Dignity – Human dignity
The Dignitarian Movement

• Everyone has value.

• Dignity is a halfway-house between liberty and justice.

• The predatory impulse to put people down is failing us now.

• What is rankism?
  Rankism is what Somebodies do to people they take for nobodies.
  1. Racism – whites putting and keeping non-whites down
  2. Sexism – males limiting and disadvantaging females
  3. Ageism – patronizing the young, condescending to the elderly
  4. Anti-Semitism – discriminating against Jews
  5. Classism [class war] – putting down people on the basis of differences in class
  6. Homophobia – heterosexuals demeaning gays and lesbians
  7. Ableism – humiliating people with disabilities
  8. Colonialism – subordinating and exploiting another society or nation
  9. Workplace and schoolyard bullying
  10. Sexual harassment, child abuse, and domestic violence
  11. Corporate, bureaucratic, and political corruption
  12. [...]

• Nobodies of the world unite! We have nothing to lose but our shame.

• The strongest defense is not giving offense.

• We happen to live in a time when the Golden Rule is no longer optional. It's becoming mandatory. We're going to begin living up to it in the next twenty or thirty years all over the world. It's one of those things which arises everywhere simultaneously. It's in the air.

• Rankism won't be eliminated over night. […] It will take 4-6 generations to change the deep hard wiring in our brains and the 21st century to grow into a dignitarian society model.

• One can hold high rank and not abuse it. George Washington [Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., etc.] did not abuse his power, he led by example.

• When legitimately earned and appropriately used, rank has an indispensable role to play in education. Robert Fuller, Ph.D., The Dignitarian University, page 5, around 2007

• Doctors are M.D.s not M.Deities.

• We love people of high rank who use it well and serve the group. I am not saying everybody is equal, we are actually radically unequal. That is no basis to subjecting them to indignity. Rank helps to make these distinctions.

• It is dangerous to be an uppity Nobody.

• You have to find some enlightened leader in the company who outranks the bully.

• Until you name it, you don’t notice it. In the 1960s, for instance, women were constantly experiencing indignities, both personal and institutional. Then they gave it a name: sexism. And through the power of naming it, feminists broke its hold on society. Interview with Robert Fuller, Ph.D., The Dignitarian Way, page 1, presented by strategy+business, 13. February 2007  

• Rankism is abuse of the power inherent in rank [...] and any kind of domination wherein "somebodies" use their position to demean and exploit "nobodies" (who have lower status). [...] The abuse of rank, which is rampant in our culture, is the source of an immense amount of unacknowledged and unnecessary suffering and organizational dysfunction. Interview with Robert Fuller, Ph.D., The Dignitarian Way, page 1, presented by strategy+business, 13. February 2007  

• Status is relative. […] Nearly every “nobody” is looking for someone that he or she can feel superior to. Interview with Robert Fuller, Ph.D., The Dignitarian Way, page 1, presented by strategy+business, 13. February 2007   

• All the various, seemingly disparate forms of discrimination [i.e. segregation, patriarchy, homophobia] actually have one common root – the presumption and assertion of rank to the detriment of others. Robert Fuller, Ph.D., The Dignitarian University, page 1, around 2007

• Rankism is like racism in that although it has been around a long time, it can be disallowed and eventually overcome.
  It’s been a survival technique throughout history to prey upon the weak — to enslave them or exploit them. In our culture, we no longer enslave others, but we still exploit them. Interview with Robert Fuller, Ph.D., The Dignitarian Way, page 1, presented by strategy+business, 13. February 2007  

• Any organization that encourages or tolerates rankism is systematically undermining the creativity and productivity of its own people. Interview with Robert Fuller, Ph.D., The Dignitarian Way, page 1, presented by strategy+business leading ideas online, 13. February 2007

• A dignitarian environment might mean paying employees more fairly. It might mean the kind of humility that Jim Collins wrote about in his book Good to Great (HarperBusiness, 2001) as "Level Five leadership." It might mean more transparency about salaries and about the unacceptability of firing or demoting people for speaking their mind. Interview with Robert Fuller, Ph.D., The Dignitarian Way, page 1, presented by strategy+business leading ideas online, 13. February 2007

• Over the next half-century or so, poor nations will find ways to force the developed world to grant them comparable dignity, much as blacks and women did in the last 50 years, and as gays are doing now. In most parts of the world, it is no longer acceptable to insult the members of these groups. At some point, that will be true for any human being. Interview with Robert Fuller, Ph.D., The Dignitarian Way, page 1, presented by strategy+business, 13. February 2007  

