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Status Anxiety.(Book Review)
Status Anxiety
Alain de Botton. New York: Pantheon Books, 2004.
Status (from the Latin word statum) defines one's position in society. We all crave it to improve what others think of us and to determine whether we're a winner or a loser. Where do our worries about status come from? Why is our self-conception so dependent on what others make of us?
The consequences of high status are freedom, space, comfort, time, and a sense of being valuable. It is thought of by many (but admitted by few) to be one of the finest of earthly goods. Different societies have awarded status to different groups. Since 1776 in America and Europe, it has been awarded mainly for financial achievement. As La Rochefoucauld noted, the world more often rewards outward signs of merit than merit itself.
Alain de Botton, who has written such provocative best-sellers as The Art of Travel and How Proust Can Save Your Life, has for us here a warning and a prescription. The warning: Status anxiety possesses an exceptional capacity to inspire sorrow. His prescription: The best way to address the condition may be to attempt to understand and to speak about it.
He devotes five chapters to both in his major theses. Under "Causes" we have Lovelessness, Expectation, Meritocracy, Snobbery, and Dependence. Under "Solutions" we have Philosophy, Art, Politics, Religion, and Bohemia. In all of these chapters he is well informed, humorous, and didactic, writing with a wry, self-deprecating charm. His book tells the story of our quest for love from the world and why we all want and need that love.
Why do people fail? There are many answers--from prejudice, lack of self-knowledge, macroeconomics, malevolence, or just plain bad luck. From failure flows humiliation; we see that we are unable to convince the world of our value, and end up considering the successful with bitterness (envy is one of the seven deadly sins) and ourselves with shame. "Shame on you!" To the injury of poverty, a meritocratic system has added the insult of shame.
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