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SOCIAL DOMINANCE THEORY. IT IS ALL ABOUT RANKISM.

J.D. Phillips MSW LCSW


Recent interdisciplinary research lines up well with one of my lifelong suspicions. This research asserts that there is a subconscious fundamental philosophical divide that grounds most policy debates. People who value equality over all else come into conflict with people who hold that social status hierarchies and inequality are functionally justified. (Talcott Parsons anyone? In sociology we call it Functionalism vs. Power Conflict Theory)
When we approve of a social policy proposal, we like it because it seems to confirm our personal bias about social stratification; pecking orders. We evaluate policy proposals against how they strengthen or weaken our system of rank. The left favors national health care because it attenuates inequality. The right opposes it for the same reason. They fear that equality is dysfunctional because it might curb productivity by reducing rewards for achievement. Rankism is THE classic political divide.
Social Dominance Theory feels like common knowledge, but it’s more precise than that. Mountains of experiments confirm the hypothesis. How the individual voter values equality is the fundamental political divide. We subconsciously evaluate almost every political issue against our side of this controversy.
We think that we are arguing about taxes or the culture war, but we are either supporting or opposing our present system of social stratification. Some of us want more equality, and some of us want less. This political evaluation happens on a subconscious level. No Republican voter is going to tell you that they oppose equality. They don’t even know that they do. We all do, to some extent. Once they realize what Social Dominance Theory is showing us, they might be more immune to propaganda.
My motivation for this blog is to propose that high school and college educators should cover Social Dominance Theory as an efficient way to make progress on political literacy.
Social Dominance Theory draws from several social sciences, and (gulp), biology. Biology is the third rail for the left. There is no quicker way to lose a reader than to sound like the social Darwinists of the past. I’m on the left. I cursed biological evolutionary psychology in college, just like everyone else. It is only now that I have been able to integrate recent anthropological advances and modern evolutionary psychology into my world view. Since I know why I opposed evolutionary psychology in the past, I feel qualified to help others understand where we all got hung up on this very touchy subject.
Two things cause trouble for evolutionary psychologists: The Naturalistic Fallacy and the difference between using biological information to argue about humans as a species vs. using biological knowledge to theorize about differences between individual humans. Those are the two big mistakes that caused early and some modern evolutionary psychologists to get into hot water by saying things like black people are less intelligent. Saying that it’s natural and functional for men to dominate women was not a big hit either.
Arguments about human nature have always been oversimplified. Are humans brutes or not? The archaeological evidence has arrived. Both sides are right. Early humans were brutes, but we are evolving from a brutal species to an egalitarian species. A feminist should not be upset by this. There are biological causes of the domination of women but cue the naturalistic fallacy here. Just because something is “natural,” that doesn’t mean we have to support it. And evolution is about change. Change is natural too.
Evolution is not just about physical characteristics. Cultural values evolve too. Humans are rapidly moving away from a core philosophy that values competition to a core philosophy that values cooperation. The competitive philosophy that once served us well is now obsolete. The old core philosophy that drastic inequality is necessary for survival is no longer convincing if it ever was, but cultural evolution without a conscious intervention is slow.
We are in a period of surplus now. There is no need to scratch and claw each other over bread, but cultural evolution is slow when left to what we used to call natural selection. We can use social science to predict where we are going and skip the long waiting period for natural selection to get there. We know that we are becoming more cooperative. One in four hunter-gatherer humans was killed in a violent confrontation. Here is a graph of war casualties over time. Here comes my argument for progress.

The two world wars created a temporary philosophical pessimism that is only now beginning to pass. Progressives went underground in the 80s. It is necessary to zoom out on the timeline of history to see the tremendous progress that we have achieved in the last two hundred years. Two hundred years is nothing compared to how long modern humans have been alive. It was common before WWI for people to believe that war was morally positive.
Progress is about more than using the physical sciences to discover ways to make consumer goods cheaper. Moral development is even more valuable. Social science is gold, and we value the physical sciences for better reasons now. We value the physical sciences for what they can do to accelerate social progress with advancements in medicine, public health, and clean energy. We no longer favor concentrating the physical sciences on competitive motives like war and empire-building. We are evolving morally.
Women in the U.S. could not vote until 1920. U.S. Senators were not elected by the popular vote until the seventeenth amendment passed in 1913. Until then, state governors appointed them. Senate seats were openly bought and sold by wealthy oligarchs. Unlike now, popular opinion considered selling congressional offices to be reasonable and morally acceptable. Slavery was legal and thought morally acceptable less than two hundred years ago. I could go on and on with examples of real progress that we take for granted. Here is a partial list from one of our political parties: These are not in chronological order.

