It's not simply a matter of protecting folks at the bottom, Hacker argues-effective dealing with risk is vital for creating an environment in which people feel secure enough to take on the sort of voluntary risk that helps drive the economy forward-what's often called "entrepreneurial risk," but that includes a wide range of choices to invest resources of time, money and effort in future possibilities that by their very nature cannot be certain. These include investments in eduction, training, changing careers, starting a new business, etc. In short, Hacker argues, a security orientation is not the polar opposite to an opportunity orientation-it is a vital aspect of an opportunity orientation. And it's this latter argument that gives Hacker's point about countering the Great Risk Shift a potential bipartisan cross-over appeal that fits perfectly with Obama's articulated intentions.
In this diary, I'd like to make another major issue proposal that is, if anything an even better fit for Obama. In fact, this is an issue that is truly transformative. It's called "rankism," and it consists, quite simply, of the abuse of the weak by the strong.
If the term "rankism" sounds a bit odd and contrived, the positive value opposing it is anything but. It's called "dignity," and the struggle against rankism is the struggle to make dignity a universal human right.
The purpose of this web site is to discuss the social cost of rankism and to develop a grassroots capacity to defend and protect dignity in everyday life. We hope you will join us in planning and building a world without rankism!
On the website, Fuller explains:
Rankism: A Social Disorder
An undiagnosed disorder is at large in the world. It afflicts individuals, groups, and nations. It distorts our personal relationships, erodes our will to learn, taxes our economic productivity, stokes ethnic hatred, and incites nations to war. It is the cause of dysfunctionality, and sometimes even violence, in families, schools, and the workplace.
Over the course of history, the most common abuses of power have acquired special names:
Each of these practices is an abuse of the weak by the strong. Each of these familiar named offenses is an instance of bullying, of pulling rank. By analogy with abuses based on race and gender, abuse based on rank is given the name rankism.
1. n. abuse, discrimination, or exploitation based on rank
2. n. abusive, discriminatory, or exploitative behavior towards people who have less power because of their lower rank in a particular hierarchy
Once you have a name for it, you see rankism at the heart of many infringements of human rights, far away or close to home. Rankism is the root cause of indignity, injustice, and unfairness. Choosing the term rankism, places the goal of universal human dignity in the context of contemporary movements for civil rights. Reexamining racism, sexism, and ageism as examples of rankism breathes new life into the movements opposing them. Identifying rankism in all its guises and overcoming it is democracy's next step.
Taking on rankism is a natural expression of liberalism's core values, since liberalism has always been associated with the quest for equality, as opposed to conservatism's association with hierarchy. This is why liberals have routinely been on the side of tearing down barriers based on race, gender and class, while conservatives have fought to keep those barriers in place.
But taking on rankism goes beyond any particular such struggle, and it goes beyond simply being a laundry list of all of them. Rather, it creates a larger framework that can help transform all of these specific struggles. For one thing, by naming a common problem, and a common solution that addresses all abuses of rank, it transcends the tendency to fall back into simplistic identity groups. Fighting rankism does not mean tearing down all hierarchies. Some hierarchies have very necessary functions, others do not. But it does mean developing values, awareness, structures and practices to combat the abuse of power that hierarchies create.
As Fuller explains, this is a nothing less than a struggle for a basic human right-making explicit what has long been held implicitly or expressed in a more fragmentary fashion:
Dignity: A Universal Right
The U. S. Declaration of Independence asserts that "all men are created equal." Many have struggled with the meaning of that phrase, because it's obvious that we are unequal in lots of ways, for example, health, wealth, looks, talents, skills, etc. But, our differences need not be an excuse for invidious comparisons, let alone for humiliation and indignity. On the contrary, our differences are an important source of the delight we take in each other.
The Declaration of Independence tasked the nation not only with protecting life and liberty but also with providing fairness and
justice. While people are equal not in their endowments or attainments, they are equal in dignity and must be treated so. What would such a dignitarian society look like?
1. adj. a condition in which the dignity of all people is honored and protected
2. n. a person who advocates for a dignitarian society, one whose conduct and attitudes are dignitarian
Each of us has an innate sense that we have the same inherent worth as anyone else. Every religion teaches us so. We experience this as a birthright-a cosmic fact that cannot be undone by any person, circumstance, institution, or government.
