Deference is actually an issue in the setting we are talking about, mainly through devices that seek to allow people a chance to know what others think of a person they've just met. (I must look up the right term in Toxic Memes).
However I'm thinking about deference in any realistic 2115AD period. Deference, being a thing no one gets on the nets, isn't something we talk about a great deal, but it is important. Deference is also something that has been changing and evolving over time. Compare 1715AD, 1815AD, 1915AD, and 2015AD, and you'll see deference mainly eroding, and also being differently distributed.
Think how elites could treat working people in 1715. The elites spoke of the lower orders, as in their place in society was "God Ordained," and everybody except pirates and radicals bent the knee to the elites. "Condescension" was the Virtue of knowing how to treat the lower orders with proper respect.
By 1815 Jane Austen has one of her characters use the term "condescension" as a complement, and this makes him look silly and bigoted. Only a few years earlier Imputence and Insolence had different meanings (Imputence was rudeness to those higher in the social order, insolence was rudeness to those lower in the social order). By 1815 dictionaries defined both words with the same meaning.
In 1915 they looked back at 1815 with nostalgia as a time when the lower "classes" (no longer God Ordained orders) knew their place. Place was still an important idea even in America. The world of Dowton Abbey felt they lived in a time which was as egalitarian as humanly possible.
In 2015 we think that we have arrived at the true destination of humanity. By 2115 will we be as quaint as Dowton Abby or old copies of the Tattler (circa 1715)?
A world with radically reduced defference, and one were groups not previously defered to, like women, children, the poor, are defered to, would have very different dynamics. When power no longer carries social prestige, how does status work?
Liberterianism on the political Right and Culture Studies types on the Left depend on deference because they use their political ideas as a badge of status. What happens if they lose that status?
Could the terrorism of the THS setting come from bullies lacking status?
Note: women in the past were said to be defered to. In practise they were given either condesencion or insolence disguised as politeness. The same for children.
Deference Issues!
However I'm thinking about deference in any realistic 2115AD period. Deference, being a thing no one gets on the nets, isn't something we talk about a great deal, but it is important. Deference is also something that has been changing and evolving over time. Compare 1715AD, 1815AD, 1915AD, and 2015AD, and you'll see deference mainly eroding, and also being differently distributed.
Think how elites could treat working people in 1715. The elites spoke of the lower orders, as in their place in society was "God Ordained," and everybody except pirates and radicals bent the knee to the elites. "Condescension" was the Virtue of knowing how to treat the lower orders with proper respect.
By 1815 Jane Austen has one of her characters use the term "condescension" as a complement, and this makes him look silly and bigoted. Only a few years earlier Imputence and Insolence had different meanings (Imputence was rudeness to those higher in the social order, insolence was rudeness to those lower in the social order). By 1815 dictionaries defined both words with the same meaning.
In 1915 they looked back at 1815 with nostalgia as a time when the lower "classes" (no longer God Ordained orders) knew their place. Place was still an important idea even in America. The world of Dowton Abbey felt they lived in a time which was as egalitarian as humanly possible.
In 2015 we think that we have arrived at the true destination of humanity. By 2115 will we be as quaint as Dowton Abby or old copies of the Tattler (circa 1715)?
A world with radically reduced defference, and one were groups not previously defered to, like women, children, the poor, are defered to, would have very different dynamics. When power no longer carries social prestige, how does status work?
Liberterianism on the political Right and Culture Studies types on the Left depend on deference because they use their political ideas as a badge of status. What happens if they lose that status?
Could the terrorism of the THS setting come from bullies lacking status?
Note: women in the past were said to be defered to. In practise they were given either condesencion or insolence disguised as politeness. The same for children.
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