• In the present rankist environment, the loss of one’s job can be a terrible blow to one’s dignity. Interview with Robert Fuller, Ph.D., The Dignitarian Way, page 2, presented by strategy+business, February 13, 2007  

• Tenure is unfair to the young, much as “whites only” signs were unfair to blacks. Interview with Robert Fuller, Ph.D., The Dignitarian Way, page 2, presented by strategy+business, 13. February 2007  

• It’s time to shift the focus from job security to the broader notion of dignity security, and take steps to protect dignity when, inevitably, changes occur in the particular roles and ranks we hold. Interview with Robert Fuller, Ph.D., The Dignitarian Way, page 2, presented by strategy+business, 13. February 2007  

• Antidiscrimination laws were a significant step for the civil rights movement. Interview with Robert Fuller, Ph.D., The Dignitarian Way, page 2, presented by strategy+business, 13. February 2007

• Organizations are not going to become dignitarian overnight. In many of them, rankism is still below the radar. But giving it a name may help them evolve. Interview with Robert Fuller, Ph.D., The Dignitarian Way, page 3, presented by strategy+business, 13. February 2007

• Until the abuse of rank is recognized as no more legitimate than abuse based on traits like color and gender, rankism will continue to exact a toll on health, happiness, and productivity. Interview with Robert Fuller, Ph.D., The Dignitarian Way, page 3, presented by strategy+business, 13. February 2007

• A dignitarian era is coming, because, in the end, most people don’t want to live in a world in which their dignity depends on either superficial traits or rank. Since we are, all of us, once and future nobodies, it’s in our interest to make our institutions and our society less rankist and more dignitarian. Interview with Robert Fuller, Ph.D., The Dignitarian Way, page 3, presented by strategy+business, 13. February 2007

• Dignity is oblivious of relative rank, whereas pride exults in out-ranking others.
  Dignity entails a shared sense of worth; pride, a sense of superiority; shame, a sense of inferiority.
  Dignity is a creature of mutuality and reciprocity; pride, a feature of dominant-subordinate relationships. Robert W. Fuller, Ph.D., Vocabulary for a Dignitarian Society, PDF

• Rankism is contextual. Most of the time, no matter how high up we are, we can look around and see someone of higher rank than we are. [...] a famous singer came to see the president of the United States [in the White House]. I watched as each of these extraordinarily powerful and famous men began to feel insecure around each other, clearly feeling like a nobody in comparison to the somebody they thought they were shaking hands with. Interview with Robert Fuller, Ph.D., Standing Up to RANKISM, Pamela Gerloff, Project on Civic Reflection, More Than Money Archive, Issue 35

• Rankism is felt as a lack of dignity. You experience your relative worthlessness; you feel you are worth less as a person when someone treats you in a rankist way. Interview with Robert Fuller, Ph.D., Standing Up to RANKISM, Pamela Gerloff, Project on Civic Reflection, More Than Money Archive, Issue 35

• Institutional rankism is the rankism we encounter when we deal with bureaucracies, nonprofit organizations, schools, hospitals, churches, and governments. In police states it takes the form of exploitation and oppression of the citizenry. In democracies it consists of the daily indignities of dealing with institutions whose de facto goal is self-preservation and aggrandizement rather than service. Interview with Robert Fuller, Ph.D., Standing Up to RANKISM, Pamela Gerloff, Project on Civic Reflection, More Than Money Archive, Issue 35

• You can't end rankism with rankism.
  To actually end rankism, you have to preserve the dignity of perpetrators while offering correction. You have to protect other people's dignity as you would have them protect yours. It's like the golden rule. Interview with Robert Fuller, Ph.D., Standing Up to RANKISM, Pamela Gerloff, Project on Civic Reflection, More Than Money Archive, Issue 35

• It is because rankism encompasses the other -isms that I say that whoever identifies rankism and sets out to overcome it is going to lead the world in the next century. Interview with Robert Fuller, Ph.D., Standing Up to RANKISM, Pamela Gerloff, Project on Civic Reflection, More Than Money Archive, Issue 35

