All Rise: Somebodies, Nobodies, and the Politics of Dignity - Softcover

Robert, W. Fuller

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1458777499 ISBN 13: 9781458777492

Publisher: ReadHowYouWant, 2012

Synopsis

By the author of the bestselling Some bodies and Nobodies: Overcoming the Abuse of Rank Argues that rankism--abuse of the power that comes with superior rank--does serious damage to our private relationships and public institutions Details how to design social institutions that overcome rankism and protect human dignity Learn more at www.BreakingRanks.net In his groundbreaking book Some bodies and Nobodies, Robert Fuller identified a form of domination that everyone has experienced but few dare to protest: rankism, abuse of the power inherent in rank to exploit and humiliate someone of lower rank. It plays a role in just about every form of social oppression n racism, sexism, homophobia, and religious intolerance all have a significant element of rankism in them. Most everyone has felt the sting of rankism--at the hands of a dictatorial boss, a condescending teacher, an arrogant doctor, or an imperious bureaucrat. But, equally, most everyone has inflicted it on someone of lower rank. That we are, all of us, both victims and perpetrators of rankism mandates a novel, multifaceted strategy for confronting it. Fuller isn't proposing that we do away with rank--without it organizations become dysfunctional. He's not advocating an egalitarian society where all are equal in rank but rather a ''dignitarian'' one where all are equal in dignity: a society in which rank holders are held accountable, rankism is shunned, and dignity is broadly protected. In All Rise, Fuller lays the groundwork for a dignitarian society by delineating the scope and impact of rankism and then shows how a dignitarian movement can defeat it by addressing issues such as: What would workplaces, schools, health-care organizations, politics, religion, and international relations look like if they were to embody dignitarian values? What policies could we develop to defend dignity in our various social institutions? How can we embody these principles in our lives and create a culture of universal dignity? All Rise offers hope and practical solutions for fashioning a world where human relationships are governed by respect and every person's right to dignity is affirmed.

About this title

About the Author:

Robert W. Fuller earned his Ph.D. in physics at Princeton University and taught at Columbia, where he coauthored the classic text Mathematics of Classical and Quantum Physics. The mounting social unrest of the 1960s drew his attention to educational reform, and at the age of thirty-three he was appointed president of Oberlin College, his alma mater. In 1971 Fuller traveled to India as a consultant to Indira Gandhi, and there witnessed firsthand the famine resulting from the war with Pakistan over what became Bangladesh. With the election of Jimmy Carter, Fuller began a campaign to persuade the new president to end world hunger. His meeting with Carter in the Oval Office in June 1977 contributed to the establishment of the Presidential Commission on World Hunger. During the 1980s Fuller traveled frequently to the USSR, working as a citizen-scientist to improve the cold war relationship. His work, together with that of others, led to the creation of the nonprofit global corporation Internews, which promotes democracy via free and independent media. For many years Fuller served as its chairman. When the USSR collapsed, Fuller's work as a citizen-diplomat came to a close and he looked back reflectively on his career. He came to see that he had been, at different junctures in his life, both a somebody and a nobody. Contemplating his periodic sojourns into ''Nobodyland''led him to identify and probe rankism - defined by him as abuse of the power inherent in rank - and ultimately to write Somebodies and Nobodies: Overcoming the Abuse of Rank (New Society Publishers, 2003). Growing popular interest in this subject led him to write the present sequel.

About this edition

• Publisher: ReadHowYouWant
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1458777499
• ISBN 13: 9781458777492
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 332