|
↖ Homepage of the site 'What to do with your life?'
What are the consequences of social ambition?
The notion of generalized nepotism.
Our species, homo sapiens, functions in the wild in hierarchical social groups. Social ambition is the very strong instinctive motivation that individuals have, including in our modern urbanized societies, to try to rise in the social hierarchy. The basic strategy for this is to make alliances at various levels.
In fact, each individual finds himself at the center of various circles, with for each circle the individuals inside fighting against those outside. For example, the individual may fight against his brothers and sisters within the family, but is allied with his entire family to protect himself against the rest of society. The individual fights against his colleagues for a promotion, but is allied with them against competing companies, which themselves fight among themselves but are allied within corporations to defend their common interests. The individual is part of a social class which fights against others, but all these classes can be united within a nation state which fights against others, etc.
This system of multiple circles around the individual is what I call Generalized nepotism, and leads to permanent 'type' struggles against them '. Such a system is therefore extremely violent, and even if violence is contained in the periods favorable by law, such a system is still anxiety -provoking. Indeed, another individual is always both an ally when you consider a sufficiently large group, and an enemy when you consider a smaller group.
In terms of behavior, this leads individuals to practice hypocrisy intensely, that is to say display respect and benevolence towards individuals that we little appreciate, even hate, at the bottom of oneself.
Alliance strategies
There are two main alliance strategies. One consists of seeking allies through apparent benevolence (the Chester monkey from the report Caribbean primates). The other consists of terrorizing them to impose servile loyalty (the monkey Tony from the report Caribbean primates).
If the end of the 20th century brought down many myths, such as making little girls believe that their happiness would come from meeting Prince Charming, the myth which consists of believing that the problem of the game of alliances is linked to the behavior of individuals who practice it through terror remains.
The reality observed when we carefully look at the behavior of groups is that what poses a problem is the very notion of the game of alliances, as opposed to the way in which individuals practice it. Indeed, to be stable, alliances need to be based on dogmas. So that whatever the way in which it is practiced, the game of alliances leads to a lack of interest in the facts, in favor of respect for the dogmas which unite each group and favors us - who believe in the dogma - against them.
There are also secondary alliance modalities, all the more effective as human language is sophisticated, and allows effective action on the mental image of others:
•
|
the lie. It consists of presenting to others a knowingly distorted, or simply truncated, reality in order to obtain more alliances. This is the modality that we implement when lying to oneself resulting from cognitive dissonance is not enough to create complicity. It is perhaps also, among humans, the main tool for conquering power and fame, even if the alliances thus produced are versatile.
|
•
|
the pageantry. It is about magnifying the signs of a high social status (lifestyle, position, diploma, self-promotion, clothing, vocabulary, body attitude) in order to push others to seek an alliance.
|
•
|
each other. It consists of displaying signs of recognition (dress, vocabulary, body posture) to facilitate the identification of potential allies.
|
•
|
victimization. This is a variant of the search for allies through benevolence, where the driving individual does not seek an alliance with individuals lower in the social hierarchy, but seeks an alliance with individuals more high places. The goal is to obtain protection that is not motivated by the loyalty of the lowest-ranking individual, but by the empathy of the highest-ranking individual.
|
Main consequence of social ambition
To summarize, the social ambition leads to favor respect for dogmas, and to ignore the practical negative consequences and the suffering that this generates. The second characteristic of humans is then added, cognitive dissonance, which allows them to do this while maintaining a good image of themselves.
Go deeper
To better understand social ambition, and widespread nepotism, watch the document Caribbean primates by Jack Silberman and Jean-Christophe Ribot, available on Arte replay, then refer to chapter 2 'Widespread nepotism' from the book From capital to reason.
See then the question 'How to succeed in life?'Who presents the great behavioral alternative of a human life, namely to follow the path dictated by social ambition, or go beyond it.
|