Status and Culture: How Our Desire for Social Rank Creates Taste, Identity, Art, Fashion, and Constant Change
“The desire of the esteem of others is as real a want of nature as hunger; and the neglect and contempt of the world as severe a pain as the gout or stone.”
The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millenium
“What matters is not that they are thugs, or that they oppress their own countrymen. That simply speaks to the range of actions open to them. The meaningful bit is that they belong to a larger class or category of people, found in every country and in most walks of life, who long ago persuaded themselves that they alone have the authority and legitimacy to speak and act within their own domains. This—not from selfish motives, no, not in the least—for the good of humanity. Their authority rests on the moral order of the world. Any challenge, however insignificant, isn’t just a potential threat to them but a violation of that order, a perversion which must be crushed utterly in the name of all that is good and true.”
Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification
“To immerse oneself in the study of a particular phenomenon inevitably raises one's awareness of its manifestations in daily life. In this case, I found myself increasingly conscious of human hypocrisy and insincerity. I began seeing the signs of preference falsification everywhere: in faculty meetings, at social gatherings, watching political debates, in the press, in my students' exam books. I also became increasingly self-conscious as I noticed it in my own behavior.”
The Dawn of Everything
“We are projects of collective self-creation. What if we approached human history that way? What if we treat people, from the beginning, as imaginative, intelligent, playful creatures who deserve to be understood as such?”