• We only hate in others – whether in individuals or whole peoples – what we cannot accept in ourselves. […] We need our enemies in order to complete ourselves. […]
  As the sense of threat diminishes, we redesignate our former "enemies" as "adversaries." With the first hint of positive mutual value, "adversaries" become "rivals," a term which acknowledges each as a secret teacher of the other. Finally "rivals," recognizing their mutual dependency, come to see themselves as "partners."  […]
  We'll have to transcend global civil war not by allying ourselves with former enemies in the face of a new enemy, but by learning enough about our adversaries to establish forbearance for the differences that have, during these first close encounters, so scared and agitated us. Interview with Robert Fuller, Ph.D., A Better Game Than War. Understanding the origin of our "fear of the other" may lead us to the elimination of war, David Hoffman, Magazine In Context, The Foundations Of Peace (IC#4) pg. 18, Autumn 1983

• The lens of race highlights the well-known injustices of racism. The lens of rank reveals the less well recognized indignities of rankism. [...] Rank, in itself, is not the problem. Like race, rank is just a fact of life. Rank tells us who's in charge. [...] The problem lies not with rank per se, but in rank abuse. Rankism is the principal source of man-made indignity. Interview with Robert Fuller, Ph.D., US American physicist, president of Oberlin College, rankism and dignity researcher, Rankism: The Elephant in Professor Gates's House, presented Huffington Post, 27. July 2009

• Dignitarian governance does not necessarily mean giving everyone a vote on every issue, but it does mean giving everyone a voice. To ensure those voices are heard generally requires having at least some voting representatives from each of the organization’s constituencies serving at every level of its governance. This is sometimes referred to as multi-stakeholder or collaborative problem-solving. Robert Fuller, Ph.D., The Dignitarian University, page 14, around 2007

• I think it will soon become anybody's business to be against, to be alert to any form of rankism and to disallow it. Radio interview with Robert W. Fuller, Ph.D., dignity researcher, Recognizing Rankism/Global Affairs, part 3, presented by radio station KPFA, Berkeley, CA, aired 8. May 2000

• Andrew Grove at Intel insists that every 20-year-old can tell him that he's wrong on anything technical. The slogan in many of the best firms in Silicon Valley companies is: The only boss is a better idea.
  That's where we are all headed. We are not there yet. Radio interview with Robert Fuller, Ph.D., dignity researcher, Rankism on the Defensive, part 9, presented by radio station KPFA, Berkeley, CA, aired 8. May 2000

• When you get power the very possession shields you from a meaningful interaction from the people over whom you hold it. They're shy around you. They won't tell you the truth. They won't tell you when you're stupid. Radio interview with Robert Fuller, Ph.D., Rankism on the Defensive, part 9, presented by radio station KPFA, Berkeley, CA, aired 8. May 2000

• The first thing that happens is when people get power they notice that they are now insulated from retribution when they abuse their power is that they indulge themselves in it. Twenty years later you've got Stalin, you have a despot. [...] Every increment of power added puts the perpetrator in a position to abuse it even more and continue to get away with it. That's in the nature of power. Radio interview with Robert Fuller, Ph.D., Rankism on the Defensive, part 9, presented by radio station KPFA, Berkeley, CA, aired 8. May 2000

• All rankism is bullying of one form or another. But you always have to
  1. either risk your own self in opposing it – being an uppity nobody – or
  2. you have to quietly organize a group of other nobodies to stand with you against the abuse of rank.

• Once you get rid of rankism rank gets the honor it really deserves. It is always a sign of earned and maintained excellence. Radio audio interview with Robert Fuller, Ph.D., Rankism on the Defensive, part 9, presented by radio station KPFA, Berkeley, CA, aired 8. May 2000

• We are equal in dignity. We're unequal in almost every other respect we can think of. But we are equal in dignity. […] To go after equality [as such] is too general. Equality before the law, that's an essential part of dignity. Video interview with Robert Fuller, Ph.D., US American rankism and dignity researcher, Somebodies and Nobodies, presented by Cal Poly Tech University Pomona, California, Hot Talk, host Saul Landau, US American journalist, filmmaker, commentator, professor emeritus, minute 10:26 and minute 25:55, 28:07 minutes duration, aired end 2002

• Rank and authority aren't really the problem. It is the abuse of rank that is always the problem and is what I call rankism. […] Without rank we collapse into a kind of anarchy. […] We need rank to coordinate ourselves. […] There is nothing wrong with rank when it signifies excellence. But that doesn't mean that the high ranking people get to abuse their rank and bully the lower ranking people. Video interview with Robert Fuller, Ph.D., US American rankism and dignity researcher, Somebodies and Nobodies, presented by Cal Poly Tech University Pomona, California, Hot Talk, host Saul Landau, US American journalist, filmmaker, commentator, professor emeritus, minute 6:27, 28:07 minutes duration, aired end 2002

