Status Anxiety

The craving for approval and recognition, the fear of being seen as a Loser or a Nobody, are all summed up in a condition that Alain de Botton calls "status anxiety". Anyone who has seen the British comedy series "Keeping Up Appearances" will probably agree that Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced "bouquet") is a chronic sufferer of this condition. Status anxiety also encompasses envy, social climbing and comparisons to our peers, something more commonly known as "keeping up with the Jones's". It's not enough to be happy with what we've got. Alain de Botton's book provides the reader with an informed analysis of what drives so many people to worry about what others think of them. Even though we're materially better off than medieval peasants, many of us still feel discontented with our lot in life. Peasants in the Middle Ages were born to be poor and downtrodden, hungry and illiterate; they had no expectations of a better life. The wealthy nobility were born to rule; this was how God had decreed it. But since the Middle Ages this has all changed. Improvements in health and education, technological advances and greater equality have given birth to the Western concept of "meritocracy". This is the doctrine that proclaims anyone can get ahead in life, no matter who they are, what they are or where they come from. Wealth and success, attained by our own hard work and talent, are seen to be "deserved". Unfortunately there is a flip side to this. If wealth and success are deserved that must mean poverty and failure are also deserved. It can't be put down to bad luck because "we make our own luck." When people don't fulfill their dreams or potential they become disenchanted and bitter. And so we come to the root causes of status anxiety. Throughout the book Alain de Botton gives us a range of historical perspectives to illustrate the changing standards of status over the ages. In ancient Sparta those at the top of the heap were men of war who had no interest in commerce or family life, children born weak were left to die; in the 21st century we're obsessed with high salaries, and the unemployed are unfairly stigmatized as lazy and unmotivated. As de Botton says, unemployment is perceived as the "modern equivalent of cowardice in warrior eras." We treat film stars like royalty but in Shakespeare's time actors were beneath contempt. Big houses and expensive cars confer prestige. All this makes one wonder what future ages will make of our own time. Maybe they'll be amazed that we had a fetish for those clumsy metal contraptions that killed or maimed thousands of people every year and polluted the environment. Or maybe there will be some other gadget that people feel like they have to have in order to be classed a "success". In Part Two of the book some solutions to status anxiety are offered. The contemplation of death and ruins can be a comfort. Ruins remind us that nothing is permanent or immutable. Time and nature eventually destroy everything we've buil

I'm serious when I say this book changed my life, not in a major epiphany way, but in a compelling and clear restatement of how I was already feeling. It helped me make peace and I've finally been able to shrug off the poisonous hierarchy-based value system I'd been told was important. I'm just in it for me, my family and happiness now.

My hat goes off to anyone who can write best sellers in the realms of philosophy, and Alain de Botton has clearly figured out the knack. Professional philosophers may scoff at the lack of rigor in his work, and even I (a non-PhD) would scoff at the self-help feel of much of this book. Still, these are quibbles when compared to all that de Botton has accomplished in figuring out how to lead a wide audience on a lively expedition of a serious philosophical topic. Mke no mistake -- status anxiety is a profound force in our society. Marketers know it. Corporate executives know it. Yet for some reason, philosophers tend to neglect it. We are fortunate that de Botton is not among them. Through delightful prose, de Botton raises in my mind the question of exactly why our society allows itself to be dominated by status if this concept produces so much anxiety and, ultimately, sorrow. Adam Smith would surely point out the tremendous economic benefits to this phenomenon, and many a corporate CEOs would have to agree. But are we as individuals mere servants of an economic machine? Can we not identify social structures that can help alleviate the power of status-seeking in our lives? Other readers have pointed out how much better a job de Botton has done in diagnosing the disease than in finding a cure. But I don't blame him for that failure, for he has accomplished quite enough already. Now that we understand the importance of status-seeking as the most abundant and yet polluted fuel behind the energy of a capitalist world, could politicians, academicians and others PLEASE come together and help us find a healthful filter? I'm tempted to add "... before it's too late," but I sometimes fear that the bell has already tolled in that regard. Surely, though, if we put our heads together -- rather than butting heads to see who is smarter -- we can figure out a way to put status in its place.

