Social Status and Its Importance

We're all status seeking monkeys, and we're trying to do whatever we can to most increase our social status. We earn prestige not just by being rich, beautiful and good at sports, but also by being funny, artistic, smart, well spoken, charming and kind. Compared to most other animals, every human is a certifiable genius, but that fact does little to help us in competitions within our own species. Even the poorest members of to day's world are richer by many material standards than the kings and queens of yester year,. yet they remain at the bottom of the prestige ladder.