[WS:] "I do not understand your point. Assuming that status attainment is a natural phenomenon in social animals (including humans), it follows that attempts to eradicate status differences from social life are for the most part futile."
Maybe "natural" but not universal or inevitable. The drive for status seems to come mostly from insecurity, vis-a-vis parents, or siblings or peers. Furthermore, given the power of advertising to evoke it, you might call it more a "susceptibility" than a drive.
I would imagine that concerns with status would pretty much disappear as people became more fully developed, more genuinely individual, more truly free.
BobW --- Wojtek Sokolowski <swsokolowski at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> --- Bill Bartlett <billbartlett at aapt.net.au> wrote:
>
> > What an odd conclusion. Not even consistent with
> > your own arguments,
> > let alone being at odds with the obvious reality
> > that the ability to
> > accumulate wealth varies widely between
> individuals.
> > Different people
> > have hugely differing natural advantages and
> > disadvantages. I take
> > it this must have been an attempt at humour?
>
>
> [WS:] I do not understand your point. Assuming that
> status attainment is a natural phenomenon in social
> animals (including humans), it follows that attempts
> to eradicate status differences from social life are
> for the most part futile. Assuming, furthermore,
> that
> equal opportunity (if not strict egalitarianism) is
> an
> ethically desirable thing (an assumption that most
> of
> us here I believe share), it follows that that those
> ways of status attainment that give more people a
> chance are more ethically desirable than those that
> restrict status attainment to a select few
> "predestined" by birth or having certain in-born
> characteristics.
>
> It is quite obvious that more people have an
> opportunity to achieve status by accumulating
> material
> possessions than by any other "natural"
> characteristics that I mentioned, so from that
> standpoint wealth accumulation is a more desirbale
> way
> of attining status than that based on birth,
> physical
> strength, sexual attractiveness, skin color, etc.
> What is so strange about this conclusion?
>
> As a point of clarification, I am not proposing that
> status diffrences are ethically desirable. On the
> contrary, I consider them ethically undesirable,
> just
> like killing other living things. However, they are
> also unavoidable, a basic fact of life if you will,
> just like killing other living things is.
> Therefore,
> minimizing the negative consequences of status
> attainment (e.g. deprivation or suffering of others)
> is the best we can hope for. This is analogous to
> minimizing the negative consequences of killing
> living
> things by doing it in a "humane" way that minimizes
> pain and suffering - it is the best we can hope for
> without risking extinction.
>
> Wojtek
>
>
>
>
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