Several comments have remarked on the obvious-in-retrospect nature of this post. Indeed it seems so obvious now that I find it almost unreal to think of a time (i.e., hours ago) when offense wasn’t obviously about status.
Why are we so bad at recognizing some obvious truths, I wonder? I’m pretty sure I had read or at least skimmed that Slate article when it was first published, but it still took me days to make the connection between “offense” and “status” after the controversy arose here. And this was after being primed to think about status from frequently reading LessWrong and OvercomingBias. And the original offending comment itself, which has been quoted multiple times, mentioned status. WTH?
I think maybe status is the wrong approach. Status sounds neutral enough and easily changed. But if we swap it out for the word ‘power’, then it works better, and now we can handle arguments about status, why people won’t change their linguistic ways, etc.
I didn’t think it appropriate for LW because it seemed a bit too fluffy and based on personal experience, but maybe this post shows I was wrong in that.
I thought it would be clear from the context that I meant social status, which is decidedly not neutral or easily changed. I haven’t read your essay closely, but your notion of “power” is probably a closely related, if not identical, concept.
I’ll add a link to my post to prevent future confusion.
Funnily enough, one person reading my disrespect essay last week commented that it reminded him a lot of Johnstone, and recommended exactly that book. (I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet.)
I read your essay, you should definitely read Impro. When people talk about social status, they are talking about some stable trait-like thing that you can achieve by for example buying a nice car.
In your essay, you are talking more about the pecking order or dominance hierarchy, which we constantly maintain and test by our actions. That’s why many actions of humans can also be viewed as “status transactions”.
I also recommend books by Desmond Morris, especially Human Zoo. Many Johnstone’s ideas are based on Morris.
Whenever we talk about status it’s always other people. I think maybe this is because keeping track of the conversation about status, and doing your regular subconscious monitoring of your own status, and consciously observing the subconscious monitoring of status by yourself and those around you all at once is just too much.
Also, making meta references went out of style a long time ago, and a person who wants to talk about status in general while talking about what status movements are occurring currently is going to have to use a lot (e.g. “I’ll bet you wouldn’t have made that comment about status if your status was lower.”)
Several comments have remarked on the obvious-in-retrospect nature of this post. Indeed it seems so obvious now that I find it almost unreal to think of a time (i.e., hours ago) when offense wasn’t obviously about status.
Why are we so bad at recognizing some obvious truths, I wonder? I’m pretty sure I had read or at least skimmed that Slate article when it was first published, but it still took me days to make the connection between “offense” and “status” after the controversy arose here. And this was after being primed to think about status from frequently reading LessWrong and OvercomingBias. And the original offending comment itself, which has been quoted multiple times, mentioned status. WTH?
I think maybe status is the wrong approach. Status sounds neutral enough and easily changed. But if we swap it out for the word ‘power’, then it works better, and now we can handle arguments about status, why people won’t change their linguistic ways, etc.
I have an old essay on this at http://www.gwern.net/On%20Disrespect
I didn’t think it appropriate for LW because it seemed a bit too fluffy and based on personal experience, but maybe this post shows I was wrong in that.
Fixed link.
I thought it would be clear from the context that I meant social status, which is decidedly not neutral or easily changed. I haven’t read your essay closely, but your notion of “power” is probably a closely related, if not identical, concept.
I’ll add a link to my post to prevent future confusion.
Johnstone, mentioned by jajvirta below, posits that his version of status is an eufemism for dominance hierarchy, which is one instance of power.
Funnily enough, one person reading my disrespect essay last week commented that it reminded him a lot of Johnstone, and recommended exactly that book. (I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet.)
I read your essay, you should definitely read Impro. When people talk about social status, they are talking about some stable trait-like thing that you can achieve by for example buying a nice car.
In your essay, you are talking more about the pecking order or dominance hierarchy, which we constantly maintain and test by our actions. That’s why many actions of humans can also be viewed as “status transactions”.
I also recommend books by Desmond Morris, especially Human Zoo. Many Johnstone’s ideas are based on Morris.
Wow. Yeah.
Whenever we talk about status it’s always other people. I think maybe this is because keeping track of the conversation about status, and doing your regular subconscious monitoring of your own status, and consciously observing the subconscious monitoring of status by yourself and those around you all at once is just too much.
Also, making meta references went out of style a long time ago, and a person who wants to talk about status in general while talking about what status movements are occurring currently is going to have to use a lot (e.g. “I’ll bet you wouldn’t have made that comment about status if your status was lower.”)
Reminds me of this C&H strip.
Not true. Signaling is often (always?) done to raise your own status.
Huh?