The Status Game: On Human Life and How to Play It

by Will Storr

According to a world leader in this field, Professor Steve Cole, ‘several studies have related objective indicators of low social status to increased expression of pro-inflammatory genes and/or decreased expression of antiviral genes. Being beaten down in the rat race naturally changes what you expect from tomorrow, and that does seem to filter down into the way your cells prepare for tomorrow.’

We feel like heroes in stories. This is the illusion the brain spins for us. It makes us feel as if we are the hero at the centre of the universe, orbited by a cast of supporting characters. The goals of our lives are the plots that consume us, as we overcome obstacles and strive nobly towards happy endings.

Life is a three-dimensional picture show, a story that we watch inside our heads.

What’s actually out there are vibrating particles, floating chemical compounds, molecules and colourless light waves of varying lengths. Our perceptions of these phenomena are special effects in a brain-generated movie.

help your family; help your group; return favours; be brave; defer to superiors; divide resources fairly; respect others’ property. These elemental rules dictate the ways humans keep their tribes working well.

three varieties of status-striving and three varieties of game: dominance, virtue and success. In dominance games, status is coerced by force or fear. In virtue games, status is awarded to players who are conspicuously dutiful, obedient and moralistic. In success games, status is awarded for the achievement of closely specified outcomes, beyond simply winning, that require skill, talent or knowledge. Mafias and armies are dominance games. Religions and royal institutions are virtue games. Corporations and sporting contests are success games.

We don’t need to tear each other’s limbs and genitals off and drink their blood for status, as chimpanzees do, when we can earn it by raising our prestige and displaying our ranking with ivory lions and glittering shells.

Research suggests we start mimicking people who display competence at tasks at around 14 months.

Because profit-making companies fail to pay them enough to live, their wages are topped up by welfare credits. This arrangement neglects to consider the overwhelming importance of status. When we force hardworking people to accept handouts, we commit on them an injustice: we steal from them something they’ve earned.

Tight virtue games weave hostile dreams. They live inside imagined territories that are blasted by the winds of toxic morality. Their players believe themselves to be heroes battling grotesque forces of injustice. These cartoons of reality become dangerous by casting their enemies into the role of one-dimensional baddie. Whilst the civilising mission of the New Left demonises white people (especially white men etc.), the New Right demonise ethnic minorities they see as being gifted unfair rank by the educated elites.