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These are hardly heartwarming conclusions. Moreover, the deep influence of status on our individual choices challenges our very sense of free will. The sociologist Pitirim Sorokin writes, “When we ourselves determine something, we feel ourselves free; and especially when this self-determination flo…

At some point our expectations will adjust to these structural realities, but at the moment, we suffer from what Pierre Bourdieu calls hysteresis—the lingering values of a previous age continuing to guide our judgments. Take our feelings toward fame. In the past we assigned high status to anyone wh…