Status Anxiety by Alain de Botton

"There's no writer alive like de Botton" (Chicago Tribune), and now this internationally heralded author turns his attention to the insatiable human quest for status—a quest that has less to do with material comfort than love.

Anyone who's ever lost sleep over an unreturned phone call or the neighbor's Lexus had better read Alain de Botton's irresistibly clear-headed new book, immediately. For in its pages, a master explicator of our civilization and its discontents explores the notion that our pursuit of status is actually a pursuit of love, ranging through Western history and thought from St. Augustine to Andrew Carnegie and Machiavelli to Anthony Robbins.

Whether it's assessing the class-consciousness of Christianity or the convulsions of consumer capitalism, dueling or home-furnishing, Status Anxiety is infallibly entertaining. And when it examines the virtues of informed misanthropy, art appreciation, or walking a lobster on a leash, it is not only wise but helpful.

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Why I Picked It Up

Near the end of the year, I had a lot of philosophical questions rattling around in my brain that accurately summarized my year, in a way. Ones like how much independence is actually good for you? and how do others affect what I want when I assume I'm making decisions in a silo?

All in all, I tend to value my autonomy very highly, but have also always been a little suspicious of how well we tend to evaluate our own rationality (poorly.)

And there's a line there: you need enough confidence to believe in your ability to make effective decisions, but enough humility to accept that we're not actually as solitary as we tend to mistakenly believe. Hence: Alain de Botton, who straddles the divide elegantly.

Voice & Style

Although it's been years since I read On Love, I recently migrated over my old review and was reminded how much I appreciate de Botton's style of writing and thinking (a web that feels a lot like how I construct my blog posts.) Also, I just read, loved, favorited, and reviewed Meditations by Marcus Aurelius which was structured similarly: like you're stumbling across an in-progress notebook of thoughts and references.

Better yet, Alain de Botton always takes his insights into related but unexpected directions that challenge my scope and feel fresh. His reflections are broken up into digestible blurbs and paragraphs. It didn't take me all that long to read, although it was a "phone book" in that I returned to it in small bites over the course of maybe a week.

It's also a rich read in the sense that I gain so much from it midway through exposure to these ideas (having read some of his citations and not others), which reminds me how differently I perceived the first book I read of his in 2016. So I'm sure if I reread On Love now or Status Anxiety in the next few years, I might have a vastly divergent (or newly layered) interpretation. All my favorite books remind me of how active the reading experience is based on what you bring to it: recent memories, experiences, insights, revolutions, contexts, moods, etc,. Which is why I'm a big rereader overall.

What the Book's About

Alain de Botton pulls together ideas about self-sufficiency, social networks, capitalism and ambition, the "true" definition of success, and more.

It's easy to assume that existentialism is just about the self, but so much of how we think of ourselves as individuals is directly related to how we orient ourselves to others, consciously or not. Solitude, de Botton claims, has its own mythology. Independence by itself is fundamentally relational, even when you view yourself as diverging from or avoiding the ideals of society.

First, Alain de Botton defines love simply in a way I appreciated: a kind of respect, a sensitivity on the part of one person to another's existence. The idea goes along with how I see it too in my reading about listening, attention as generosity, a Stoic focus on being good and morally aligned for others as being the only possible option, etc,. Alain de Botton argues that everything we want in terms of status (wealth, social power, etc,.) exists as tokens of love. Proof to ourselves.

“Every adult life could be said to be defined by two great love stories. The first—the story of our quest for sexual love—is well known and well charted, its vagaries form the staple of music and literature, it is socially accepted and celebrated. The second—the story of our quest for love from the world—is a more secret and shameful tale.”

“Few of us are determined aesthetes or sybarites, yet almost all of us hunger for dignity.”

But Alain de Botton zooms out all the way too. He talks about how our perception of the meaning of wealth changed over time; the nobles relied on the peasants to maintain the position of their power. Religious teachings emphasized the lowly as receiving reward in heaven. But actually, when civilization started to embrace more secularism, that was a contributing factor in bundling together ideas of wealth with those of goodness.

As belief in an afterlife decreased, emphasis on and anxiety over status within this existence increased. Isn't that natural, assuming this is the only one? Are you reaping your rewards now?

“A sharp decline in actual deprivation may, paradoxically, have been accompanied by an ongoing and even escalating sense or fear of deprivation.”

Similarly, the establishment of ideas of meritocracy and the free market increased the burden of wealth, status, and success as a fundamental need. We expect to be more successful than our ancestors, for one; going backward is impossible.

Failure became more shameful overall because it indicated making the wrong choices, or having some deep-rooted moral failing. Wealth and status do not matter so much by their own right, but rather because we see them as tokens our own success and ability. Are we actually happy with free will? As de Botton argues (via William James), most of our hurts only occur when we've invested some measure of "sense of self" into the outcome. (I'd agree with that. Otherwise, it wouldn't hurt.)

In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz argued similarly that seemingly autonomous societies actually can make individuals suffer more because the sheer array of options for happiness and success shifts the burden onto us to make the "right" ones. And to circle back to Wililam James, he says:

“Everything added to the self is a burden as well as a pride.”

