Here are a couple of heavy topics this month. One is personal leading into a national one. And one is very international. I trust we can have fun with them.
Come blind or read the bolded bits or read the whole thing. Nonetheless, it is just our opinions that can only count in the end.
1). Status: Relational Games
Agnes Callard is an American philosopher and an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago. Her primary areas of specialization are ancient philosophy and ethics. From The New Yorker Jan ‘20
The content below the questions section has an arguably interesting (complex) perspective about how we relate to one another. You may choose not to look or read the bolded highlights or the whole thing!
Questions:
1). The content presented here suggests that in an almost unconsciously, deep manner we navigate our professional and even personal relationships in a complex way dealing with ego and status.
Do you believe that relations between people are complex (psychological/ideological) or straightforwardly 'Basic'? In other words do we value someone simply for their intrinsic worth as simply being human and don’t jostle for status or
do we relate on a). the basis of perceived hierarchy and exert some form of dominance or
b). in a leveling humble brag manner and do so mostly unconsciously?
2). Leading from question #1 are we truly aware of the way we present in the world – some may seek dominance while others strive for self effacing humbleness? Is it possible to be truly aware? Can someone close to you reflect your manner honestly and accurately?
3). Does the relational ‘dance’ differ significantly between those close to us as opposed to others?
4). Does the personal ego/status relational dance have an analogy in the much wider context of politics (** defined as Democracy, Autocracy, tribalism, nationalism, ethnicity, ideology)? Do we have the ability to understand “the other” in this wider context? One may take the position that every **politics has intrinsic value (a left position?) or believe that there is a hierarchy of how to organize human society (a right position?) – Such as in, “my **politics has higher status than another.” M ore on this in part 2 on "A New World Order."
CONTENT;
1) Basic Game; When you first meet someone, you “feel each other out” to see where your lives might connect. This leads to the other 'games' below.
2) In the Importance Game, participants jockey for position. This usually works by way of casual references to wealth, talent, accomplishment or connections, but there are many variants. I can, for instance, play this game by pretending to eschew it: “Let’s get straight down to business” telegraphing that I am much too important to waste time with such games; or your being so unimportant as to render the game beneath us.
3) The other game is the Leveling Game, and it uses empathy to equalize the players. So I might performatively share feelings of stress, inadequacy or weakness; or express discontent with the Powers that Be; or home in on a source of communal outrage, frustration or oppression.
A player of the Importance Game tries to ascend high enough to reach for something that will set her above her interlocutor; a player of the Leveling Game reaches down low enough to demonstrate powerlessness in order to establish equality.
4) In the advanced games we pretend not to be playing them. It is not okay to approach a new acquaintance with: “Let us set up a contest to figure out which of the two of us is smarter.” Nor would it be reasonable for me to say to my colleague: “How the administration oppresses us! Let us unite in self-pity.”
Players of the Basic Game are permitted to come pretty close to explicitly saying “Let us see what places/people/interests we have in common.” With the other two games this kind of explicitness itself violates one of the rules of the game. Call this “The Self-Effacing Rule.”
In the rigid social class system (James Boswell’s Life Of Johnson), Samuel Johnson often speaks in defence of social order, because it creates a shared public knowledge of where everyone stands. Consider that the least stressful new interactions in life might be in an institution such as the army, because status relations were immediately evident and common knowledge—you just looked at how many stripes the person had on his shoulder and that was that, status negotiations complete.
By contrast, in the secular world, confusion reigns: billionaires wear hoodies, it is high-status to pretend you are low-status.
When status must be renegotiated in every interaction with strangers, people end up spending a lot of time asking and being asked the question “Just who do you think you are?”
The mystery is why we feel required to pretend that this is not what we are doing. Why do we play it?
Either game in its pure form—“I am so important” or “I am nobody special”—feels heavy-handed and dull.
Those in the “Important Game” lighten their self-importance by emphasizing the struggles they face or their humble origins; likewise, you can add zest to the Leveling Game by finding ways to turn empathy into a status battleground. Complaining about how busy one is hits a sweet spot of oppression—I cannot manage my life!—and importance—because I am so in demand! When you’re playing with a master, it can be hard to tell which game you’re in.
The question that in part drives our (personal and political) relational interactions is what makes a person valuable? One answer is: the fact that you are a person. This way of answering rests on the thought that all people are equally worthy: INTRINSIC value is something you get for free, by being a certain kind of creature. Another way to answer would be to talk about EARNED value that you have acquired for yourself. Sometimes the political right is characterized as the party of competitive striving, and the left as the party of equality and dignity.
There is a conundrum at the root of all this: morality requires we maintain a safety net at the bottom that catches everyone — the alternative is simply inhumane — but we also need an aspirational target at the top, so as to inspire us to excellence, creativity and accomplishment. In other words, we need worth to come for free, and we also need to encourage and acknowledge excellence.
This is a giant unsolved problem, and it touches us all.
We may not explicitly articulate it, but we feel it, and project the psychic turmoil it generates onto our interactions with one another:
- there is a hierarchy, one of us is more valuable—no, no, no, hierarchy is evil, everyone is equally valuable; I want to be at the top—no, no, no, I’m perfectly comfortable wherever you are.
A person who cannot see to the bottom of her own ideas becomes a vehicle for the transmission of confusion.
Status jostling is the mess that results from leaving some of our ethical theorizing undone. We don’t know who we think we are, and it shows.
2). Have we entered a New World Order?
Do you buy the conception of a New World Order? Will the US be trusted as a reliable trader and an ally? Or will this fade eventually? Or will the US become an autocracy, accelerating the change in the world order even further?
America has sided with Russia and North Korea against Ukraine and Europe. Merz, Germany's Chancellor warns that NATO may be dead. A might -is-right world in which big powers cut deals and bully smaller ones is upon us. A shakedown of Ukraine's mineral resources is happening (as opposed to the Marshall of 1945 for Germany). Territory is up for negotiations or worse. When borders are contestable wars can follow. The US saves 100 billion in interest by being the world's trading currency and it's companies have foreign business worth 16 trillion. That is beginning to be undone. South East Asian allies are beginning to reconsider giving access to bases on their territory.
Europe is beginning to turn to each other for security. Centrally, supply chains are being massively disrupted.
