Comment by heresie-dabord
2 months ago
> humans hard wired for status within their social group.
Not always "status". Humans benefit from cooperative behaviour but may have many reasons for joining and adhering or leaving.
Having varied interests means different networks. The important point is to see meaning and value. This is where ostracism and rejection can be most painful.
To put a finer point on it, Storr’s thesis is there are three main domains that humans try to achieve status: dominance, competence, and virtue. Same end goal, but different means to get esteem. Put differently, people ultimately need to feel valued by their tribe.
Thanks for clarifying. There must be more subtlety in the "end goal" of membership.
> people ultimately need to feel valued by their tribe
To the extent that people want to remain in a group ("tribe"), I agree.
But this holds only when people feel that they gain value from the group (or tribe). For some members, the sense of gain may be conspicuous prestige, but for other members it may be a humble gain or an unnoticed (inconspicuous) gain.
The quieter members (in O.P.'s narcissistic terminology, the "NPCs" in his company) may have insights that completely escape the O.P. and other prestige-seekers.