(Religion-wise, Puritanism sort of married the two pressures by introducing predestination as an option: the confirmation bias that those doing well were chosen by God—meaning you were constantly terrified of doing poorly because it might indicate you were not. I studied it in college and Puritanism was an incredibly anxious society.) And this assumes we have total control too, which is flawed because:

“A thought-provoking percentage of what happens to us is not of our own doing.”

As de Botton cites via Rosseau, you can only make man richer by improving their circumstances or by reducing their desire. (I read a lot about desire too.) In this, de Botton establishes luxury as a form of trauma (fascinating take) and a need to acquire these tokens.

Success requires both talent and reliable control over it—the latter of which is the hardest. But we're always shifting the value systems too (pretty quickly, actually) meaning you could chase and chase for your entire life for some concreteness or validation but never actually receive the security you crave. Still, "we're tortured by ideals and the perceived gravity of what we do."

I absolutely loved his social history of snobbery, like that the word snob comes from the Latin phrase sine nobilite, indicating the class that desired to be highest ranking but fundamentally wasn't. And since I very much vibe with Marcus Aurelius, it makes total sense that I also love de Botton's quotes about insecurity in relation to others and how we conduct ourselves in public.

“It takes a punishing impression of your own inferiority to leave others feeling they aren't good enough for us.”

“Belittling others is no pastime for the assured.”

And then he tackles solitude. As de Botton points out through the works of various philosophers (Machiavelli et. al), it's often easier to be feared or distant than loved, to embrace detachment than to rely on others. Unfortunately, "we can't call the best of ourselves to the fore at will."

“Nothing can be nobler or more fully human than to perceive that we are fundamentally, in every way that really matters, just like everyone else.”

So our need for control over our fate and happiness forces us to instead pretend that we don't need others and that they do not help define our "solitude." But he points out some deathbed regrets as showing that many people regret chasing conditional love based on status and success; when those fade, what's actually "real" and leftover?

“The most elegant and accomplished of vehicles cannot give us a fraction of the satisfaction we desire from a good relationship.”

“Unfortunately, understanding does not miraculously forestall any discomforts that may arise from the status ideal.”

And thus emerges one of my uncomfortable truths I realized this year, as someone who considers myself a fundamentally active person: you can understand something and still not be able to do anything to resolve it. Sometimes, you just have to sit in the discomfort.

Personal Connections & Thoughts

Personally, I think I grew up inherently having this dual view of individualism: that there's me and all I'm responsible for and my need for solitude/independence/self-sovereignty. And then there's the coexisting truth that, as an identical twin, I automatically exist in relation to another person—both in others' perception and in my own. I find that many perspectives on self-autonomy advocate for a way out of needing others at all.

I'm conscious of how I come off to others (caring about what people think in that I care about being "good" and that I find myself being better in all ways when anticipating others' perception) but I don't think that means I care what people think in the negative way we often mean the phrase—as needing approval or desiring conformity. It's more like I'm an amplified self when bouncing off the contours of other company, rather, but I feel like my core self is consistent and enduring. That reflection is separate from my independence or autonomy.

So it sounds strange to say the two can coexist, but I do feel like it aligns with the same philosophies I loved so much from Marcus Aurelius. That there's the through-line of who you are when you're unshakeable and sovereign, but also you exist in service to others and derive meaning from your alignment to the greater nature/world/whole (fun game: try to find the point in each WLS post in which I inevitably mention awe) without an inflated view of your own significance etc,.

Fundamentally, I do feel better when I feel kind and giving and like I'm contributing, and cramped when I'm too zoomed in on myself—but then I also feel suffocated when I feel myself becoming "too" attached to others. So the balance is a continual process. (Related: I need to read Seneca.)

What I Need to Read Next (Books Cited)

Alain de Botton is constantly sparking my urge to read other philosophers and titles because of how he constructs his musings. He references a ton of titles, all of which land on my to-read list because of how he connects these questions to them. He talks about Greek tragedies and the role of art both sociologically and psychologically (one of my favorite topics) and politics and the power paradox.

I almost wished he'd talked about the Beat Generation when discussing some of the irony of bohemia, because I think Ginsberg and Kerouac and all them really exemplify some of the tension of individualism not-so-secretly being reactionary and relational. (I do enjoy Kerouac for many reasons, but do overall feel cynical about the Beats.)

• He cites Middlemarch by George Eliot, which has been on my list for forever.
• Similarly, I need to read No Man Is an Island by Thomas Merton.
• Rosseau argues that we're bad at deciphering our own needs. Others still determine what we value most, even if they don't determine what we do with that value.
• de Botton writes about Walden by Henry David Thoreau, which is on my bedside table as we speak, and the pros and cons of the idea that man is rich in relation to what he can do without.

For fans of:

On Love by Alain de Botton; The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz; Big Sur by Jack Kerouac; Walden by Henry David Thoreau; Meditations by Marcus Aurelius; Ralph Waldo Emerson; etc,.