David Pinsof writes: We all want status, but we can’t admit it. Why? Because it’s uncool. Wanting status makes us look selfish, insecure, and low-status. Ew. We’re not supposed to care about petty things like money or fame; we’re supposed to care about noble things like integrity or authenticity or something. Admitting we’re desperate for status is like admitting we’re horny for a co-worker or jealous of a friend’s success: it’s not a good look. So we pretend we don’t care about status, as a way of gaining status. It’s kind of confusing.
That means status games—i.e., the mutually-agreed-upon rules for winning and losing status—are fragile. We can only play a status game if we lack awareness that it’s a status game. As soon as we become aware of the game we’re playing, we stop getting status for playing it. In fact, we lose status: we look selfish, insecure, and low-status. Ew. So virtue signalers cannot know they’re virtue signaling, and neither can the people who award them virtue. “Brave” truth-tellers cannot know they’re seeking praise from their political tribe, and neither can the tribe who praises them. “Rebellious” nonconformists cannot know they’re conforming to the norms of their subculture, and neither can their subculture. Status games must never be emblazoned with a neon sign that says “STATUS GAME,” or else they’ll disintegrate in the light like vampires….
The game collapses. People stop playing, for fear of looking uncool. Instead, they start playing an anti-status game to show how cool and not-interested-in-status they are. The point of an anti-status game is to show that you care about more important things than status, like integrity or authenticity or something. Anti-status games emerge in opposition to a collapsing status game, and they often take the opposite form. If people are showing off their immaculately coiffed hair, for example, anti-status-seekers might wear their hair artfully tussled.
In other words, anti-status games are just another kind of status game. We could remove the “anti” if we wanted to, but it’s useful to keep it there to get a handle on what’s going on, so we can see why these games are so weird. Status games are constantly collapsing and re-emerging in antithetical forms. They give rise to anti-status games, then anti-anti-status games, and so on. Different cultures split off as status symbols twirl in fractal, quasi-cyclical patterns…
So if there’s a status game you dislike, expose it. Tell satirical stories about its vainglorious players. Translate the covert signals into a lingua franca. Attack the game’s supposed values and reveal its hypocrisy. If you succeed, the game will collapse. That’s what happened to dueling, foot binding, powdered wigs, and all the other defunct status games throughout history, and it’s sure to happen to many of the status games we’re currently playing, like educational credentialism and performative wokeness.
On the other hand, if there’s a status game you like, shield it from criticism. Hide the fact that it has anything to do with status, and angrily defend any accusations that it’s more narcissistic than it appears. This kind of angry defensiveness has been common throughout history, as people sought to protect their fragile status games from collapse. “How dare you mock dueling! It’s a noble tradition of manly honor!”
When we defend our status games, we usually appeal to “sacred” values, like manly honor, beauty, faith, knowledge, equality, integrity, or authenticity or something. We have to pretend these values are intrinsically important and worth upholding for their own sake, independent of any status we get for upholding them. We create sacred narratives about how none of us are vain or self-centered at all; we’re just noble souls who are impartially motivated by an abstract love of truth or beauty or self-expression or whatever. If anyone questions our sacred narrative or mocks us for being uncool status-seekers, it might cause our fragile status game to collapse, and that would be terrible—we’d lose all our accumulated status. That’s why questioning sacred values is taboo.
Unfortunately, when deciding which status games to attack or defend, we’re biased. If we’re losing a status game, we attack it: it’s toxic and irrational and ruining everything. If we’re winning a status game, we defend it: it’s noble and pure and aimed at the betterment of humankind. That is what culture wars are all about. We say they’re about clashing values, but really they’re just power struggles between rival subcultures—attempts to shift the rules of the reigning status game in their favor. People naturally accuse their rivals of being uncool status-seekers (e.g. “you’re just virtue signaling” or “you just don’t want to give up your privilege”), while pretending that they themselves aren’t interested in status. No, they’re interested in more important things, like social justice or free speech or something…
So if you still haven’t found the right status game to play, please: choose wisely. Consider joining my anti-bullshit, (anti-)status game, which is the only way to understand how our status games really work.
