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Creating Your Own Plan for Change
As an individual, you can help create a world without rankism, whether you choose to focus on creating a culture of dignity at home, school, work, within a social group or recreational activity, your house of worship, or your local or global community. Here are some ideas to help you create your own plan of action.
Reinterpret Rank as Role
When targeting or preventing rankism, it can be useful to first change our own ways of thinking about rank. One example of how to do this is to reconceptualize rank as role, instead of thinking of it as a hierarchy in which people of high rank have greater power than others and therefore have more status and are more “important.” Looking at rank as role, you can think of everyone as characters in a play.
Each has been cast in a role. Some roles have wider spheres of responsibility than others; some have greater decision-making authority; some wield greater power; some appear to have higher status. But all roles are needed—the high-ranking as well as the low. Without every single role the play would not be complete.
Similarly, in “real life,” individuals whose roles may appear small or unimportant, or who question the abuse of power inherent in rank— such as an angry dissenter, a family’s “black sheep” child, or an organizational system’s group of blacklisted “troublemakers”—would not be dismissed or devalued if viewed as characters in a play. In any play, antagonists are as essential as protagonists and so are characters with seemingly small or “unimportant” roles. Even someone with an apparently inconsequential—or distasteful—part contributes something vital to the play. And in the next play, the characters’ roles may be shuffled around: The lead in the previous play may not play the lead in the next one; identities shift; roles change—just as in “real life.”
When we reconceptualize rank as role, we are less apt to abuse our own rank because we can readily recognize that the power and perks rank may carry do not confer any lasting importance or specialness. Every individual, regardless of rank, is merely playing a needed, temporary role.
Breaking out of our habitual ways of thinking by perceiving rank as role is a powerful step toward preventing rankism. It also supports dignity for all by allowing more people to step into positions of leadership and offer their contributions. Over time, as people learn to listen to one another from the vantage point of different roles, empathy for and understanding of others’ experiences tend to naturally occur.
Imagine New Ways of Fostering and Honoring Dignity
We all have ideas, images, or models in our heads of how things work, what we expect in the world, and how to respond to different types of experience. These ideas—many of which are developed in childhood— guide us in determining our own behavior. To prevent abuse of rank before it occurs, it can be useful to imagine new images of what a culture of dignity might look like in different contexts and how we might create such cultures.
Create Models and Test Them
Scientists create models of the human body or the Earth’s ecosystem to better understand how the physical world operates. Psychologists create models of the human mind and emotions in order to help people develop more optimal behaviors. All of us, in daily life, create models in our heads that aid us in solving problems and interacting with our world.
Our models and images constantly evolve and change, as we first formulate an idea or hypothesis, then test it out, and subsequently observe and assess the results; we then revise our hypotheses and theories, based on our observations. In this way, we continually update our models to make them more useful, accurate, or predictive. To bring about specific results, we continue to refine them until they are able to produce in “the real world” the kinds of results we imagine in our minds.
Invent Dignitarian Models
Most of our current models for human functioning are not dignitarian. Rankism is an accepted element of the ways we habitually think about living together, from family life to international relations. To create a dignitarian world—one in which dignity becomes the natural and expected experience—we can examine our models of relationship to determine whether they are enabling the creation of a dignitarian world. Then we can invent new models that facilitate the experience of dignity for all. Below is a step-by-step process for doing this. It is intended as an example only and may be altered as appropriate for your needs.
1. Choose Your Focus
Begin with the intention to create a model that will foster dignity for all. Then choose an area on which to focus (e.g., family, school, spiritual community, work, or local, state, or national government).
2. Observe and Assess
Now, observe how this system you are involved in functions, in terms of dignity and rankism. Some questions to ask might be:
Do people feel they are valued as individuals?
Do they experience that their unique contributions are recognized and welcomed?
Do people have ways to communicate both their vision for the group or organization as a whole and their concerns about the functioning of the overall system?
Is the system functioning harmoniously and productively?
Do people feel stressed, anxious, angry, or depressed?
Are people able to express their views, or are some voices silenced?
Do leaders and other group members seem to respect one another?
Does any bullying or intimidation occur?
Is the system “open” or “closed” in terms of allowing everyone to be involved?
Do you need to be a member of a clique or “special network” to have full access to rights and privileges of the group?
These are some initial questions you can ask in order to get a sense of the degree of dignity being fostered in the culture you are looking at. If your position in the organizational system permits, you may be able to distribute a questionnaire with questions such as these, to help in your assessment. You may want to see if you can identify mechanisms in the organization that support dignity and ones that undermine it.
3. Formulate a Model
a. Based on your observations, begin to formulate a model of what this system might look like if it were to implement mechanisms to support dignity for all.
What kinds of processes and procedures might help create a culture of dignity?
What could people in high-ranking positions do to help create such a culture?
What could people in lower ranking positions do?
What could you do?
For instance, you might think about what could be done to ensure that everyone has a chance to give input about decisions before they occur. You might consider ways to make decision-making more open and information about important matters available to everyone, so that a climate of secrecy does not develop. If people in your organization or community feel at risk when they bring up concerns about rankism, you might designate a neutral person to serve as ombudsperson to help investigate and mediate complaints.
b. As you build your models, beware of the pitfalls of wallowing in process! This is the point where you will begin to shift from focusing on process to outcome. While it is important to eliminate abuses of rank in the best possible ways, it is also very important to streamline decision making and reach a timely decision. You may need to accept that some of your decisions will be wrong, or less than ideal, but it is nonetheless best to go ahead in a timely fashion. Sometimes you can find out what needs to be changed only by taking action and correcting course.
4. Try Out Your Model
Now, try out your model in any way that seems practical. You might first imagine it only in your mind. If this person or governing body were to do this, what might be the result? If this person or group were to do that, what might happen? If you were to do such and such, what might follow? Identify potential problems and try to come up with ways to prevent or resolve them. For example, if you want to propose the creation of an ombudsperson position, you might think about the best way to suggest the idea, so as to avoid its rejection and maximize its chances of adoption. Who in the organization is likely to be most receptive to the idea? Who would be in the best position to bring the idea to the appropriate decision-makers?
You could also ask a friend, colleague, or small group of others to help you think this through. Other viewpoints are often helpful because they multiply the perspectives through which you can look at your model. As noted above, you don’t need to overdo the input process. Seek enough input to give additional perspective, but not so much that you get bogged down.
Once your model or idea is ready to be tested, find ways to implement portions of it on a small scale. To do that within an organization, it is sometimes easiest to enlist the aid of people in positions of relatively high rank, if you are not in such a position yourself. If that’s not possible, do what you can from where you are.
5. Receive and Contemplate Feedback
As you try out aspects of your model, observe the results. It’s best to record them, so you don’t lose important information. (Memory usually fades over time.) Actively solicit feedback from others: Ask them to describe their experiences. Are the new procedures helping them to feel more valued, listened to, or heard? Do they feel the environment has become safer for people to express a diversity of views? Do they feel less stress or anxiety than before? Ask questions that will help you determine the effectiveness of the model you have been trying out.
6. Revise Your Model
Based on the feedback you have collected, identify what seems to be working well, what isn’t, what you think should stay the same, and what you would like to revise in your model. Make your revisions.
7. Keep Revising and Testing Your Model
Try out your new model, receive feedback, and revise it again, until you get results you are happy with. In this way, over time, you can help build a dignitarian culture, whatever your position or rank, in whatever sphere you choose to work in.