Status is generally defined as a person’s condition, position, or standing relative to that of others.
Please read that definition again and consider this:
Status automatically creates division and conflict.
Status forces us to think in terms of position, hierarchy, and dominance, and can’t possibly do otherwise; it is built solely upon our standing relative to others.
Status, then, is a poison. No matter how acclimated to it we may be, it causes us to think of others as adversaries and to compulsively compare positions.
Status, to be blunt about it, is a primate model of seeing other beings. It requires us to think of ourselves as above or below every other person: Dominator or dominated.
Evolution
Status stands before us as an evolutionary hurdle. If humanity is to rise as a species, it absolutely must transcend status. Until we do, humans will continue to think primate thoughts, encourage primate responses. and structure our societies for aggression.
Status-based structures will always set one man or group of men above all others. Those “higher” will collect the production of the “lower,” issue edicts they are forced to obey, and punish those who do not.
In other words, the ruling systems of the present world are incarnations of status; they are “status made flesh,” to paraphrase a famous scripture. And status will always set man against man and group against group.
Human Nature
Status isn’t properly “us.” We may have some bias toward it, and we’ve certainly been trained in over hundreds of generations, but it doesn’t have to dominate us. In fact, humans tend to transcend status; we’re quite good at dropping it among family and friends, for example.
So, even while immersed in the poisonous and persistent mindscape of status, we still demonstrate unforced cooperation, and a lot of it.
A better future lies in this direction
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Please see Post-Primate Society.
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Paul Rosenberg
freemansperspective.com