Democrats Fought for Social Security (F.D.R.)
2) Democrats Fought for Medicare (L.B.J.)
3) Democrats Fought for Medicaid (L.B.J.)
4) Democrats Fought for Welfare Benefits (F.D.R.)
5) Democrats Fought for Civil Rights (L.B.J.)
6) Democrats Fought for Unemployment Insurance (F.D.R.)
7) Democrats Fought for National Labor Relations Board (F.D.R.)
8) Democrats Fought for 8 Hour Work Day-5 Day Work Week- Work Place Breaks & Overtime Pay (F.D.R.)
9) Democrats Fought for Workers Compensation (Woodrow Wilson)
10) Democrats Fought for Americans with Disability Act (101st Democratic Congress – over G.H.W. Bush veto)
11) Democrats Fought for Holiday Pay(F.D.R.)
12) Democrats Fought for Medical Leave Act (Bill Clinton)
13) Democrats Fought for Prevention of Child Labor (F.D.R.)
14) Democrats Fought for Minimum Wage Act (F.D.R.)
15) Democrats Fought for Work Place Safety (OSHA) *** (Nixon)
16) Democrats Fought for Affirmative Action as it relates to Racial Discrimination (J.F.K.)
17) Democrats Fought for Women’s Rights (L.B.J.)
18) Democrats Fought for Tax Fairness (Platform Issue)
19) Democrats Fought for Veterans Pay & Benefits (F.D.R.)
20) Democrats Fought for Consumer Protection / Consumer Bill of Rights (J.F.K.)
21) Democrats Fought for Gun Law’s / Background Checks to prevent felons from getting Weapons (L.B.J.) (B.Clinton)
22) Democrats Fought for Credit Card Holders Bill of Rights (Barack Obama)
23) Democrats Fought for Funding Our Schools (L.B.J.)
24) Democrats Fought for Grants for low-income people to attend college (L.B.J.)
25) Democrats Fought for Environmental Regulations – Clean Water Act / Clean Air Act (Dems Override Nixon Veto)
26) Democrats Fought for Financial Regulations keeping Wall Street Wizards Accountable (Dodd/Frank – Obama)
27) Democrats Fought for Affordable Health Care for Everyone (Obama Care)
28) Democrats Fought for Hate Crime Legislation (Matthew Shepard) (Barack Obama)
29) Democrats Fought for Children’s Health Legislation for 11 Million Children without Health Care (Barack Obama)
30) Democrats Fought for Voting Rights Act (L.B.J.)
31) Democrats Fought for National Voter Registration (Bill Clinton)
32) Democrats Fought for Largest Deficit Cutting Plan in History (Bill Clinton)
33) Democrats Fought for Clayton Anti-Trust Act (Woodrow Wilson)
34) Democrats Fought for Securities & Exchange Act (Franklin D. Roosevelt)
35) Democrats Fought for National School Lunch Program (Harry Truman)

Social progress is real. The physical sciences advanced faster than the social sciences because the physical sciences are more straightforward than the social sciences. (Cue the philosophy of science of Thomas Kuhn) Math never changes. A sociological theory is harder to test than the theory of relativity.
The social sciences are also held back by a dominant, wealthy class of oligarchs who fear social sciences progress. They can slow it down but not reverse it. The needs of the many will win out in the long run.
Back to the central thesis: When people argue about contemporary social policy issues, they are subconsciously serving and confirming their beliefs about social stratification. If a voter believes that a society stratified by a stable pecking order and not a lot of upward mobility is a good thing, that will drive all of their votes on all of the other issues. If you believe that too much equality will weaken a nation, then you will vote against affirmative action and find another rationalization as an excuse. If you think that a highly stratified society is dysfunctional, you will vote for affirmative action and use some other rationalization besides rankism to justify your vote because the process is subconscious.
Social Dominance Theory describes the problem. The solution is political education that includes Social Dominance Theory and political psychology to expose the core philosophical dispute and address it directly. Once a politically literate voter knows that it’s all about rankism, political arguments can focus on the fundamental philosophical divide instead of dancing around wedge issues with blunt rhetorical force and political spin that involves deception.
When confronting a voter about an issue, ask them to think about what they believe about social rank. When the contradictions emerge, you know what to do. Plant that little seed that will grow in the future after they have processed the cognitive dissonance. They will never agree with you on the spot, but the seed will germinate. It takes time.
Where does rankism originate? Social scientists disagree, but they all agree that it is a powerful force. Most agree that it is evolving away. Most social scientists are egalitarian. The others commit the naturalistic fallacy of believing that just because something is “natural,`” it must be good. Rankism is natural, but it is evolving away. Rankism is primitive, just like slavery.
“Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put on this earth to rise above.” That is a quote from “The African Queen” and my favorite image of the naturalistic fallacy. Hepburn told Bogart to stop drinking whiskey. Bogart said drinking is natural. You can’t mess with Katharine Hepburn.
My opinion is that the drive for social stratification used to be hard-wired and is now soft-wired. It comes solely from the drive to reproduce and throw our genes into the future at the expense of other people’s genes. Natural selection. Genetic competition on a subconscious level. Being natural does not make that right or even a good idea. Even the things that used to be necessary for the health of the species have changed.
We still select mates for physical characteristics that make good hunter/gatherers. We will soon pick compassionate mates, not ruthless money chasing sociopathic males and cold women with large breasts. We will not be attracted to people who hoard wealth that they will never need because we will understand that such primitive behavior comes from insecurity. A modern society with a strong safety net reduces fear and uncertainty. Hoarding no longer feels necessary. After Capitalism, excessive competitive behavior and hoarding will result in a referral to a psychiatrist.
We have a long way to go. An excellent strategy is to teach political literacy and include Social Dominance Theory. You can graduate from H.S. without social science proficiency, but you can’t graduate without a lot of other mandatory stuff that is less important. More social science is needed. Physical science does not have to suffer.
J.D. Phillips MSW LCSW 2020

For more information on S.D.T., read “Social Dominance Theory,” by Jim Sidanius.