• You have to discriminate [in the case of very difficult moral choices]. And it's very difficult. […] [Example: Ending the terror regime of Nazi Germany] There was one voice that did say that [Stop it!]. It was Churchill's [LoC 510] voice. He was right, too. […] Intervention is not always wrong but you have to do it with the greatest care. What we need is a new frame work that could guide it and limit the tendency of America to act like a bully because it can get away with it. Video interview with Robert Fuller, Ph.D., US American rankism and dignity researcher, Somebodies and Nobodies, presented by Cal Poly Tech University Pomona, California, Hot Talk, host Saul Landau, US American journalist, filmmaker, commentator, professor emeritus, minute 19:59, 28:07 minutes duration, aired end 2002

• [The dignity approach] is not a class based argument. It's is not proletariat versus aristocracy or anything remotely Marxist. It's a different divide. It's the divide along power as signified by rank […]. The high rank people [in the organisations] are at liberty to abuse lower rank people. Not that all of them do it. By no means do they. Many people instinctively respect other's dignity. But they can get away with it and it is still sanctioned. Video interview with Robert Fuller, Ph.D., US American rankism and dignity researcher, Somebodies and Nobodies, presented by Cal Poly Tech University Pomona, California, Hot Talk, host Saul Landau, US American journalist, filmmaker, commentator, professor emeritus, minute 4:12, 28:07 minutes duration, aired end 2002

• Dignity is not dependent on winning. Dignity's Apostle: My Interview With Author Robert W. Fuller, presented by Intrepid Liberal Journal, blogspot by Robert Ellmann, Saturday, 20. May 2006  

• Religion teaches dignity; theology sometimes promotes indignity. When Islam was first introduced it championed women’s liberation (See Huston Smith’s Religions of the World which points out that Mohammed’s wife had a very big hand in writing it). Some Islamic theologians have since interpreted it in ways that oppress women, but that’s politics operating under the guise of religion (as it does in every religion). In their core beliefs, religions have all been a powerful force for recognizing the universal and non-negotiable dignity of Man. Dignity's Apostle: My Interview With Author Robert W. Fuller, presented by Intrepid Liberal Journal, blogspot by Robert Ellmann, Saturday, 20. May 2006  

• Something new is happening where the predatory strategy [to put people down] which we followed for millions of years is finally failing us. Why? Because the people we take for nobodies are getting too powerful. It always takes the mobilization of countervailing power to stop one of these systemic types of abuse. Video presentation by Robert Fuller, Ph.D., US American rankism and dignity researcher, Media Watch: Rankism, presented by Linkmedia, YouTube film, minute 2:05, 4:34 minutes duration, posted 17. April 2007

• A dignitarian society which actually sees to it that everyone experiences equal dignity is a different society than a democratic society. But it's within reach. And I think it is democracy's next natural evolutionary step to build a dignitarian society that goes beyond a democratic society and actually disallows rankism in all of society. Video presentation by Robert Fuller, Ph.D., US American rankism and dignity researcher, Media Watch: Rankism, presented by Linkmedia, YouTube film, minute 3:39, 4:34 minutes duration, posted 17. April 2007

• Malrecognition usually consists of too little recognition.
  Idolization is a rarer form, but it too can be fatal – Jackson, Presley, Monroe. Robert Fuller, Ph.D., robertwfuller, Twitter message, 1. January 2010

• Tragically, avoiding humiliation trumps personal growth. Robert W. Fuller Ph.D., Somebodies and Nobodies. Overcoming the Abuse of Rank, pg. ?, New Society Publishers, 2003 and The Dignitarian University, page 6, around 2007

• The ill-effects of rigid work schedules, inequitable pay, and other demeaning practices are now the subject of a growing body of research documenting the damage done not only to individual employees but to the companies for which they work. It turns out that rankism – the rank-based discrimination and abuse to which most indignities can be traced – is no better for the bottom line than racism, sexism, and homophobia. All the discriminatory “isms” are self-inflicted wounds that drain away the life-blood of enterprises harboring them. Robert W. Fuller Ph.D., The Dignity of Work. Transforming the one-size-fits-all workhouse into a custom-fit workplace, 23. August 2010

