Q&A: The Pursuit of Social Esteem and Honor
The Pursuit of Social Esteem and Honor
Question
Hello Rabbi. Last Sabbath I read in the book by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks of blessed memory “The Great Partnership” (if you’ve read it, I’d be happy to hear what you think. Of course, in general) and I came across a cool question.
He asks:
What would you prefer? To receive a salary of 50,000 shekels in a place where society earns 30,000 shekels? Or to receive 100,000 shekels in a place where society earns 200,000 shekels?
This question summed up for me quite well an issue that has been bothering me for several years already (mainly in how it interfaces with my life) and that is the tendency/the intense desire in the soul to attain social status (generally speaking) and especially in our time when this phenomenon cuts across sectors and circles and appears in full force.
True since the dawn of human history a person’s private property has been a source of his positioning in society but precisely in our day it seems that consumer culture is buying mainly status and not products. And not only the consumption of money but also and perhaps even more so the consumption of titles and formal education.
I tried over the course of the Sabbath to understand the nature of this phenomenon from two main perspectives that feed one another.
I want to share with the Rabbi one of the things that occurred to me, and I’d be glad to hear (read) what you think, and perhaps also ask for your refinements and insights on the matter..
The first aspect is– why the soul so needs social positioning in its basic, initial tendency (for a person is called over the course of his life to shift his psychological center of gravity toward true values and not external ones such as these). Included in this is also what the factors are that make this phenomenon so noticeable and outwardly displayed in our time? (besides the obvious influence of globalization, born of technology, which accelerates and exposes everything to everyone, and the multiplication of consumption possibilities that results from it)
The second– why despite the philosophical understanding of the foolishness and superficiality of this thing– is it so hard for us to loosen the grip that this need has on us? Why does it nevertheless govern us and stand at the base of so many motivations in our lives?
—————
The search for value and meaning is the deepest longing of the soul. (There is a great deal to expand on in this line, but I didn’t see a need for it for the matter at hand.)
Whether we are speaking of an imaginary–psychological fiction that seeks to make our stay in an alienated and meaningless world more pleasant or whether we are speaking of a deep recognition by the soul through the abundance of its talent (intuition) that there really is valuable content and meaning at the foundation of existence.
The cultural atmosphere in which we grow and are shaped to a large extent in its image (despite the “religious/faith-based” education that some of us received at home), is the one that glorifies the outlook that says that nothing has any real, absolute value. As a result, things receive their value only by virtue of human consciousness (I’m missing an understanding here of why it is specifically so?) and of course the soul would have a tendency to do things while thinking about what others will say? To impress. To find favor. To attain social status and feel that I have value only if society confirms it.
That is, society is the focal point that grants the soul the greatest of its needs and therefore society’s opinion status and honor grip us so strongly.
I feel that this still lacks system and structure, but I’d still be glad to know what the Rabbi thinks, and if he could expand and sharpen it further.
Many thanks, Judah.
Answer
I haven’t read it.
I would prefer the higher amount, with no connection at all to my surroundings. And that’s not because I have no drives, but because the drive to have more money than others doesn’t exist in me. It always seemed stupid and bizarre to me. Is that what a person is judged by? What difference does it make whether you have more or less money than others? The question is what your own situation is.
As for the question of what causes this, it seems to me that it should be directed to psychologists. I once thought that almost all of our drives are about enlarging the self. Even food is a physical enlargement of me. Sex is the enlargement of my family and my offspring. So too honor. Money and property are a person’s periphery, even in Jewish law (that is why a person is liable when his property causes damage, and there is also the law requiring one’s animal to rest, and so on. I wrote articles about this that are also on the site). Increasing one’s money is enlarging oneself in that sense too, and of course also in terms of the power one has. Maybe that is the root of this drive, but that is just ungrounded speculation.
Discussion on Answer
I’d be glad to know what the Rabbi thinks about the point I raised.
Is there really something to it? And mainly, do the ideas seem sufficiently organized to you?
I definitely agree that part of what drives us is the desire to leave a mark and live forever in some sense. By the way, that too is part of enlarging the self (along the axis of time). I didn’t understand the statements about society.
Maybe you should read my column on meaning (159).
I meant that we live in a culture that says nothing here has meaning, and therefore we cling to the thing that grants value and meaning to our lives at any rate—which is what society values, and therefore there is a desire for social esteem.
Another point I thought of, which is perhaps a broader extension of the first point, is that the attempt to attain status and social esteem is actually our way of leaving a mark on reality and living forever in human consciousness.
That is—maybe the inner idea of any meaning our existence may have (whether personal meaning or a general meaning that encompasses all of creation) is eternity.
The search for meaning in our lives, and in life in general, is our attempt to overcome the transience of our existence, which gives it a flavor of meaninglessness. And in a culture that holds that nothing has meaning and nothing is absolute, except for whatever human beings consider valuable (again, here I feel there’s a leap in what I’m saying and it’s not clear to me exactly what or why, and I’d be glad for the Rabbi’s clarification if possible)—in such a culture, the attempt to leave a mark and attain meaning will at any rate come דווקא through an enormous striving for the esteem of society, which is what grants value.