Credentials are the pheromones we secrete to professionally attract third parties. They are representative signals that we emit so that others can capture them and create a positive professional opinion about us. Did you study Engineering at a public university? He is hardworking and good for numbers. Did you create a successful company from nothing? He is hardworking and intelligent. Did you enroll in financial economics? He is motivated by boredom.
Credentials are a useful heuristic. With little information one places oneself on who is in front of one. It is important because humans have a strong instinct to give opinions about people. Makes sense. The advent of speech imposed very specific power dynamics on humans. In a wolf pack the alpha male rules, and the other members submit to his force. In a tribe of people, it is not the strongest who rules, but the one who inspires adhesion, since an omega male (or female) and two skinny ones can conspire, set a trap and kill the alpha male. Gossip and conspiracy can mean the end of the strongest. It is something that cannot happen in the animal world. Thus, those who cared about having a good reputation to avoid being relegated or expelled survived and procreated more, and we, today, are their descendants. That's why reputation obsesses us all a little.
Each historical moment has its codes and credentials. Thus, in the United Kingdom of the 19th century, the highest credential was having served under Wellington or Nelson and, in Spain in the 70s, 80s and 90s, being a former minister. They also vary depending on the place: in the Barcelona of my youth, no one knew what Icade was, a sought-after career in financial Madrid, and today in Madrid no one knows what Cluster was, a high-voltage credential in technological Barcelona.
Thus, people try to create credentials that are considered good. This conditions what we study, what jobs we accept and what parts of our lives we explain. It also encourages the interested and even fraudulent use of credentials: taking a 15-day course at an American university and presenting it as a master's degree or using company brands such as a police badge, even if you have only been an intern. You also have to be aware that people hide their anti-credentials, the toxic facts. Nobody says “habitual liar and opportunistic thief” on their CV.
Furthermore, do not confuse lighthouses with the coast or credentials with capacity. Nor should we assume, in the case of anti-credentials, that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence. To have a serious opinion about someone, you have to know what their credentials really represent; try to avoid impostors, that mold that wants to infest everything; Ask for references from reliable sources and do not rush with opinions.
Something very similar happens with countries. They use credentials and avoid anti-credentials. We have, for example, the Houthi rebels trying to sink peaceful merchant ships and kill their sailors. Today, a country would never want such an anti-credential. The Houthis are known to use third-party technology, as land-sea ballistic doctrine and technology requires knowledge that Yemen does not have. Everything indicates that, in addition, they follow instructions from that third party with whom they have a synallagmatic relationship. If so, it would be a case of one omega male cunningly manipulating another to avoid an anti-credential, a very human machination. Let's know it.
