The need for recognition

When humans formed themselves into social organisations, which they did to avoid continual violent conflicts, they had to give up their personal power, and their right to exercise violence, to the greater social organisation. This for Hobbes was the origin of the state. The state has a monopoly on power and the ability its members have to do violence can only be exercised in the service of the state’s institutions to make it strong against external and internal enemies.

This is also the origin of equality among people. All are identically powerless in a state.

However it is not in the nature of the human consciousness to accept such equality to others, according to Hobbes (Safranski p 117 ff). The self must distinguish itself from others, assert its difference. This then is the origin of hierarchy in the state. The individual members of a society need recognition that they are unique and not equal to the rest of the mob.

A striving to stand out from the crowd necessarily emerges in all fields of life within civilisations. Not only artists seek a dominant status. Hierarchical thinking is deeply entrenched in all social forms. Bureaucracies and career paths are structured to exploit the need of workers to be special. Citizens are flattered, promoted, rewarded and granted paper and metal awards from governments, institutions and royalties sometimes for dubious projects such as over-populating cities or wasting energy in innovative ways, sometimes recognising activities for sustainability or peace.

Recognition may be by representatives of the society, by economic success, from an opposition group, or by one’s partner alone. Some are even satisfied with the tail wagging of a dog.

Avoiding the struggle for recognition, the hermit abandons the signifiers of civilisation.

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