this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2024
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Humans are all about resources (look at how everyone wants to make more money). Status effectively means access to (human) resources. When you have status, you can tell someone what to do or think and they'll do it or believe you. When someone does something for you or believes what you tell them, you don't only have access to your own resources, you effectively have access to their resources as well, so in the end, status is more important than having resources yourself.
The managers/bosses in a company have status. The musicians in a band playing at a pub have status. The pastor at the church has status. The millionaire has status. The politician has status. The teacher at a dance class has status.
These are easy examples. But there are a myriad more, especially more "sneaky" ones. Status doesn't have to be obvious/institutionalized like the examples above, status is part of every single human interaction.
The "popular friend" has status. For example, they might organize gatherings that people actually come to. If another one of the friend group, that has less status, tried that, less or no people might come. I'm sure you noticed something similar.
Or some gossipy/overly friendly person in the office has status. They make little friends everywhere, give people small meaningless gifts, pay attention what's happening and offer people information (also a resource) for free. If they suddenly start badmouthing someone (even if that person has not deserved it and only angered them for some trivial reason), they might cause the badmouthed person lots of trouble through reducing their status.
Of course, status-seeking behavior is not necessarily bad. A philanthropic, intelligent, always (actually) being nice person also gathers status. People like them, they say true things that help people, which gives them status. They give people favors, like inviting them for food, which also gives them status. And so on.
As you can see, status-seeking behavior is literally everywhere. Our psyche is built to seek more status and it's one of our main drivers in life. For example, if you want to get good at playing an instrument, your driving force behind that desire is seeking the status that comes with it. You might say it "is just fun", but what is fun but a motivational force of your psyche to make you do something? Fun things are fun because doing those things gave an advantage in an evolutionary context. The status that comes with getting good at an instrument and being able to make other people feel good through music is the ultimate "goal" of your evolved behavior.
So yeah, once you understand this, you actually see status-seeking behavior everywhere. And almost everyone is completely unaware of it. I myself am essentially looking for status right now by explaining this to you, I give you a "smart" explanation demonstrating my knowledge that thus makes me look intelligent. There is no direct advantage to me explaining anything to you. It makes me feel good to share my knowledge, which is why I do it. It feels good because demonstrating knowledge/intelligence raises my status.
That's an unnervingly cold, reductionist, cynical take.
What's your alternative?
"My" alternative is to not treat every human interaction as transactional maneuvering to curry favor. It's an incredibly strange commodification of immaterial concepts that rejects or ignores the complexity and nuance of human emotions and motivations. It's simply an inadequate theory.
Well can you at least please tell me some examples of alternate motivations that governs our behavior?
It's hard to answer your request because, you see, your statement is like saying: "Everything is just atoms, so everything is basically the same", it is "reductionist" of higher values, which even atheists have, but the statement itself cannot be denied, nor replaced with an alternative.
Edit: I read your other replies, and you seem to not need this one, to ignore it.
Good response. Though it was a bit wordy.
I know what status means, but I didn't realise what status-seeking behaviour could be referring to, since it was vague. I know you tried to reduce your response to a level that everyone could understand, but that was unnecessary. People have the internet now.
For future reference you could try defining status in a single sentence, which allows people to look it up in a search engine or dictionary without room for confusion/vagueness.
That's not true. You're taking one thought and extending it to try to interpret all of human society with. I've made the same mistake before. Of course, your original thought isn't completely wrong, but you stretched it to almost irrelevant (but not unrelated) levels.
No, I'm afraid I don't. What you call status seeking can be called survival in some cases, enjoyment in some, and a waste of resources in some. Calling it status seeking is a misuse of the term and gross reduction of the behaviour's quirks.
Perhaps a better term would be power-hungry person. But maybe that's not the intent of your thought.
That all may fall apart when you realise your knowledge is biased too much towards a single concept. Or too narrow minded.
Note: No insult intended, no sarcasm inserted.
The abused want freedom from abusers. The enslaved want freedom from the slavers. The poor want sustenance from the rich. The not-poor want greater quality in their life.
None of that is status seeking, unless you twist the meaning. It's hurtful to call it that.
Would materialism or consumerism, then, be the turn-off? Making more of "possessing" than "being" or "doing" is a real turn-off for me.
And, materialism/consumerism is β truly β promoted everywhere.
True.
That's absolutely not true. I'm saying that status-seeking is a part of almost all of our unconscious decision-making processes, not that it's the sole part of our decision-making process. A part != Interpret all with it. Of course there's other parts, like you say, survival.
I can not convey all my knowledge and thoughts in a single comment. Even though I tried to shorten it, you still find too long. The "it's only a part" I found obvious, thus I didn't stretch it, but you would have needed it to be included. You personally didn't need the other parts that you found too long. It's basically impossible to know what you need to talk about when explaining something without a conversation, because we don't know each other's knowledge base. It's even more impossible in a forum-style format, where one comment is read by potentially every human on Earth, each of which have vastly different knowledge bases. What is obvious/superfluous for one is not for someone else.
Do all these things not play together? Isn't having status a way to survive better? Aren't the activities that are enjoyable also the ones that allows us to survive (in a non-modern, ancestral world context in which we evolved)? Isn't having status enjoyable for most?
Okay, but in this case "status" was a basic word while the "it's only a part" was something deeply specific to this conversation. It's not fair to compare the two.
I feel that you're 70% on the mark but then why is it a turn-off for you, as you said in your original message?
Part of the 30%:
Status seeking behaviour has many justifications i.e. that it helps smoothen human interaction, to say the least. So why is it a turn-off for you?
I don't think it helps "smoothen" interaction at all. Of course it depends on the exact situation, like I already described, if it's about helping other people or not affecting anyone negatively, it's completely fine.
But for one example, an unaware status-seeking behavior I see very often is having an Instagram account and posting pictures of their life, in an attempt to gain followers. This could not affect anyone negatively... but 99% of the time, it is, because they interrupt moments that should be enjoyed by being present within the moment with trying to get the perfect picture to show to other people what amazing moments they are experiencing.
The "unaware" was as much of a part of the turn-off as the "status-seeking", maybe even more so. I think if you're aware of your status-seeking behavior, you're able to find much better ways to apply it than if you're unaware of it.