For Americans, Meryl Streep may be far more popular than Vladimir Putin, but that does not translate into a corresponding hierarchy of fears.
It’s a common error of too many parents to believe that fear brings respect. In my experience, fear brings hatred. Only the self-preservation parts of the reaction to fear are often mistaken for gestures of respect. Again, my experience is that true respect comes from admiration.
But again the problem is that does status mean popularity? What does that mean? It is not that I think popularity creates fear, I think status as such does not equal popularity, it is more like being seen a BIG, not popular, and t this may or may not create fear.
As for fear and respect, this is highly complicated IMHO. As far as I can tell, there are some people who genuinely respect those who scare them because they admire their fearsomeness. I think at our school the bully type guys genuinely respected the scariest male teachers as basically they saw them a role model on how to be a bigger bully. I think there is something true about the cliche “these villains only respect violence” type stuff from movies. Basically it means, often when people were hurt a lot, they will turn very defensive and the best defense is an offense and thus adopt a hard, tough “don’t try messing with me” frame. At that point, those who are more fearsome may be genuinely respected and imitated. This is pretty common with males of lower-class background, the most dangerous looking MMA guys having the most respect.
Needless to say, I don’t consider it healthy. I mean, not healthy for children. As for adults… I would say, for most people, by the time we turned 30, unless we lived in very sheltered circumstances, we probably developed a darker, harder, “don’t try messing with me” side just as a cumulative effect of conflicts and bullying received and all that. And thus we may respect scary dominant people. It is probably part of the normal cumulative emotional scarring going on with life. Well, or mine is abnormal.
That’s respect that leads to avoiding conflicts with those people. On the other hand we usually don’t build relationships with them that are about exchanging favors.
Is status about favor exchange? I really would like a definition of what status is and isn’t. My go-to definition is that it is about being “big”. This is primitive, but that is the whole point, it has to be.
Status is about access to resources and control for resources. A person who gets favors from other people can access more resources.
Having the ability to physically beat up a doctor isn’t likely to give you any preferential treatment from the doctors. Other forms of social status do.
For Americans, Meryl Streep may be far more popular than Vladimir Putin, but that does not translate into a corresponding hierarchy of fears.
It’s a common error of too many parents to believe that fear brings respect. In my experience, fear brings hatred. Only the self-preservation parts of the reaction to fear are often mistaken for gestures of respect. Again, my experience is that true respect comes from admiration.
But again the problem is that does status mean popularity? What does that mean? It is not that I think popularity creates fear, I think status as such does not equal popularity, it is more like being seen a BIG, not popular, and t this may or may not create fear.
As for fear and respect, this is highly complicated IMHO. As far as I can tell, there are some people who genuinely respect those who scare them because they admire their fearsomeness. I think at our school the bully type guys genuinely respected the scariest male teachers as basically they saw them a role model on how to be a bigger bully. I think there is something true about the cliche “these villains only respect violence” type stuff from movies. Basically it means, often when people were hurt a lot, they will turn very defensive and the best defense is an offense and thus adopt a hard, tough “don’t try messing with me” frame. At that point, those who are more fearsome may be genuinely respected and imitated. This is pretty common with males of lower-class background, the most dangerous looking MMA guys having the most respect.
Needless to say, I don’t consider it healthy. I mean, not healthy for children. As for adults… I would say, for most people, by the time we turned 30, unless we lived in very sheltered circumstances, we probably developed a darker, harder, “don’t try messing with me” side just as a cumulative effect of conflicts and bullying received and all that. And thus we may respect scary dominant people. It is probably part of the normal cumulative emotional scarring going on with life. Well, or mine is abnormal.
That’s respect that leads to avoiding conflicts with those people. On the other hand we usually don’t build relationships with them that are about exchanging favors.
Is status about favor exchange? I really would like a definition of what status is and isn’t. My go-to definition is that it is about being “big”. This is primitive, but that is the whole point, it has to be.
Status is about access to resources and control for resources. A person who gets favors from other people can access more resources.
Having the ability to physically beat up a doctor isn’t likely to give you any preferential treatment from the doctors. Other forms of social status do.