The entries in this combined essay are mostly proverbs and sayings, and their most striking feature is repetition across cultures that had no contact with each other. Societies on opposite sides of the world arrived at the same warnings about envy, family fortunes and the dangers of standing out. Where a saying recurs that widely, it is usually recording something real.
Moral rules
The precepts are among the oldest rules in the ledger. The Golden Rule, to treat others as you would be treated, appears in some form in most religious and ethical traditions. The Silver Rule is its negative form, not to do to others what you would not want done to you, found in Confucius and in Hillel. Juvenal's Nemo Repente Fuit Turpissimus, that no one becomes wholly bad all at once, is an early account of moral drift. Chesterton's Democracy of the Dead defends tradition as giving votes to the generations who came before.
The levelling proverbs
The most remarkable cluster is a family of sayings about punishing those who stand out, found across very different societies. Australia and Britain have the Tall Poppy Syndrome. Scandinavia has the Law of Jante, from Aksel Sandemose's 1933 novel. Japan has Deru Kugi wa Utareru, the nail that sticks up gets hammered down, and the Netherlands has Just Act Normal. The Crab Mentality, in which crabs in a bucket pull back any that try to climb out, is used widely in the Philippines and beyond.
Families, generations and fortune
A second family of proverbs concerns inheritance. Shirtsleeves to Shirtsleeves in three generations has close equivalents in Chinese, Italian, Spanish and other languages: the first generation builds a fortune, the second preserves it, and the third spends it. Tocqueville's Paradox, that revolutions come when conditions are improving rather than at their worst, and Weber's Iron Cage of rationalised institutions describe larger historical movements in the same compressed form.
Sayings from popular culture
The newest entries come from television and comedy. Jumping the Shark and Growing the Beard mark the moments a series declines or finds itself. The Somebody Else's Problem Field, from Douglas Adams, describes something ignored because it seems to belong to no one. Chris Rock's Baseline Credit mocks wanting praise for doing what one is supposed to do anyway.
Where it applies
The levelling proverbs matter for anyone managing across cultures, since a norm against standing out changes how praise, promotion and self-promotion are received. The inheritance proverbs are taken seriously by family businesses and wealth advisers, who plan governance around the third-generation problem. The moral rules supply the shared ground of most ethical traditions, and the popular-culture sayings supply a ready vocabulary for decline and neglect in organisations as well as in television.
Where it is argued over
The proverbs record experience rather than measurement, and several are contested. Whether levelling norms reflect envy, egalitarianism or a sensible check on arrogance depends on who is asked. Dalrymple's Law and Rothbard's Law come from particular political positions, and Lowest Difficulty Setting is an argument by analogy from the other side. Believe in Anything, usually credited to Chesterton, has not been found in his writing. The Five-Person Average has no known source and has not been tested.
Why it is worth knowing
When unconnected cultures arrive at the same proverb, the saying is likely recording a recurring social pattern rather than a local prejudice. That makes this group a kind of evidence in its own right: a record of what many societies independently noticed about envy, inheritance and the limits of fortune. Knowing the proverbs also makes it easier to see the pattern when it appears, in an office, a family or a nation.
The entries behind this essay: Precept and Figure in Sociology & Culture. Every subject has its essays on the essays page.