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| Author | Alain de Botton |
|---|---|
| Subject | Philosophy, psychology, sociology |
| Publisher | Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Books |
Publication date | 2004 |
| ISBN | 0-375-42083-5 |
Status Anxiety is a nonfiction book by Alain de Botton. It was first published in 2004 by Hamish Hamilton; subsequent publications have been by Penguin Books.
According to De Botton, "status anxiety" is a 21st-century phenomenon which is a result of capitalism, democracy, and an ostensibly egalitarian society, and is prevalent in countries where an inequality in income is evident. Status anxiety can be defined as the constant tension or fear of being perceived as "unsuccessful" by the society in materialistic terms. Today, every individual constantly tries to outsmart the others to climb up the social ladder. The effects of status anxiety can be impulse buying, status consumption etc. Meritocracy is a primary cause of status anxiety. Meritocracy is a society that believes that only the talented and the meritorious will end up at the top of the social ladder. Snobbery, envy, lovelessness are some other causes of status anxiety. [1]
De Botton first noticed this phenomenon among the wealthy families of America. The Americans had a lavish lifestyle and most of it was just to make the "neighbours" envious. America had also witnessed the trend of "Famous for being famous". Botton even met the American motivational speaker Les Brown to know how motivational speaking works. He concluded that motivational speakers conducted their speeches to induce status anxiety among individuals. Motivational speaking is based on the fact that "No one is living up to their true potential and everyone has scope for improvement". De Botton challenged this and asked "What about those who want to achieve but lack the opportunities to do so?" [2]
De Botton lays out the causes of and solutions to status anxiety as follows:
Causes:
Solutions:
A two-hour documentary film about this thesis, also called Status Anxiety and written by Alain de Botton, was released in 2004. A version of it was shown in 2008 on Public Broadcasting Service channels like Boston WGBH-TV's digital channel WGBX-TV in the United States.
Historian Richard Hofstadter in his 1965 book The Paranoid Style in American Politics used the term "status anxiety" to help explain the origins of the Progressive Movement, following earlier usage by others. Alain de Botton's use of the term is different.
Meritocracy is the notion of a political system in which economic goods or political power are vested in individual people based on ability and talent, rather than wealth or social class. Advancement in such a system is based on performance, as measured through examination or demonstrated achievement. Although the concept of meritocracy has existed for centuries, the first known use of the term was by sociologist Alan Fox in the journal Socialist Commentary in 1956. It was then popularized by sociologist Michael Dunlop Young, who used the term in his dystopian political and satirical book The Rise of the Meritocracy in 1958. While the word was coined and popularized as a pejorative, its usage has meliorated. Today the term is often utilised to refer to social systems in which personal advancement and success primarily reflect an individual's capabilities and merits, frequently seen as equality of opportunity.
Glossophobia or speech anxiety is the fear of public speaking. The word glossophobia derives from the Greek γλῶσσα glossa (tongue) and φόβος phobos The causes of glossophobia are uncertain but explanations include communibiology and the illusion of transparency. Further explanations range from nervousness produced by a lack of preparation to, one of the most common psychiatric disorders, social anxiety disorder (SAD).
Social class in the United States refers to the idea of grouping Americans by some measure of social status, typically by economic status. However, it could also refer to social status and/or location. The idea that American society can be divided into social classes is disputed, and there are many competing class systems.
Alain de Botton is a Swiss-born British author and public speaker. His books discuss various contemporary subjects and themes, emphasizing philosophy's relevance to everyday life. He published Essays in Love (1993), which went on to sell two million copies. Other bestsellers include How Proust Can Change Your Life (1997), Status Anxiety (2004), and The Architecture of Happiness (2006).
Snob is a pejorative term for a person who feels superior due to their social class, education level, or social status in general; it is sometimes used especially when they pretend to belong to these classes. The word snobbery came into use for the first time in England during the 1820s.
Affluenza describes the psychological and social effects of affluence. It is a portmanteau of affluence and influenza, and is used most commonly by critics of consumerism. Some psychologists consider it to be a pseudo-scientific term, however the word continues to be used in scientific literature.
Steven Poole is a British author, journalist, and video game theorist. He particularly concerns himself with the abuse of language and has written two books on the subject: Unspeak (2006) and Who Touched Base in My Thought Shower? (2013).
A parvenu is a person who is a relative newcomer to a high-ranking socioeconomic class. The word is borrowed from the French language; it is the past participle of the verb parvenir.
The illusion of transparency is a tendency for people to overestimate the degree to which their personal mental state is known by others. Another manifestation of the illusion of transparency is a tendency for people to overestimate how well they understand others' personal mental states. This cognitive bias is similar to the illusion of asymmetric insight.
