Status is about future
People far more thoughtful, intelligent, and articulate than me have explored this “status” business we all indulge in. Like:
It is a long-read but please do read it.
This is my own tiny little thought on this topic — Our behavior at any point in time and context is dependent on our guess of what might happen to our status in the future based on the said behavior.
This is in no way a summary of the post above. I do not vividly remember the top take-aways from it so in that sense it is all original (though there is no way there is no overlap)
We are all status seeking monkeys (or even lobsters if you ask Jordan Peterson) all the time. Everything we do is about achieving status, one way or another.
Fear and Love
It is said that all emotions/thoughts/feelings can be classified just into two buckets: Fear and Love.
- Anger, Sorrow, Annoyance, and everything here would be Fear.
- Compassion, Affection, Kinship, Justice, Fairness etc. would be Love. (I am even struggling to name a few positive emotions, such is the state of mind LOL. But you get the point)
I would go one-step above and say that even the Fear and Love are driven by this “Status” thingie. You feel “fear” emotions when you are afraid you are losing your status in some form. And you feel “love” emotions when you believe you are gaining/will gain status in some form. So, it is about the future.
Rule-Breaking
When it comes to following or breaking rules, the same thing applies. If breaking a rule gives you better status, you will. Following all the rules all the time means that you will be permanently in a lower status. You should know which rule to break, and when, so you get accorded the higher status you seek in the circles where it is needed. For more on this topic, read Robin Hanson.
Seeking / Receiving Help
Even in situations where you would expect the obvious and rational behavior of a person to be lowering their status, it does not happen (most of the times). For example: You would expect a person who is seeking/receiving help from someone else to happily lower their status commensurate to the help they receive. But they would not. This could be any sort of help, from alms received by a beggar all the way to career guidance received by a high-flying executive from a colleague. If they have a continuing relationship with the person who is providing help, they would not be comfortable lowering their status. This is because it is not about the lowering of status in that moment, but about the future. This is understandable if the person giving help tries to better their status through this. Even in the absence of such behavior by the person providing help (well explicitly… remember the whole premise of life is about status-seeking), you would find this discomfort in the person receiving it.
Even in cases where a person lowers their status (usually out of having no other option or at times even willingly), they try to regain it later either by doing something to the help giver itself or to someone else who they might consider lower. Think of a friend taking help in one transaction but actually trying to beat the other friend in a friendly road race. Think of a person submitting to bosses in the office but later acting like a jerk to their spouse/children etc.
Watch this next time, whatever role you play. If the person giving help also tries to better their status through this transaction, the entertainment is wonderful to watch. Have fun.
