As I read Fuller's Somebodies and Nobodies, I realized that I have myself pulled rank and been the victim of rank-pulling. But more importantly, many problems on the world stage today could be address, maybe even solved, by taking a 'rankist' perspective: North Korea's illogical stance against the world, Osama Bin Laden's attack on the US and Bush's response in attacking Iraq - each of these are generated by issues of 'dignity' and 'indignation' as Fuller describes them. Read this book!
[↑]
Somebodies and Nobodies is about rank abuse in the workplace, in families, in education, in health care, and in foreign policy and the roots of terrorism. A professor appropriates the research of a junior assistant. A doctor demeans a nurse. Wives are beaten physically and/or emotionally. Children are abused and bullied at home and on the playground . Enron and the priest scandals in the Catholic church come to light. It is going to take a new movement to stop the somebodies, individuals, groups, and nations, from overstepping their power and privilege and treating others badly. To the nobodies of the world (the poor and dispossessed, patients struggling for a true bill of rights, students fighting to have more control over THEIR education, the elderly seeking more dignity, and even terrorists) Fuller offers what all nascent movements need--a name for the problem. Rankism is such a name. It allows lots of disparate individuals and groups to realize their commonality, and it identifies a level of behavior that is not only unacceptable, but, like racism or sexism, is ultimately not viable either financially or socially. Rankism is abuse of all forms of power--physical, mental, social, spiritual. It pervades our society like the air we breathe. The dignitarian movement is the way to remove the veil from such behavior, empower the nobodies (all of us at one time or another), and operationalize the golden rule.
[↑]
Like a needle in a hay stack; that is how I always felt among people in the world; yes, I have been a victim of rankism and I have been very aware of it, but the social consensus is so strong that it is very hard to find somebody that will admit this is going on. Everyone seems to believe that rankism is a normal part of life. I see friends suffering because of it, and yet, they swallow the angst and sadness and go on about their lives making themselves believe that it is somehow their fault whatever is happening. Maybe someday they will get to be an authority and make someone else suffer right? PLEASE EVERYONE, READ THIS BOOK!!
Fuller did a great job in bringing an awareness of rankism, though I felt he did not let himself go completely in his writing. Though he argues that rank itself is not the problem, and that the abuse of rank is the culprit; I believe rank itself causes people to automatically abuse it--rankism. Yes, I agree that rank is important in a society but most people in our society have an ingrained belief that to have high rank automatically equals to have authority over someone, in that authority means that whoever is under you is obligated to do whatever you want. Buy this book,read it, and have your whole family, friends, and rankists in your life read it too.
[↑]
In his eloquent "manifesto for a dignitarian movement," Robert Fuller has taken his ideas about our universal need for personal dignity and illustrated them with stories of people everywhere who have endured disrespectful treatment at the hands of those "in power." He explains how our relative ranking - in families, in business, in schools, in society -at-large - often determines how we are treated and the opportunities available to us. He adds that recent scandals, such as those in the Catholic Church and Enron, are examples of the wide-scale human damage that can occur when individuals abuse their positions of authority. Even our geopolitical challenges can be traced to the gap in intercultural respect: Writing about the Mideast for the New York Times, Thomas Friedman has called this "the poverty of dignity."
As we stand on the cusp of this movement, Dr. Fuller says there are remedies we can begin administering today. We can join a society-wide conversation to examine the proper uses of rank and privilege in human relations. We can help ourselves and others who are nobodied to resist demeaning treatment and other indignities. And every one of us, somebodies and nobodies alike, can learn concrete ways to guard the dignity of others as if it were our own.
At a time when the gulf between individuals, countries and cultures appears to be widening, the message that dignity for everyone is the only reliable foundation for bridges that last deserves our immediate attention.
[↑]
Shopping Cart
