Status Anxiety

III

POLITICS

Ideal Human Types

1.

Every society holds certain groups of people in high esteem while condemning or ignoring others, whether on the basis of their skills, accent, temperament, gender, physical attributes, ancestry, religion or skin colour. Yet such arbitrary and subjective criteria for success and failure are far from permanent or universal. Qualities and abilities that equate with high status in one place or era have a marked tendency to grow irrelevant or even become undesirable in others.

A shaft sunk into selected strata of history reveals a catholic range of what different societies in different ages have chosen to regard as honourable traits.

Requirements of High Status In: