teams play really well, but only one is going to win. But at least that's just entertainment at the end of the day.
[+] [-] atleastoptimal|2 years ago|reply
Every time we applaud some student who got accepted into Harvard, we are implicitly degrading the quality of all schools below it. Even if we lived in an ideal world where every school were equivalent to Harvard, we would cease to care about admittance to any of them except for the one deemed "the best".
I've read stories about people having "glow ups" and realizing they really were attractive all along, an inspiring tale that requires this lucky individual be placed above every unfortunate ugly person who didn't miraculously grow into their features. The point being that the ostensible value of this kind of story, whenever I read it, seems to be not that the individual "made it" by merit of becoming more attractive than their past self, but rather their success is only valid if they become attractive relative to others.
This kind of thinking is pervasive, yet thematically addictive. The climb above others seems to be self-evidently desirable.
[+] [-] throwaway22032|2 years ago|reply
A house, a car, a family. Most people want that. If they don't have that, they will almost certainly be unhappy. If they do have it, they may still be unhappy, but for different reasons.
The perversion is that somehow having basic 20th century necessities such as a house and a family is now seen as some sort of privilege. If you believe that, you've been brainwashed.
Strictly, yes, it doesn't flow from the stars, someone has to build and produce the structure, but ideas that people should simply be okay sharing accommodation / living in micro flats / eating bugs / foregoing children to 'save the planet' etc are simply misguided in a world in which a huge number of people (not some microscopic elite, but like, half of the UK, US, etc) have more than that and treat more than that as being a basic standard.
[+] [-] sys_64738|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jjtheblunt|2 years ago|reply
I say that because that’s what many i know have realized once they (we) didn’t have to work.
I suspect the personality of engineering types likes puzzle solving, and is inclined to find some class of puzzles to “work” on.
[+] [-] dgacmu|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sp527|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wallflower|2 years ago|reply
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/306940.Impro
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20436197
[+] [-] kukkeliskuu|2 years ago|reply
Reading Impro by Johnstone and Inner Ring by C.S. Lewis yourself is central to understanding this topic.
First thing to understand is that status follows power law dynamic, instead of being normally distributed. Thus, in social status games, there is typically winner-take-all mentality. The bigger the game, the more the distribution is skewed.
You can easily understand why, if you think about blogs. The first blogs have a huge advantage. Everybody wants to link from the popular ones, so they befriend the people maintaining those blogs. So if you are already popular, people will want to connect to you, so you will get even more popular, as more people join the community.
It is easier to talk about this in the context of social dancing, because the feedback on your status is more immediate and visible. If you have high social status, you are sought after as dance partner by the opposite sex. If you have less than high social status you are either not sought after, or even avoided as dance partner. Interesting thing is that your social status is dynamic, it depends on status of others.
For example, in some dance parties I may be one of the high status males. In other dance parties I can be some of the medium status males. Sometimes I may even be a low status male. If I don't know anybody in a place, then women might be less than willing to take a risk and dance with me. If I cannot easily find a partner, and I am left without a partner, women start thinking there is something wrong with me, and start actively avoiding me. So there is negative status spiral as well.
The thing to understand here is that nothing in my skill has changed. Only the environment has changed. People are highly influenced by the environment. People use the interest of others (i.e. status) as a heuristic to gauge whther they should be interested in somebody (i.e. grant them status).
However, the inner truth here is that ultimately none of this really matters. I am not kinesthetically gifted, my dancing is not visually very attractive, so I cannot get high status by showing off.
My strength is that I appear to be a little bit more emotionally open so that something I call "emotional connection" in the dance happens more often and is deeper. The dancers who are emotionally more open in this sense is actually the circle of "sound craftsmen" which C.S. Lewis talks about. And they recognize each other, regardless of social status. And "emotional connection" is something that really brings happiness in the dance.
[+] [-] antman|2 years ago|reply
People and marketing mix happiness with joyfulness, which fades into emptiness thus requiring increasingly stronger stimulants.
One test of happiness might be sitting on the grass looking at e.g. the trees or the sea for one hour. If you can't, you are stressed. If you can for ten hours you are depressed.
[+] [-] unrealp|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] philip142au|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] derbOac|2 years ago|reply
In my experience, you can work hard, be smart, work smart, and that still doesn't necessarily equate into money or status. This is more true the more that the system you're operating in is broken or corrupt.
At some point you question what it is you're doing, and what the payoffs are or whether or not they're worth it. Maybe getting to retirement financially is better done through a different circle with different status markers.
The thing about status is it's inherently heterogeneous. Although there are ideas of status that are more or less prevalent, everyone has a different idea of what status means at some level. I can think of very concrete, real examples that are objectively very high status under very reasonable definitions, but to me come across as gauche, immoral, and unintelligent.
[+] [-] 127|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] glass3|2 years ago|reply
>Status, like money and power, is a form of capital. If we can learn to tolerate our feelings of “not-enoughness,” we can then use status in service of what we care about, rather than being addicted to it as an end in itself.
If we can tolerate 'not-enoughness', what would be there that needs change? As a society, don't we have to tolerate addiction because that's the loop that drives our progress?
>Casey Rosengren is a founder and executive coach based in New York. If you’d like to learn more about ACT and values-oriented coaching, drop him a note.
'founder' - Does he use the title 'in service' or is he still trapped in the status game? In the latter case, is his advice still valid?
[+] [-] raincom|2 years ago|reply