Dignity for All: How to Create a World Without Rankism

Dignity for All: It's Time!

In his books Somebodies and Nobodies and All Rise, Robert Fuller exposed rankism--abuse of the power inherent in rank to exploit or humiliate someone of lower rank. In Dignity for All, Fuller and Pamela Gerloff offer a concise, action-oriented guide to the concrete steps we can take to eradicate it. They focus on us as individuals--how we can recognize rankism in our own experiences, even in ourselves, and how, on a day-to-day basis, we can help others to see its insidious influence and work with them to create a better world.

Fuller and Gerloff offer advice on the best ways to forcefully but compassionately bring rankist behavior to light. They include examples of rankism in action as well as the often surprisingly simple things people have done to counteract it. Perhaps most importantly, they show how we can prevent rankism from taking root in the first place. Dignity for All will help you map out your own personal strategy for creating a society in which every human being feels truly valued and respected.

Robert W. Fuller earned his Ph.D. in physics at Princeton University and taught at Columbia, where he co-authored Mathematics of Classical and Quantum Physics. After serving as president of Oberlin College, he became a "citizen diplomat," working toward improving international relations during the Cold War. During the 1990s, he served as board chair of the non-profit global corporation Internews and promoted democracy via free and independent media. When the Cold War ended with the collapse of the USSR, Fuller reflected on his career and realized that he had been, at different times in his life, a somebody and a nobody. His periodic sojourns into "Nobodyland" led him to identify rankism--abuse of the power inherent in rank--and ultimately to write Somebodies and Nobodies: Overcoming the Abuse of Rank. Three years later, he published a sequel that focuses on building a "dignitarian society" titled All Rise: Somebodies, Nobodies, and the Politics of Dignity. With co-author Pamela Gerloff, he has also published Dignity for All: How to Create a World Without Rankism. His most recent books are Religion and Science: A Beautiful Friendship?, From Genome to Wenome: The Key to Universal Dignity, and The Rowan Tree: A Novel.

Pamela A. Gerloff is the founder of Compelling Vision(tm), a consulting business which provides presentations, training, and consulting to individuals and organizations seeking to create dignitarian environments.