That is why rankism is experienced on the deepest level as an affront to dignity. Like any animal vulnerable to being preyed upon, we're supersensitive to threats to our well-being. We're alert to subtle attempts to determine our relative strength, from "innocent" opening lines such as "Who are you with?" to more probing queries regarding our ancestry or education.
In proclaiming a right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," the Declaration of Independence touched on making dignity a fundamental right. Liberty means freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control. Therefore, the right to liberty, by militating against rankism, affords a large measure of protection to our dignity. Likewise the right to pursue happiness is meaningless in the absence of the dignity inherent in full and equal citizenship.
Given the remarkable achievements of the identity-based liberation movements, it's not unrealistic to imagine a day when everyone's equal dignity will be as self-evident as everyone's right to own property or to vote.
Dignity As Framework--A Strategic Advance
The last 40 years have been dominated by the politics of backlash and resentment-primarily backlash against blacks and women-and it has been particularly effective in speaking to those who suffer from other forms of rankism-particularly those based on class, region and educational opportunity. The basis for this politics of resentment is an indentity-based us-them logic: "They're getting something that we're not!" Never mind that what they're getting is a chance to be included in us. It's much easier to point out the specific efforts needed for inclusion, and portray them as "special rights" (a term that's far and away most prominent in homophobic politics, but is present in racist and sexist politics as well).
Expanding the framework to include all forms of rank-based abuse creates the opportunity to disable the backlash once and for all. We are no longer talking about injustices specific to one group, and therefore requiring different attitudes depending on whether one is or is not a member of that group. We are talking about a common perspective that can be shared by all, which has different specific applications. This is a shift that has an obvious relationship to the rhetoric of Obama's presidential campaign, but it is much more than rhetoric alone. It represents a perspective that can lead to the articulation of basic values, principles, and standards that can be applied across a wide range of specific issues and policies. It creates cognitive space for all of us to experience being on the same side.
The Scope of Rankism
As I said above, rankism is much more than a laundry list of abuses. It is a framework the draws together what have generally been seen as unrelated, or even cross-cutting issues, some not even considered political at all. Such is the power of a new paradigm.
Fuller explains:
Rankism's Toll
On Personal Relationships In personal relations, the abuse of rank is experienced subjectively as an insult to dignity. Our antennae are tuned to detect the slightest trace of condescension or indignity in others' treatment of us. Pulling rank takes the form of disrespect, insults, disdain, 'dissing', berating, snobbism, and humiliation. It is meant to demean, to exploit, to wound, to harm, and to damage - and it does. Even when not deliberately malicious, rank abuse can still warp and deform our interactions.
On Productivity While on a visit to Philadelphia, George Washington noticed that free men there could do in "two or three days what would employ [his slaves] a month or more." His explanation that slaves had no chance "to establish a good name [and so were] too regardless of a bad one" was that of a practical man concerned with the bottom line, not that of a moralizer, and therefore all the more telling.
Today, employers are not dealing with slaves, though it is sometimes argued that wage-earners are wage-slaves and salaried employees are only marginally more independent. Negative motivation - fear of demotion or job loss - is now dwarfed by the positive motivation that comes from being part of a team of responsible professionals. Eliminating recognition deficiencies in the work place is proving as good for the bottom line as eliminating nutritional deficiencies was for the productivity of day laborers.
On Learning The real and imagined threat of rank abuse pervades all our educational institutions from kindergarten through graduate school. Finding and holding one's position in a hierarchy takes priority over all else. In any institution with gradations of rank, protecting one's dignity from insult and injury siphons attention and energy away from learning.
No child - no human being - is expendable. Everyone has something to contribute, and when that contribution is made and acknowledged, he or she feels like a somebody. Helping individuals locate that something and contribute it is the proper business of education.
On Leadership In any institution, rank-based discrimination limits the access of potential high performers to better jobs by inhibiting movement among ranks. It also puts those holding high rank under the kind of stress that gradually undercuts the creativity that brought them success in the first place.
Repeating themselves gradually separates somebodies from their creative source, depleting them until they become empty shells. With enough repetitions, they begin to wonder why they ever thought they had anything to offer. Burnout is the occupational hazard of somebodyness.
On Spirit Our passions are unique and personal. They grow out of our questions, out of the contradictions we feel with other people, with others' work, or with society. Initially we wonder Who's right? What's beautiful? What's fair? What's true? We're not sure. Our questions generate our individuality. Through our response to them, we define ourselves, we become someone in particular. Rank, social and otherwise, still keeps many from cultivating their questions into life-altering quests.