Status attainment refers to the process through which individuals achieve their positions within society, including their social class. This process is influenced by both achieved factors, such as educational attainment and career accomplishments, and ascribed factors, such as family income and social background. Status attainment theories emphasize the possibility of social mobility, whether upward or downward, within a class-based system. Achieved factors highlight personal efforts and choices, while ascribed factors reflect the impact of circumstances individuals are born into. Together, these dynamics shape an individual’s opportunities and outcomes in social stratification system.s
The Wee Shu Min elitism controversy occurred in October 2006 in Singapore. Wee Shu Min, daughter of parliament member Wee Siew Kim and a then eighteen-year-old student on Raffles Junior College's Humanities scholarship programme, found herself in controversy after posting on her blog what were viewed by some Singaporeans to be elitist, naïve, and insensitive statements against heartlanders.
Elitism is the notion that individuals who form an elite — a select group with desirable qualities such as intellect, wealth, power, physical attractiveness, notability, special skills, experience, lineage — are more likely to be constructive to society and deserve greater influence or authority. The term elitism may be used to describe a situation in which power is concentrated in the hands of a limited number of people. Beliefs that are in opposition to elitism include egalitarianism, anti-intellectualism, populism, and the political theory of pluralism.
Achievement ideology is the belief that one reaches a socially perceived definition of success through hard work and education. In this view, factors such as gender, race/ethnicity, economic background, social networks, or neighborhoods/geography are secondary to hard work and education or are altogether irrelevant in the pursuit of success.
The School of Life is a British multinational social media company founded in 2008 by British author and public speaker Alain de Botton. The company is headquartered in London. It publishes various materials dealing with the topics of anxiety management, emotional intelligence, relationships, work, creativity, and spirituality.
Foreign language anxiety, also known as xenoglossophobia, is the feeling of unease, worry, nervousness and apprehension experienced in learning or using a second or foreign language. The feelings may stem from any second language context whether it is associated with the productive skills of speaking and writing or the receptive skills of reading and listening.
People may face feelings of insignificance due to a number of causes, including having low self-esteem, being depressed, living in a huge, impersonal city, comparing themselves to wealthy celebrity success stories, working in a huge bureaucracy, or being in awe of a natural wonder.
Fear of missing out (FOMO) is the feeling of apprehension that one is either not in the know about or missing out on information, events, experiences, or life decisions that could make one's life better. FOMO is also associated with a fear of regret, which may lead to concerns that one might miss an opportunity for social interaction, a novel experience, a memorable event, profitable investment, or the comfort of those you love and who love you back. It is characterized by a desire to stay continually connected with what others are doing, and can be described as the fear that deciding not to participate is the wrong choice. FOMO could result from not knowing about a conversation, missing a TV show, not attending a wedding or party, or hearing that others have discovered a new restaurant. In recent years, FOMO has been attributed to a number of negative psychological and behavioral symptoms.
Religion for Atheists: A non-believer's guide to the uses of religion is a book by Alain de Botton published in 2012. It argues that while supernatural claims made by religion are false, some aspects of religion are still useful and can be applied in secular life and society. Religion for Atheists was published in the UK in hardback edition by Hamish Hamilton, and in the US by Pantheon. Religion for Atheists was a New York Times non-fiction bestseller, and has been widely reviewed, with mixed results.
The Rise of the Meritocracy is a book by British sociologist and politician Michael Dunlop Young which was first published in 1958. It describes a dystopian society in a future United Kingdom in which merit has become the central tenet of society, replacing previous divisions of social class and creating a society stratified between a meritorious power-holding elite and a disenfranchised underclass of the less meritorious. The essay satirised the Tripartite System of education that was being practised at the time. The narrative of the book ends in 2034 with a revolt against the meritocratic elite by the "Populists".
Myth of meritocracy is a phrase arguing that meritocracy, or achieving upward social mobility through one's own merits regardless of one's social position, is not widely attainable in capitalist societies because of inherent contradictions. Meritocracy is argued to be a myth because, despite being promoted as an open and accessible method of achieving upward class mobility under neoliberal or free market capitalism, wealth disparity and limited class mobility remain widespread, regardless of individual work ethic. Some scholars argue that the wealth disparity has even increased because the "myth" of meritocracy has been so effectively promoted and defended by the political and private elite through the media, education, corporate culture, and elsewhere. Economist Robert Reich argues that many Americans still believe in meritocracy despite "the nation drifting ever-farther away from it."
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