#294 — Status Games - Making Sense with Sam Harris  ## Metadata - Author: **Making Sense with Sam Harris** - Full Title: #294 — Status Games - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/3f020fed-eb67-4b0b-a5d1-87788be90d23 ## Highlights - Status Summary: status is simply the feeling of being valued, he says. Psychologists find we have a craving for belongingness and connection. We want to be loved and join groups - but once in those groups there's an urge to move up. That's what status is. Transcript: Speaker 1 Lizard people. Shape-shifting lizard people. Yeah, yeah. And as I say, he threw me out of his house when he felt I was insufficiently well read on his endless multi-thousand page books. Wow. Speaker 2 Okay. Well, so status. What is status? I think people have a gut feeling for the concept, but many people would be hard pressed to give it anything like a coherent definition. How do you think about status? Speaker 1 Well, it's simply the feeling of being valued. Sometimes when you talk about status, people think, oh, he's saying that everybody wants to be rich. He's saying that everybody wants to be famous in a celebrity. And of course, wealth and fame are part of status, but all status really is the feeling of being of value. So when psychologists look at our kind of deep needs, our deep cravings, they find we have a craving for belongingness and connection, that's one thing. We want to be loved and we want to join groups. We're tribal, obviously. But once we're in those groups, there's a kind of urge to move up, to feel not just loved but valued. Speaker 2 And that's what status is. I can hear there's going to be a subliminal tug of war between my saying status and your saying status. But I think we should both stick to our respective countries here. ([Time 0:15:11](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8758ade8-7784-43e5-888a-213f2eadb8e6)) - Is It All About Status? Summary: It's how you're measuring status. You know, we're so amazing at playing these status games. We can use anything to measure status and it's certainly not all about money. Every game has got this different way of,. a different thing of standing with status. And all this connects to the concept of identity. How do you think about identity in light of the never ending possibility of finding new status games? Transcript: Speaker 1 Yeah, and it's how you're measuring status. You know, we're so amazing at playing these status games. We can use anything to measure status. It's certainly not all about money. You know, my wife and I have been to, you know, a place like San Trape in France, places where we could, you know, we're surrounded. We're in the bottom 1% of, well, it's San Trape. But even we, you know, we managed to look down our noses at a lot of foot because, oh, this, oh, this, oh, this, oh, this, oh, this, oh, look at that. You know, like, it's not about money. So it's, you know, we've got our own ways of measuring status. They've got their own ways of measuring status. No, they were looking us and seeing these, you know, scruffy, her buttsuit with bad shoes, who shouldn't be there. And we were looking at them as these ridiculously over the top, you know, orange skinned idiots. So it all depends on how you're measuring status, how you're assessing status. Every game as it's different, almost like tokens, you know, like on the Monopoly board, you've got plastic houses and hotels, every game has got this different way of, a different thing Of standing with status. Speaker 2 And all this connects to the concept of identity. How do you think about identity in light of the sort of never ending possibility of finding new status games and having one supersede the next? How do you think of personhood, perhaps a healthy sense of personhood in light of that landscape? Speaker 1 Well, I mean, it's huge. I mean, I think, you know, to a great extent, we become the games that we play, you know, when I say I'm a writer, that I'm not talking about what I do for a job. That's a massive part of my identity, because that's 95% of the source of the status in my life. ([Time 0:26:48](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c206d0fc-e4c6-464a-b751-9095e749f86d)) - The Virtue Game Summary: There are three different genres of status game that humans generally play. Dominance is aggression or the threat of it, while virtue is about knowing the rules and following them. You can see people like the Pope, the Dalai Lama, Michelle Obama as global superstars of the virtue game. Transcript: Speaker 1 Well, it's about playing the right game. So I think there are basically three different genres of status game that humans generally play. There are three kinds of status game. The first kind of status game is the dominance game. We've been playing dominance games for millions of years since before we were human. Dominance is aggression or the threat of it. So when hens peck each other to establish a pecking order, that's a dominance game. We still do that. Obviously, we still do that. It's not just physical violence. There's also any kind of coercion, bullying, ostracization, you're going to threat. Anytime somebody is forcing you to attend to them in humility as if they're a high-status person, that's dominance. So that's dominance. It's also the virtue game. When we became human and became tribal, one of the ways we could end status is by being virtuous. So virtue is all about knowing the rules, following the rules, enforcing the rules. There's also about belief, how well and how sincerely do you believe the stories and myths and legends and laws of the tribe. So that's the virtue game. You can see people like the Pope, the Dalai Lama, Michelle Obama. These are kind of super stars, global superstars of the virtue game. They're famous for being good. Over here in the UK, the royal family is a kind of virtue game. It's all about deference and respect and believing in all your heart, the queen. And it fucked up family, a really special and important. ([Time 0:35:24](https://share.snipd.com/snip/dcb25038-9828-4a07-9706-1e9ea4ae4194))