An excellent book. The writer highlights the typical pattern that people adopt to live out their lives. We each try to acquire status in the eyes of others in order to gain their approval/the love of the world. In the modern world, that process has mainly turned us into wealth-seekers as a matter of course, who embark on a lengthy exercise of amassing far more wealth and possessions than we actually need, in order to try to show ourselves to be `worthy' and `winners' in the eyes of others, and because we fear the alternative interpretations of us (e.g. `losers' or `nobodies') should we fail to achieve. Yet those who achieve aren't necessarily the 'best' people, nor particularly `worthy' anyway; wealth is rather absurdly treated in modern society as the mark of a quality person when it may often be well wide of the mark; and the fact that each of us is going to die anyway ought arguably to make us spend less time accumulating wealth, at least once we have amassed enough wealth to see out our days in reasonable comfort. What we are engaging in is in fact an odd and often excessive and unnecessary social dance, a struggle onwards and upwards to acquire status, which, if we reflected more upon it, we might choose not to engage in, at least to the full extent that we do. The writer highlights alternative ways of living instead of a life of perpetual status seeking in order to convince others of our worth. We are not automatically condemned to live as unthinking status-seekers: we have rational choice in the matter and can shun the conventional pattern of behaviour should we wish. We could adopt Rousseau's idea of lowering our expectations of what we should be getting from life, and be happy with less: indeed, we may find ourselves happier by abandoning excessive patterns of wealth-seeking altogether. Or we could adopt a Christian ideal. Or we could become bohemians, rebelling against the bourgeoisie and against modern consumerism and living far more simply, on little, but enjoying life more by doing so. Or we could do something else, by which we may be poorer but happier through our own sensible choices in a modern world that is difficult to negotiate anyway. Importantly, the writer reminds us (applying principles of living advocated by Marcus Aurelius, among others) that the best person to judge a person is that person, and that if a person knows he is leading a sufficiently good life which is satisfactory to himself and that he is doing his best whatever the outcome, then the judgments and opinions of others - who don't know the full detail about his life anyway and may well be wide of the mark - and the status they choose to confer on that individual can rationally be dismissed as being of little or no importance. We might therefore more usefully live lives which please ourselves, and set our own standards for ourselves, rather than trying to live in ways we would prefer not to, merely in order to impress or satisfy or please others or convince the

The skill of Swiss-born Alain de Botton lies in his ability to peel back the layers of complexity surrounding human relationships and lay bare the kernel. In "Status Anxiety" he looks for the source of modern angst-not to mention obsession-about our social rank. In particular, he examines the stories we tell ourselves to explain the righteousness of our situation and how those stories affect our happiness. De Botton looks back at a time long ago when peasants led a far harsher existence in material terms, but rarely worried that their difficulties were "their own fault." Thus had God made the world, and such were the affairs of men supposed to be. When we could not improve our social rank or material worth, there was no tendency to confuse riches with saintliness.Starting from that idealized Rousseau-esque time, the author follows changing ideas about personal rights and responsibilities and finds a distinct downside to the whole concept of Western meritocracy. If we can be anything we want to be, our current relative lack of wealth, power, beauty and fame must be our own fault. No longer able to blame God, bad luck or the stars for misfortune, we see the world split into winners (virtuous, hard-working and strong) and losers (evil, lazy and weak). Where we once understood the complexity and frailty of human existence, we now see the world in terms of newspaper headlines: "Oedipus the King: Royal in Incest Shocker."Finally, "Status Anxiety" looks at some of the ways that modern humans have tried to escape this social trap. It considers both bohemian and Christian philosophies and finds merits in both, if notably fewer in bohemianism. Ultimately, the book concludes, if our current set of values offers true happiness and contentment to only an elite minority, the democratic solution is to change those values. De Botton's contribution to that end is this book.