The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better by Richard Wilkinson; Kate Pickett

Author:Richard Wilkinson; Kate Pickett
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Non-fiction, Philosophy
ISBN: 9780141921150
Publisher: Penguin Group UK
Published: 2010-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Bigger differences in material wealth make status differences more important, and in more unequal societies the weight of downward prejudice is bound to be heavier; there is more social distance between the ‘haves’ at the very top and the ‘have-nots’ at the bottom. In effect, greater inequality increases downward social prejudices. We maintain social status by showing superiority to those below. Those deprived of status try to regain it by taking it out on more vulnerable people below them. Two lines of doggerel capture these processes. The English say ‘The captain kicks the cabin boy and the cabin boy kicks the cat’, describing the downward flow of aggression and resentment, while a line from an American rhyme famously describes Boston as the place, ‘where the Lowells talk only to Cabots, and the Cabots talk only to God’, invoking the snobbery and social climbing of people looking up to those above them.

When people react to a provocation from someone with higher status by redirecting their aggression on to someone of lower status, psychologists label it displaced aggression.291 Examples include: the man who is berated by his boss and comes home and shouts at his wife and children; the higher degree of aggression in workplaces where supervisors treat workers unfairly;292 the ways in which people in deprived communities react to an influx of foreign immigrants; 293–294 and the ways in which prisoners who are bullied turn on others below them – particularly sex offenders – in the prison hierarchy.295

In his book, The Hot House, which describes life inside a high-security prison in the US, Pete Earley tells a story about a man in prison with a life sentence for murder.296, pp. 74–5 Bowles had been incarcerated for the first time at the age of 15 when he was sent to a juvenile reformatory. The day he arrived, an older, bigger boy came up to him:

‘Hey, what size shoes do you wear?’ the boy asked.

‘Don’t know’ said Bowles ‘Let me see one of ’em will ya?’ the boy asked politely.

Bowles sat down on the floor and removed a shoe. The older boy took off one of his own shoes and put on Bowles’s.

‘How ’bout letting me see the other one?’

‘I took off my other shoe and handed it to him,’ Bowles remembered, ‘and he puts it on and ties it and then walks over to this table and every boy in the place starts laughing at me.

That’s when I realized I am the butt of the joke.’

Bowles grabbed a pool cue and attacked the boy, for which he received a week of hard labour. When a new boy arrived at the reformatory the following week, ‘he too was confronted by a boy who demanded his shoes. Only this time it was Bowles who was taking advantage of the new kid. “It was my turn to dish it out,” he recalled. “I had earned that right.”’

In the same book, Earley tells almost exactly the same story again, only this time he describes a man’s

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.