17 What is respect for? A fight to the death for pure prestige: this is the essential dynamics of society according to one of the most important interpreters of Hegel’s philosophy, the Russian-French Alexandre Kojève, master of the greatest French intellectuals of the twentieth century. When two individuals meet, each wishes to be recognised by the other as an autonomous and free being. This quest for recognition leads to a confrontation in which each risks his or her life, materially or symbolically, to demonstrate his or her superiority. The result of this struggle is the submission of one of the contenders, who becomes the servant, while the other becomes the master. We call it master and servant, sang Depeche Mode with some sadomasochistic winks. The longing to be respected may sound like a luxury, an artificial need, even a folly: after all, one might say, respect won’t feed you. The Baroque moralists denounced the absurdity of the race for honours, for glory, for the satisfaction of self-love. Yet, respect, indeed, can feed. The peculiarity of human societies lies precisely in equipping themselves with symbolic functions, to achieve material ends. Luxury lubricates bonds, artificial needs serve to satisfy material ones, society is a folie à deux, à trois, à dix, à mille. The great historian Ibn Khaldun understood this by observing the dynamics at the court of medieval caliphs, where every investment in prestige materially translated into power. The respect owed to each one was an essential factor in guaranteeing asabiyya, or the solidarity of the group. This is why respect is so important on the fringes of bourgeois society, in the slums, where the logics of the primitive horde still survives: this ancestral sentiment facilitates the functioning of a micro-society within another society, providing a reputational incentive for the observance of group norms. Indeed, strict conformity to the community order is vital to enable the group to remain supportive and cohesive in the face of any threats posed by other groups, be they rival gangs or enforcers of the dominant order. But it is no longer all about the slums. Today, the whole world increasingly resembles these micro-societies based on pre-modern logics of prestige, dissing included. On Instagram or TikTok, I can prove my worth without mediation, by donating my creations just as the natives did through the ritual of potlatch, the basis of the theorization of gift culture. This traditional ritual of North American tribes, as first described by anthropologists a century ago, consisted of the exchange and destruction of goods to assert one's status within the community. Similarly today, the social potlatch allows one to gain respect and thus make friends, meet love, secure a sponsor, a customer, or a job. In general, the search for approval through social media metrics — likes, shares, engagement: the shapes of digital respect — constitutes an alternative to the more traditional socio-economic indicators of a person’s worth, such as income, wealth, and educational qualifications. Likes are a parallel currency capable of generating a new order of values. In this way, social disintermediation reshuffles the deck and shakes old hierarchies. Today, stars in music, literature, politics come from the web and as soon as they can, they monetise in the real world that kind of respect obtained in the virtual one. Problem is that a society in which everyone is given equal opportunities is also a society in which everyone stands in perpetual competition. A desperate race for respect: a dream resembling a nightmare, a paradise verging on hell. The defeated can only get the flip side of respect, namely humiliation.
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