by lo_zamoyski | 2026-02-18 17:11:58+00:00
> Titles mean something because they mark one’s status—where one stands relative to others. [...] The inevitability of hierarchy, that some people will do better than others and be more respected for it, leads to all sorts of social pleasures and social pains.

But why? What is their purpose? What is social hierarchy for?

Let's be frank. Most title chasing is pure vanity. There is no substance in the chase. It's a game that takes schoolyard stupidity and flavors it with "adult" respectability. But underneath, it's generally vacuous and theatrical.

The only purpose of social hierarchy is to serve others. Why does a manager exist in a firm? To serve the workers he manages so that they can do their jobs which are also in the service of someone else. Why is there a king or a president? To serve the common good according to his station. We elevate for service. If someone has more to give and the necessary character to do it well, ideally, we elevate him according to his good so that he can better serve according to the good he has instead of allow that good to rot on the vine. It is service that makes sense of social hierarchy. Social hierarchy is about gift. It's what makes a society a society.

In a tyrannical, upside down world, hierarchy is about domination and exploitation, about taking. Here, the scramble goes by the motto "eat or be eaten". We claw over each other like crabs in a bucket, because we don't want to be "eaten", and because we wish to "eat" others. It is a perversion of our human nature. When Christians speak of "the world" in the pejorative, they mean this systemic pathological condition of human societies. I laugh when people wax poetic about utopia here on earth, as if "resources" could fix the issue, because left to our own devices, it is dystopia that we tend to produce. This is why Christians speak of the need of a divine savior and why our "flesh" needs to be crucified so that we may live, not because the body is bad, but because we are stupid, corrupt, and weak.

> So long as we remain human, we can never be fully satisfied. [...] Reflecting on utopia might tell us something interesting about human nature more generally.

If the satisfaction of all finite desires leaves us with unsatisfied desires, then either there are unsatisfiable desires, or our desires can only be satisfied by something infinite. This is where God as the ultimate good and highest desire and ultimate source of joy comes in. If God is the ultimate cause, source, and sustainer of everything, then our "to be", our being—which is what desire is about—is to be found in this First Cause. All other created beings are in some sense intermediaries and mediators of the desired good. But if you can have the ocean, what, then, is a cup of water drawn from that ocean? Good, to be sure, but not the source.

On this view, many pathologies, obsessions, compulsions, and addictions, then, are misdirected desire.

> But I’ve never met anyone who was entirely indifferent to the opinions of others.

Likewise, if you have the fundamental approval of an omniscient God who knows you better than you know yourself, who willed you into existence with intention, who is the justification of your existence, who loves you more than anyone could and to whom you matter more than you could understand, who can give you joy nothing else can, then the approval of others becomes quite shabby in comparison. Perhaps not entirely meaningless, but not your foundation. Their approval is not your fickle pagan god.

This is what gives martyrs their strength and freedom to endure the injustices and envies and hatred of the world, even unto death. Their soul remains unsold for the measly opinions of others, untarnished by the indignity of desperately seeking the approval of others like a beggar licking crumbs off the floor. It allows one's focus to shift from an obsession over self toward a disinterested concern about the objective good of others. Just hierarchy doesn't bother you, because it exists for your benefit just the same. Even if others despise you, even if they don't appreciate your care, you will be free from the prison of seeking their approval. You will no longer live and act and work for their approval as if burning hecatombs to appease an idol, but serve the objective good.

> But, of course, there’s more to desire—we are often attracted to a particular person. We want them; we covet them. It’s wonderful if they covet us back; it’s agonizing if they don’t. To make things worse, even if we’re lucky enough to arrive at reciprocal desire, we often want the other’s desire to be exclusively pointed our way.

In this life, we guard good jealously (not enviously; envy is the vice of experiencing sorrow over someone else's good fortune that one lacks, while jealousy is a protectiveness over the goodness one does have for fear of losing it). Our happiness may depend on others. But one's joy does not, as the implied good of all things desired is their ultimate source, which is God. Thus, in this view, heaven—for it to be heaven—one would need unmediated union with God (what some call the beatific vision). In this state, love for others is a flawlessly selfless and totally free act of self-giving for the sake of their well-being, not the often tense bargaining and haggling and strife that characterizes much of this life. Indeed, the primary cause of divorce is selfishness. Marriage teaches us and matures us in selflessness. It creates the conditions that make it a lesson that is necessary to learn if the marriage is to succeed. That is life's journey, and marriage is the most typical path by which it is taken.

In summary, according to this view, there is a way out of the predicament the article describes, but many do not know or do not understand, and some despise it having learned of it.