Interesting reading about what confers status in NK. Instead of money, organisational proximity to the king seems to matter. And from article:
Literary success means becoming a “professional revolutionary” with lots of perks: a three-month “creativity leave” every year, permission to travel freely around the country, and special housing privileges.
Clearly chasing status is what matters, except in my world I'm used to the middle class game of chasing status by chasing money.
I just want to do stuff with my life and have a nice home in a place I feel comfortable in. Why the heck do so many people in our societies work to yoke the pursuit of this sort of happiness to status games? I can guess why, rhetorical question.
You should probably listen to the show or read the transcript. In part because you're likely not as immune to "status games" as you perhaps like to think.
There are universals, but it's a fact that people speaking about human behavior overgeneralize.
I know I'm not immune to status. I like seeing that karma counter go up or replies because it says I'm not just writing into a void. It shows that I'm making some human connection. It's that I don't crave status in nearly the amounts some people do. I prioritize other things over status for its own sake, and so do many others. And given the status-oriented power structure our societies revolve around this means our lives and opportunities are limited beyond what our merits would otherwise indicate.
Most discussions about status tend to pick one dimension - e.g. middle class lifestyle - and argue a strawman generalisation about what "we" strive for.
Status measurement strongly depends on the group we are trying to compete within. A lead guitarist can say they hate money while still striving for status as a musician.
Geeks definitely have their own status games. Petrol-heads play different status games than librarians or artists or executives or academics.
Many people say they are not status conscious, but that is often just an indication that they are playing an alternative status game than the socially standard one.
It is easier to see status games that people in other social groups compete for (hilarity is one signal). Our own status drives are often hidden to ourselves.
Also sometimes people choose not to play competitively: which means they are less aware of the skills of the games as played by others.
I definitely try to rebel against status norms - but counter-signalling is also a status play by the advanced competitor. Muddy!
It's incredibly hard to rebel against what you need. But there are people who constantly need to be involved with other people, and also those who can only tolerate being around people on an as needed basis. I'm not quite the latter, but am much closer to it than the former.
Being socially inclined or affiliative is not an antonym of introversion. And asocial or hyposocial extraverts exist as well as asocial and hyposocial introverts.
If you're a socially inclined person I greatly appreciate you having my back by poking at status norms to the extent feasible. :)
The obviously fun takeaway would be that if we put North Korea as a 9 on the Dear Leader scale, and USSR under Stalin at 8, then the USA will rate 4 its President cult, and that would be much higher than the rest of Western world.
That's the essential genius of constitutional monarchy - by investing the royal family with immense status but no actual power, we reduce the status of those who wield real power to mere public servants. The Prime Minister must ask the monarch's permission to form a government, in the knowledge that the monarch has no actual power to refuse. Those who hold public office swear an oath of loyalty to the monarch, in the knowledge that the monarch's power is wholly and irrevocably delegated to parliament and the judiciary.
The monarch is in essence an empty vessel, symbolising whatever version of Britishness we happen to believe in. Regardless of the government of the day or the divisions that may arise in society, the crown endures. The man or woman responsible for running the country does so as a temporary custodian.
Britain is dysfunctional in all sorts of ways, but the parts that function best are extremely Lindy. The monarchy, like our unelected upper house, is completely idiotic in theory but incredibly successful in practice.
But is what you describe a good thing? People seek status. By removing status from being Prime Minister you make being Prime Minister merely another step on the path to status. I'm not sure it's a good thing for someone to see being Prime Minister as a means of leverage to something else they want.
The UK deal with the royals is really quite different. There may be an over-fascination but there isn't a huge amount of deference, and if the royals want to make things happen that are not popular, they have to use very twisty back door routes. The (public) relationship that even fervent royal supporters have towards the royals is nothing like the (public ) relationship with Stalin et al.
Also, it's pretty easy in the UK to say that the royal family is stupid and they suck and they leech money from working people and nothing will happen.
The USA managed to do something special: replace the cult of personality with the cult of the Party. There are two parties, but their followers are quite rabid and would probably kill for their party if told to. So if we expand the criteria for "dear leader" to include parties I think the US would be at a 7 or 8.
If this was the case there wouldn't be so much hagiography for any given president or presidential candidate.
I also think a 7 or 8 rating is way too high for the US even on a party level. A 7 or 8, given the Kims are a 9 or 10, would probably be more along the lines of a Xi (observing that former heads of state of China have been unceremoniously retired, which shows that personality only goes so far even in an effectively single party structure).
There are people who won't talk to anyone from the political religion opposite to theirs. Both sides call each other Nazis. And they'll vote for a candidate from their party even if the candidate would have to rule without regaining consciousness before they'd consider the other party. I think that's a pretty extreme level of brainwashing.
Yes, but you'll find rabid rabble rousers in spectator sports as well. While this may say something about the polarization of the parties, it says a bit more about individual and group psychology. And doesn't say much at all about the organization of power in the US.
