Status games - who’s on top?
Can we ever escape the desire for higher status? Are you a special person? How self-obsessed are we, as a society? How and why do we compare ourselves to others? What makes us group-ish? Violent? Or community minded? How about narcissistic? And is that getting worse?
EPISODE 149 FEATURES AUTHOR WILL STORR
This week's guest is the British author Will Storr, who's latest book is Status Game: on social position and how we use it.
After reading one of his previous books - Selfie, How We Became So Self-Obsessed and What It's Doing to Us - Clare persuaded him to come on Wardrobe Crisis and share his ideas and research about what lies beneath our social media culture, power games, virtue signalling and obsession with getting ahead.
Will Storr is also the author of a book, TED talk and creative writing class called The Science of Storytelling.
In this lively discussion, Will and Clare talk about everything from Ancient Greece to TIME magazine covers; the origins of the self-esteem movement to Instagram; narcissism, perfectionism, mental health and the origins of western individualism.
Will’s latest book is The Status Game. Buy it here. Read the UK Times review here.
Here’s a snippet from an edited extract that ran in the Guardian: “We play games for status incessantly and automatically. We do so because it’s a solution our species has come upon to secure our own survival and reproduction. As a tribal animal, our survival has always depended on our being accepted into a supportive community. But once inside any group, we’re rarely content to flop about on its lower rungs. We’re driven to rise within it. Back in the stone age, increased status meant access to better mates, more food and greater safety for ourselves and our offspring. The more status we earned, the greater our capacity to thrive and produce thriving children. So we’re driven to seek connection and rank, to be accepted into groups and win status within them. This is the game of human life.”
NOTES
NARCISSIM “The term originated more than 2,000 years ago, when Ovid wrote the legend of Narcissus. He tells the story of a beautiful Greek hunter who, one day, happens to see his reflection in a pool of water and falls in love with it. He becomes obsessed with its beauty, and is unable to leave his reflected image until he dies. After his death, the flower narcissus grew where he lay.” via The Conversation
Sigmund Freud’s work on ego and its relationship to the outside world popularised the idea of narcissism as a psychological problem. Donald Trump’s presidency thrust it into the media like never before. Narcissism scores are higher in individualistic cultures compared with more collectivistic cultures. Narcissism is increasing in modern Western societies, according to academic paper such as this one - it reveals the endorsement rate for the statement “I am an important person” among adolescents increased from 12% in 1963 to 77–80% in 1992. Has SOCIAL MEDIA made things worse? Here’s the TIME Magazine Clare refers to.
The TRIBEL SELF “If we are to understand who we are today, we should start by getting a glimpse of who we were back then… Humans share 98% of our DNA with chimps,” says Will.
Here’s what The Scientific American has to say on the subject: “In 1871 Charles Darwin surmised that humans were evolutionarily closer to the African apes than to any other species alive. The recent sequencing of the gorilla, chimpanzee and bonobo genomes confirms that supposition and provides a clearer view of how we are connected: chimps and bonobos in particular take pride of place as our nearest living relatives, sharing approximately 99 percent of our DNA, with gorillas trailing at 98 percent.
Yet that tiny portion of unshared DNA makes a world of difference: it gives us, for instance, our bipedal stance and the ability to plan missions to Mars. Scientists do not yet know how most of the DNA that is uniquely ours affects gene function. But they can conduct whole-genome analyses—with intriguing results. For example, comparing the 33 percent of our genome that codes for proteins with our relatives' genomes reveals that although the sum total of our genetic differences is small, the individual differences pervade the genome, affecting each of our chromosomes in numerous ways.” Read the rest here.
So what about group dynamics and aggression in chimps?
JANE GOODALL famously studied communities of chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park,Tanzania between 1974 and 1978. Two groups were once unified in the Kasakela community. By 1974, Goodall noticed this community splintering. Over a span of eight months, a large party of chimpanzees separated themselves into the southern area of Kasakela and were renamed the Kahama community. The separatists consisted of six adult males, three adult females and their young. The Kasakela was left with eight adult males, twelve adult females and their young.
During the four-year conflict, all males of the Kahama community were killed, effectively disbanding the community. The victorious Kasakela then expanded into further territory but were later repelled by another community of chimpanzees. Via Wikipedia
MIMICRY “We start mimicking people who we see displaying competence when they are completing tasks at around the age 14 months. As we grow up these ‘skill cues’ begin to take on a more symbolic form, as ‘success cues’,” writes Will.
CONFABULATION refers to the production or creation of false or erroneous memories without the intent to deceive, sometimes called "honest lying".
HEROES How and why we do we cast ourselves as the hero in our own story? In his TED talk, Will says: “story is what the brain does”. He talks about story “as a product of biological evolution”. Watch it below:
ANCIENT GREEKS “In (Ancient) Greek Life, the talents of remarkable people were fetishised. Sublime status depicted ideal masculine and feminine forms… Celebrities were hailed, beautiful bodies were venerated.” From Aristotle noting that we live in a world of things, to geography affecting how competitive people were, Ancient Greece has shaped much of our thinking around Western individualism.
FREE WON’T is your ability to veto your thoughts or impulses.
Nicole Kidman in creepy wellness story, Nine Perfect Strangers
WELLNESS & THE “AUTHENTIC SELF “Everyone wants to be authentic. You want to be true to yourself, not a slavish follower of social expectations. You want to “live your best life,” pursuing your particular desires, rather than falling in line with whatever everyone else thinks happiness requires. Studies have even shown that feelings of authenticity can go hand in hand with numerous psychological and social benefits: higher self-esteem, greater well-being, better romantic relationships and enhanced work performance. But authenticity is a slippery thing. …” Read the rest here.
ESSELEN The Eselen Institute was established in the early 1960s in Bug Sur, California by Stanford graduates Michael Murphy and Dick Price in 1962. Their intention was to support alternative methods for exploring human consciousness, what Aldous Huxley described as "human potentialities". Think New Age mantras and alternative therapies with a side of Eastern mysticism. Lots of famous people went there in the 60s - think Joan Baez holding free concerts, Timothy Leary dosing everyone with acid and Hunter S. Thompson wandering about in the nude. It’s still going…popular with Silicon Valley tech bros, according to the NYT.
EUDAIMONIC HAPPINESS “In psychology, there are two popular conceptions of happiness: hedonic and eudaimonic. Hedonic happiness is achieved through experiences of pleasure and enjoyment, while eudaimonic happiness is achieved through experiences of meaning and purpose. Both kinds of happiness are achieved and contribute to overall well-being in different ways.” Via ThoughtCo.
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