Society & Sociology
6 pieces · 2.5 hours of reading
The Pecking Order: Why Every Society Has Hierarchy (and Why Some Have Less)
Hens rank each other with their beaks. Kalahari hunters mock a good hunter's kill. The question is what humans do with the ape inside us.
Deep dive22 min02Class, Status and Power: Marx, Weber and Bourdieu
Three great thinkers looked at the same ladder and saw different things. Then their critics looked back at them.
Deep dive21 min03Castes, Estates and Classes: How Societies Have Ranked People Through History
For most of history, the question wasn't how far you could rise. It was what you had been born as. A tour of the ranking systems humans have built, and the one we live in now.
Deep dive23 min04Climbing the Ladder: What the Data Says About Social Mobility
Can a child born poor end up comfortable? For a century people argued about it with anecdotes. Then researchers got the tax records.
Deep diveInteractive27 min05Institutions: The Invisible Rules That Shape Us
You didn't invent the language you think in, the money in your pocket or the queue you joined this morning. Sociology starts with the strange fact that these things push back.
Deep dive26 min06Status in the Age of Followers: Hierarchy Online and Off
People have always ranked one another. What's new is that the ranking now comes with a number, updates every second, and follows you to bed.
Deep dive29 min