Politics/Sociology

Item Description

What corporate corruption, sexual abuse by clergy, and schoolyard bullying all have in common.

In the on-going attempts to overcome racism and sexism in North America today, we are overlooking another kind of discrimination that everyone knows, but no one sees: discrimination based on rank. Low rank-signifying weakness, vulnerability, and the absence of power-marks you for abuse in much the same way that race, religion, gender, and sexual orientation have long done.

Review, Studs Terkel, Pulitzer Prize-winning author: "I've been disturbed, especially during the past several years, by my restaurant encounters. The servers invariably wear an ID: Barbara or James. I, as patron, am always addressed with the prefix 'Mr.' I've always made a point to ask, 'What's your last name?' I'm not out to make trouble, just curious. The server then often mumbles, as though embarrassed, his or her surname.

Consider this a metaphor for the theme of Robert Fuller's wonderful and tremendously important book on the 'ism' that is far more encompassing than racism, sexism or ageism. 'Rankism' must be our prime target from now on in. Viva Fuller."

Review, Anthony Lewis, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, The New York Times. " Somebodies and Nobodies is a shrewd and compelling look at the crucial but usually unperceived role of rank in all our lives. How easily we put down those we see as subordinate in title or wealth or origin; how silently we cringe at another's assumption of superiority. I saw myself in some of the examples, and I shuddered.

But the book is not just a personal analysis. The abuse of rank âۥ the denial of equal dignity to others âۥ corrupts relations between nations, and between the governors and the governed in a democracy. Robert Fuller is a realist, not an advocate of political correctness. He makes us understand that equal dignity, whatever one's place in society or the world, is a key to peace and social order."

Review, Peter Schwartz, Chairman, Global Business Network. "Robert Fuller's insightful book has penetrated to the core of human dignity. He helps us understand why nearly all of us, even those with visible status and power, often feel belittled and diminished as human beings by the power of still higher status. But Somebodies and Nobodies is more than a diagnosis; it is a new way forward toward a society that takes seriously the deep conviction that we are truly all created equal."

Used - Like New

Published 2003.  209 pages. Hardback.  6 x 0.6 x 9"

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