It's precisely the multi-faceted applicability of Fuller's conception that makes it so powerful. Virtually all of us have had the experience of being on both sides of the divide-whether willingly or not. And that means we all have the capacity to take a stand against rankism, having known both its deep costs, and its enticing, if ultimately petty benefits. As Fuller himself points out, "Although the analysis of rankism may at first seem more complex than that of the familiar isms, there is one way in which tackling rankism is actually easier: everyone knows its sting."
What Could A Campaign Commit To?
With a concept both so sweeping and so new, an obvious question is what could a campaign commit to actually doing to translate this concept into making a realworld difference. While Fuller's website has a page "20 Ways to Combat Rankism", it is focused on what individuals can do-a very necessary foundation, but not for a political platform.
When the dignity movement targets illegitimate uses of rank, it is likely to manifest not in million-man marches in the nation's capital, but rather in millions of schools, businesses, health care facilities, churches, and families across the country - that is, within the relationships and organizations in which rank is being abused. The specificity of rank - parent, coach, boss, teacher, doctor, rabbi, roshi, imam, or priest - means that a dignitarian society will be built relationship by relationship, organization by organization.
He goes on to say that beyond naming what we are for and against, the next crucial stage is modelling:
The Importance of Model Building
In building a dignitarian society, no tool will prove more valuable than modeling. Modeling has enabled humans to harness power and it can equally help us limit its damages. Once we have this tool in our repertoire, we'll apply it to reshape our institutions so they become dignitarian.
Models are everywhere and they provide us with useful representations of the world and ourselves. They also serve a variety of functions. Among these are to provide us a sense of identity, shape our behavior, maintain social order, and guide our use of power. Here are some common, every-day examples of models:
1. Grand unifying models are the holy grail of every branch of science. In chemistry, it's Mendeleyev's periodic table of the elements.
2. When we use parents, heroes, public figures, and fictional characters as "role models," we're using models to shape our character.
3. Social models include charters, by-laws, organizational charts, and even the 10 commandments.
4. Business models, by examining a range of scenarios based on various assumptions, forecast success or failure in the market place.
By modeling the uses of power and choosing only those that protect dignity, we can do for standards of justice what modeling nature has done for standards of living. Conducting dignity impact studies in advance may sound far-fetched and utopian now, but this was true at one time of environmental impact studies, which are now mandatory. Furthermore, what we're calling dignity impact studies isn't really a new thing. People do the equivalent every time they imagine the effect on someone of something they are about to do or say.
It is now time for our institutions to apply this tool systematically to their anticipated uses of power with an eye on their impact on dignity.
From this, we can clearly derive at least two significant proposals:
(1) Create a Commission on Dignity to study the issue of rankism and dignity,for the purpose of developing specific policy proposals, including, but not limited to the development of a model dignity impact study. Such a commission must necessarily be limited in size to be effective, but should draw on a wide range of expertise in dealing with specific manifestations of rankism and how to deal with it. It should also draw on the early results of the second proposal.
(2) Initiate a broadly inclusive dialogue about dignity and rankism. This should not be the sort of largely top-down initiative that Clinton's dialogue on race was. It should seek to gather together people within existing institutions, within existing communities or associational networks, and across both such boundaries, to (a) raise awareness of the concepts involved in identifying and combating rankism, (b) give people a chance to articulate their own experiences, as well as their own ideas about what can be done to promote a dignitarian society, (c) provide an opportunity for people to voluntarily initiate processes for further action, and (d) provide specific input for the Commission on Dignity.
Taking this approach signals a clear commitment to doing something without imposing an undigested set of proposals on a public that will be hearing about these ideas for the first time. Thus, it strikes a sensible balance that gives substance to a value commitment without prematurely rushing from the level of vision and values to the level of policy details. I think it is probably fair to say that many of the people already drawn to Obama's campaign are already motivated by an inherent attraction to the concepts involved. Real leadership consists in part of seeing the longterm vision, and translating that vision into doable next steps. In this case, the next step is up to Obama, should he chose to take it. It could go a long way toward reducing the sense of ambiguity, uncertainty and, yes, concerns about his lack of experience that have given pause to many peope who find him attractive, but are not yet ready to vote for him.
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