The Status Game: On Human Life and How to Play It

by Will Storr

Overview

From the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Science of Storytelling, a bold and ambitious investigation of the hidden structure behind human behaviour: status

What drives our political and moral beliefs? What makes us like some things and dislike others? What shapes how we behave, and misbehave, in groups? What makes you, you?

For centuries, philosophers and scholars have described human behaviour in terms of sex, power and money. In The Status Game, bestselling author Will Storr radically turns this thinking on its head by arguing that it is our irrepressible craving for status that ultimately defines who we are.

From the era of the hunter-gatherer to today, when we exist as workers in the globalised economy and citizens of online worlds, the need for status has always been wired into us. A wealth of research shows that how much of it we possess dramatically affects not only our happiness and wellbeing but also our physical health – and without sufficient status, we become more ill, and live shorter lives. It’s an unconscious obsession that drives the best and worst of us: our innovation, arts and civilisation as well as our murders, wars and genocides. But why is status such an all-consuming prize? What happens if it’s taken away from us? And how can our unquenchable thirst for it explain cults, moral panics, conspiracy theories, the rise of social media and the ‘culture wars’ of today?

On a breathtaking journey through time and culture, The Status Game offers a sweeping rethink of human psychology that will change how you see others – and how you see yourself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780008354657
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	09/02/2021
Sold by:	HarperCollins Publishers
Format:	eBook
Pages:	416
Sales rank:	302,330
File size:	824 KB

About the Author

Will Storr is an award-winning writer. His work has appeared in the Guardian, Sunday Times, New Yorker and The New York Times. He is the author of five critically acclaimed books, most recently the Sunday Times bestseller, The Science of Storytelling.

@willstorr
willstorr.com

Table of Contents

Prologue 1

1 The Life and Afterlife of Ben Gunn 7

2 Getting Along, Getting Ahead 13

3 An Imagined World of Symbols 20

4 An Imagined World of Rules 31

5 The Three Games 39

6 Prestige Games 47

7 Dominance Games 56

8 Male, Grandiose, Humiliated: The Game's Most Lethal 64

9 Change the Rules, Change the Player 76

10 The Slot Machine for Status 83

11 The Flaw 89

12 The Universal Prejudice 97

13 Living the Dream 104

14 Subjugation, Revolution, Civilisation 110

15 Making a Player 118

16 Believing the Dream 130

17 Goldrush! 141

18 War Games 155

19 The Tyranny of the Cousins 167

20 Victims, Warriors, Witches 182

21 Lost in a Dream 192

22 Status Generating Machines 201

23 Annihilation Part Two 217

24 The Road Out of Hell 225

25 The Neoliberal Self 247

26 Fairness, Unfairness 255

27 When Dreams Collide 268

28 The Parable of the Communists 280

29 Seven Rules of the Status Game 301

A Note On My Method 312

Acknowledgements 314

Notes and Sources 315

Index 389

Editorial Reviews

‘Will Storr is one of our best journalists of ideas … The Status Game might be his best yet’ James Marriott, Books of the Year, The Times

‘[The Status Game] challenged the way I think about the role of status in my own life and in some ways it made me feel less terrible about some of my unhealthy fixations. If you find yourself needlessly worried about status, it might do the same for you … I can’t stop thinking about it’ Sean Illing, Vox

‘Eloquent, entertaining’ New Statesman

‘Moving … Scholarly … Storr showcases a rare skill – the ability to use technical academic scholarship in solving a real-world problem’ Helen Dale, CapX

‘I haven’t finished reading The Status Game because I’ve only read it once. There's so much in this dazzling book I will be revisiting over and over again’
Daniel Finkelstein, author of Everything in Moderation

‘The Status Game could not be more timely and provides a missing piece for understanding where we are, and how to get out of this mess … I can’t recommend it highly enough’
Greg Lukianoff, co-author with Jonathan Haidt of The Coddling of the American Mind

‘Thought provoking and enlightening – you’ll be discussing The Status Game everywhere you go’ Sara Pascoe

‘Bursting with insights into the hierarchy-crazed hellscape of a world shaped by social media, this book confirms Will Storr’s own status as a master storyteller’
Helen Lewis, author of Difficult Women

‘A radical new theory of human nature … It should – quite appropriately – establish Will Storr as the finest science writer being published today’
David Robson, author of The Intelligence Trap

From the Publisher

2022-05-24
Forget about doing away with inequality, writes science journalist Storr—not while humans are humans and leopards don’t change their spots.

What keeps striving humans up at night? Not wealth, sexual conquest, or security: No, writes Storr; it’s status, the relative position we hold vis-à-vis those around us. The quest for high status deforms our better angels. “Always on alert for slights and praise,” he writes, “we can be petty, hateful, aggressive, grandiose and delusional.” In fact, “status is a fundamental human need.” It’s not just that we need to be admired; we must be admired more than the person next to us, and we’re hard-wired for that golden key: Holding status affords access to wealth, sex, security, and every other thing that we desire. Digging into anthropology, psychology, neuroscience, and other realms, Storr outlines the evolutionary history of our need as social animals to belong to a group—and, once inside a group, to attain rank. Sometimes this plays out in odd ways. One of the many layered examples the author presents is the case of a Micronesian island community in which status is attained by the farmer who could grow the largest yam to present to the village leader, resulting in a society of secretive, jealous, mistrustful Mendelians and plenty of disharmony. Those who do not attain status through yams or heroics—or are shunned or ridiculed—can do very bad things. Storr locates status loss as an ingredient in the makings of serial killers, the Unabomber, and other miscreants. “Humiliation can be seen as the opposite of status, the hell to its heaven,” he writes. “Like status, humiliation comes from other people.” When other people engineer that status loss, mayhem can ensue, especially today’s “neoliberal game,” which relies on a zero-sum formula of have and have-not. Pair this eye-opening book with W. David Marx’s equally revelatory Status and Culture.

An interesting, deeply researched, and sometimes disturbing look into the science of what makes us tick.

Kirkus Reviews