Across history, there have been numerous examples of hierarchy in society. In India, there was the caste system with five different levels of social status, in Korea there has been a divide between the “royals” and the “commoners,” and with the feudal system, there was a divide between the landlords and the farmers. Do you think such a hierarchy still exists? What do you think is the modern version of a social hierarchy? Today I would like to share some of my thoughts regarding the divide in social status nowadays, focusing on what I have observed throughout my life.
Before I start with the examples, I would like to start off with my conclusion. The criteria that determines social hierarchy should be something visible and something that is different for everyone. That is to say, one should be able to easily tell which hierarchy an individual fits through some sort of an indication, whether that be appearance, model of the car, or a report card. Therefore, I think that while I am a student, the social hierarchy mostly depends on my academic success. Then as I enter society, the criteria expands to include financial success.
In the student stage of life, our financial abilities are largely out of our hands. Of course, there are exceptions with highly-motivated students who earn large sums of money, but in the usual sense when we are adolescents, the money we use comes from our parents. To add on to that, in most of the schools that I have attended, we had school uniforms or at least a dress code to abide by. Hence, with the absence of a clear category demonstrating the level of wealth, academic grades were the next obvious and clear separation between different people. Those with good grades were often looked upon with envy and were considered to be the “successful” ones that every other student should strive to be. They were the ones that teachers liked and the parents also wanted their kids to be friends with these “good” students.
Although I was not aware at the time, my mom told me later about the conversations that she had with other parents in my school. I was highly motivated academically and had a relatively high grade throughout middle and high school. And because of this, a lot of the other parents had called my mom, being “nice” to her and asking her for information regarding which private tutoring I was getting or which book I was using for my studies. Unfortunately, she did not have much to offer, as I did not do a lot of private lessons outside of school except for a few weeks in exam season. Nonetheless, what she told me made me realize that when we are students, what matters the most is the academic grades.
Now as a college student, academic grades are less apparent, as everyone is majoring in different areas and unlike high school, the GPA is not everything in college. Extracurricular activities, interpersonal relationships and preparations for the future are just as important as GPAs. Hence, I believe that the implicit social hierarchy here is more complicated and holistic. Moreover, as I continue after graduation to graduate school and later find a job, the hierarchy is going to show itself in a completely different way. It is sad, in a way, to think that even in a superficially equal world like ours, there still is social hierarchy hidden. But in my personal opinion, the extent to which it influences an individual’s daily life will differ from environment to environment, but some form of social status will continue to exist. What are your thoughts on hierarchy?