• Most valuable to us are people in whom our faults are writ so large that we recognize ourselves in them. They're easy to spot: we hate them. Robert Fuller, Ph.D., US American physicist, president of Oberlin College, rankism and dignity researcher, comment on Twitter, 6. February 2010

• We know dignity through its absence – indignity. With our first taste of indignity, we begin a lifelong vigil to shield ourselves from putdowns, ridicule, and exploitation. Yet indignities are still widely condoned. Humiliation is the staple of television entertainment. For many viewers, watching the degradation of others helps them cope with the daily dose of indignity they are putting up with themselves. Robert Fuller, Ph.D., US American physicist, president of Oberlin College, rankism and dignity researcher, The Dignity Movement Finds Its Feet, presented Huffington Post, 6. March 2011  

• The dignity movement can be seen as nobodies' liberation. Robert Fuller, Ph.D., US American physicist, president of Oberlin College, rankism and dignity researcher, author, The Dignity Revolution, UC-Berkeley, presented by TEDx Berkeley, aired 19. February 2011, YouTube film, 19:41 minutes duration, posted 23. March 2011

• Equal dignity is grounded in the fact of our dependence upon specialization and cooperation for survival, or, more fundamentally, in the co-creation of our very identities. This suggests that both the Left and the Right have equal stakes in, and responsibility for, universalizing dignity. Robert Fuller, Ph.D., US American physicist, president of Oberlin College, rankism and dignity researcher, author, The Source of Indignity, presented by The Huffington Post, 12. April 2013

• Women’s marvellous power is lying dormant. If the women of Asia wake up, they will dazzle the world. My experiment in non-violence would be instantly successful if I could secure women’s help. Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi [LoC 760] (1869-1948) Indian sage, spiritual activist leader, humanitarian, lawyer, nonviolent freedom fighter, presented by gandhitopia.org

• The world will be saved by the western woman. H.H. 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso [LoC 570] (*1935) Tibetan monk, leader of the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" branch of Tibetan Buddhism, Peace Nobel Prize laureate, 1989, proclamation, Vancouver Peace Summit, 27.-29. September 2009

• At first, women are scared to death to try. Peer support and encouragement of Grameen Bankers helps success. […] If a woman tries, and is successful, it will snowball.
  Source: Presentation by Muhammad Yunus, Ph.D. (*1940) Bangladeshi professor of economy, Chittagong University, founder of the Grameen Bank, microcredit institution, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 2006, Financial Services and Psychology, Sigmund Freud University (SFU), Vienna, 24. May 2009, article by John Morris, Using psychology to tackle the roots of poverty, Austrian Times, 31. May 2009

• The world is awakening to a powerful truth: Women and girls aren’t the problem; they’re the solution. Nicholas D. Kristof (*1959) US American journalist, New York Times, op-ed columnist, winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, author, Sheryl WuDunn, former Times correspondent, philanthropy expert, The Women’s Crusade, presented by New York Times, 23. August 2009

Jacqueline Novogratz, an idealist young woman from Wall Street, went on 'a mission to save the third world'.
The poor women from The Ivory Coast sent her away saying:

This taught her the humility to start listening.
In Kenya she found a bakery run by a classic charity organization which occupied twenty prostitutes who in fact were unwed mothers struggling to survive.
There Novogratz began to understand the power of language.
Her insight is:

Jacqueline Novogratz learned three lessons from the Africans:

1. Dignity is more important to the human spirit than wealth. [...]
   People want to be seen and heard and given the dignity of choice.
2. Traditional charity and aid alone will not solve the problems of poverty.
3. Markets alone will also not solve the problems of poverty.
   [...] As people get wealthier they also get healthier.

• The highest calibration in the United States Declaration of Independence [LoC 700] lies in this one line: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Dr. David Hawkins, Sedona Seminar Realization of the Self and the "I", 1. November 2003

• Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world. Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) US American First Lady (1933-1945), advocate for civil rights, supporter of her husband Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal policies

• President of China Jiang Zemin: Do you the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights believe religion is important in this world given the advancement of scientific knowledge?
  Mary Robinson: While there is indeed scientific advancement, religion and spirituality are extraordinarily important in our world and will continue to be.
  Mary Robinson (*1944) first female president of Ireland (1990-1997), United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (1997-2002), Global Elder, founder and chair of Realizing Rights, bbc.co.uk, September 1998

• Value is what people are willing to pay for. John Naisbitt (*1930) US American futurologist, living in Europe and China, author of Megatrends, 1982