Claim that our obsession with status is a zero sum game by definition. Not everyone can be high status, right? There have to be losers in the status game. It's a disaster to the egalitarian dream because it says it's an impossibility. The communist experiment kind of proves that,. you know, everything from the crazy level of kind of class stratification had in the Soviet Union... Stalin was still alive.
“Life is a game. There’s no way to understand the human world without first understanding this. Everyone alive is playing a game whose hidden rules are built into us and that silently directs our thoughts, beliefs and actions. This game is inside us. It is us. We can’t help but play.”
So begins “The Status Game,” a new book by acclaimed writer Will Storr.
He continues: “We play for status, if only subtly, with every social interaction, every contribution we make to work, love or family life and every internet post. We play with how we dress, how we speak and what we believe. … Life is not a journey towards a perfect destination. It’s a game that never ends. And it’s the very worst of us.”
Does it have to be?
We may not be able to quit the status game, but Will says we can learn to play it better. In this episode, he explains how.
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