Dignity for All: How to Create a World Without Rankism: Easyread Edition

by Robert W. Fuller

Dignity. Isn't that what everybody really wants? You, me, your parents, your children, your friends, your colleagues at All of us want to be treated with dignity. The homeless person in the park; the elderly in nursing homes; students, teachers, principals; Christians, Jews, Muslims; taxi drivers, store clerks, waiters, police officers; prisoners and guards; immigrants; doctors, patients, nurses; the poor, the wealthy, the middle class; big nations, small nations, people without a homeland. Dignity. Everybody wants it, craves it, seeks it. People's whole lives change when they're treated with dignity - and when they're not. Evan Ramsey, now serving a 210-year prison sentence for shooting and killing his high school principal and another student in Bethel, Alaska, told criminologist Susan ''I was picked on seven hours a day every day and the teachers didn't do anything to help me ... I told [my foster mother] and [my principal] more than a dozen times about all the bullying I was subjected to. They never did anything to help me.... If I can prevent someone from having the experience I went through, I want to do that. I killed people.... Don't respond with violence even if you're provoked. There's no hope for me now but there is hope for you.'' - From ''The Realities and Issues Facing Juveniles and Their Families, The Warning Evan Ramsey - Bethel, Alaska,'' by Susan Magestro, .Fundamentally, dignity is about respect and value. It means treating yourself and others with respect just because you're alive on the planet. It's recognizing that you and everyone else have a right to be here, and that you belong. It means valuing your own and others' presence and special qualities. It means honoring who you are and what you have to offer.

140 pages, Paperback

About the author

Robert W. Fuller is author of Somebodies and Nobodies, All Rise: Somebodies, Nobodies, and the Politics of Dignity, and (with co-author Pamela Gerloff) Dignity for All: How to Create a World Without Rankism. He coined the term rankism and is active worldwide in the Dignity Movement. His latest books are Religion and Science: A Beautiful Friendship?; Genomes, Menomes, Wenomes: Neuroscience and Human Dignity; Belonging: A Memoir, The Wisdom of Science; The Theory of Everybody; and The Rowan Tree: A Novel.

He earned his Ph.D. in physics at Princeton University and taught at Columbia, where he co-authored Mathematics of Classical and Quantum Physics. He then served as president of Oberlin College.

On a trip to India, where he was a consultant to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Fuller witnessed firsthand the horrors of genocidal famine. Subsequently, he met with President Carter to propose the creation of the Presidential Commission on World Hunger.

During the 1980s, Fuller traveled frequently to the USSR, working to improve the Cold War relationship with the U.S. For many years, he served as chairman of the global nonprofit Internews, which promotes democracy via free and independent media.

Fuller is now an international authority on dignity and rankism (abusive, discriminatory, or exploitative behavior towards those of lower rank). In 2011, he was the keynote speaker at "The National Conference on Dignity for All" hosted by the president of Bangladesh. Fuller has also served as visiting professor at the Indian Institute of Science and the National Institute of Advanced Studies in Bangalore. His work has been featured in scores of books and publications including the New York Times, O Magazine, and The Contemporary Goffman.

In his books, Fuller makes the case that rankism is a major obstacle to organizational effectiveness and develops a “politics of dignity” that addresses issues of social justice.