I agree, and that would imply that today’s environment favors acting high status. And in fact I have a pet theory that the increase in urbanization and mobility in, say, the 1900s have led to a shift to more socially aggressive short-term status posturing behaviors (vs. carefully cultivating a reputation long-term.) This accounts, among other things, for the rise of the “self-esteem” movement as well as the recent rise of pickup artistry, which in its initial forms was nothing more than a way to rachet up your apparent status, unsustainably, for the short term, and was therefore dependent on urban anonymity. Susan Cain agrees with the timeline: http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/9439
So this explains why people are playing high status these days. It doesn’t explain why other people often don’t react badly to status plays.
How exactly do you imagine “reacting badly” to someone?
There are two basic ways to put down a person: a personal attack, or a coordinated group attack.
A personal attack is reasonable only if you think you win, and even then your personal benefits should outweigh the possible costs (which are always non-zero). In an ancient environment, the alpha male would beat the pretender badly, and any accidental damage to the alpha male would be just a necessary cost for maintaining his position.
In today’s environment, we have laws. But we also have people who break the laws. You should not attack the person physically, because that is illegal; but if you attack the person verbally, there is always a chance that they will counterattack physically. (If you are in an environment where some kind of physicall attack is acceptable, still: you attack them with fists, they may counterattack with a knife.) So the risks of confrontation are high. You also have to care about signalling—even if punishing people with harmful behavior brings a net gain, the fact that you decided to do the punishment, exposes you to a possible intra-group attack. Some people will have different models of reality: they will say that what you did was even worse than what the other person was doing.
The traditional choice for average people is a coordinated group attack. In a village, it is easy to coordinate. Just wait until the person leaves the room. Then carefully discuss your opinion (of them acting high-status while not being so) with your friends. If everyone agrees, you know you have a group support, and you know you didn’t miss something that the others could have noticed. Next time the person comes, they will find themselves with a low status.
In a big town this mechanism breaks, because people are not meeting regularly in the same setting. Someone unknown comes, acts high-status, leaves, and you may never see them again, or never again in the presence of exactly the same people. So you can’t coordinate a group attack. Also you have much less information about the person, than you would have in an ancient environment.
You would have to find a good strategy for “reacting badly” to socially agressive people and be sure that people around you share your definition and agree with your strategy. Otherwise you will be considered agressive, and people you personally know may start to avoid you.
In a tribal environment lying about status carries higher risks.
I agree, and that would imply that today’s environment favors acting high status. And in fact I have a pet theory that the increase in urbanization and mobility in, say, the 1900s have led to a shift to more socially aggressive short-term status posturing behaviors (vs. carefully cultivating a reputation long-term.) This accounts, among other things, for the rise of the “self-esteem” movement as well as the recent rise of pickup artistry, which in its initial forms was nothing more than a way to rachet up your apparent status, unsustainably, for the short term, and was therefore dependent on urban anonymity. Susan Cain agrees with the timeline: http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/9439
So this explains why people are playing high status these days. It doesn’t explain why other people often don’t react badly to status plays.
How exactly do you imagine “reacting badly” to someone?
There are two basic ways to put down a person: a personal attack, or a coordinated group attack.
A personal attack is reasonable only if you think you win, and even then your personal benefits should outweigh the possible costs (which are always non-zero). In an ancient environment, the alpha male would beat the pretender badly, and any accidental damage to the alpha male would be just a necessary cost for maintaining his position.
In today’s environment, we have laws. But we also have people who break the laws. You should not attack the person physically, because that is illegal; but if you attack the person verbally, there is always a chance that they will counterattack physically. (If you are in an environment where some kind of physicall attack is acceptable, still: you attack them with fists, they may counterattack with a knife.) So the risks of confrontation are high. You also have to care about signalling—even if punishing people with harmful behavior brings a net gain, the fact that you decided to do the punishment, exposes you to a possible intra-group attack. Some people will have different models of reality: they will say that what you did was even worse than what the other person was doing.
The traditional choice for average people is a coordinated group attack. In a village, it is easy to coordinate. Just wait until the person leaves the room. Then carefully discuss your opinion (of them acting high-status while not being so) with your friends. If everyone agrees, you know you have a group support, and you know you didn’t miss something that the others could have noticed. Next time the person comes, they will find themselves with a low status.
In a big town this mechanism breaks, because people are not meeting regularly in the same setting. Someone unknown comes, acts high-status, leaves, and you may never see them again, or never again in the presence of exactly the same people. So you can’t coordinate a group attack. Also you have much less information about the person, than you would have in an ancient environment.
You would have to find a good strategy for “reacting badly” to socially agressive people and be sure that people around you share your definition and agree with your strategy. Otherwise you will be considered agressive, and people you personally know may start to avoid you.