Wherever you find yourself in the ranks, take responsibility for knowing what others do and understanding how their job fits into the whole. Then recognize their contributions and support compensation that acknowledges the part they play in fulfilling the organizational mission. There aren't many rules yet for determining the monetary worth of one job as compared to another, but clearly rankist self-dealing over the years has produced a gap between rich and poor that is incompatible with the values of a dignitarian society.
Keep Your Promises to Somebodies and Nobodies Alike
One way to tell if you are using the somebody-nobody distinction invidiously as a rationalization for rankist behavior is to notice to whom you keep your promises. In a post-rankist world,we'd all feel as obliged to keep our promises to those whom we outrank as we do to those who outrank us. If you're not sure you'll keep a promise, don't make it.
Create "Indignity-Free Zones"
Teachers are increasingly sensitive to the harm done to students by indignity. If you're an educator, you can bring this awareness into the open and communicate it to those students whose bullying and humiliation of peers unconsciously mirrors that of adult society.An insult to a student's dignity is more than a mere discourtesy. It's an attack on one's status in the "tribe" and carries the implicit danger of ostracism and exclusion. Status has historically been a matter of life and death and remains a determinant of whether we prosper or decline, so an attack on status is experienced as a threat to survival. Schoolchildren begin the school day by reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. Perhaps it should be amended to conclude "with liberty, justice, and dignity for all."
Enlist Your Patients as Partners
If you are a health care provider, you can help your clients make the awkward transition from patients to partners. Ridding health care of its legacy of dehumanization and infantilization is simply good medical practice. You can also insist on respect throughout the organization in which you work. If you are a patient, have compassion for your doctors. It's not easy to give up one's "deity status," and many of them are doing so with remarkable grace.Moreover, remember that they're victims of rankism themselves at the hands of HMOs that often treat them less like the professionals they are and more like pieceworkers on an assembly line.
Recognize That Servers Are People, Too
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