It with a sense of morbid curiosity when I come across individuals whose sense of social self-worth is primarily defined by their material objects and lifestyle, which they evidently use to project their self-worth amongst their "not-so-lucky" peers. What is even more interesting is when it becomes a two-horse race between two individuals or families and turns into a material version of the Cold War M.A.D doctrine, except the weapons at stake are apparently limitless lines of credit and an array of purchase finance options to pursue the 'poor boy made good' dream..... It's not really a case of keeping up with the Joneses or Singhs, it's about exceeding whatever they have and really rubbing their faces in it....
'Status Anxiety' is the title of Alain de Botton's book.
Here is an extract from his website:
http://www.alaindebotton.com/status.htm
This is a book about an almost universal anxiety that rarely gets mentioned directly: an anxiety about what others think of us; about whether we're judged a success or a failure, a winner or a loser. This is a book about status anxiety.Alain de Botton, bestselling author of The Consolations of Philosophy and The Art of Travel, asks - with lucidity and charm - where worries about our status come from and what if anything we can do to surmount them. With the help of philosophers, artists and writers, he examines the origins of status anxiety (ranging from the consequences of the French Revolution to our secret dismay at the success of our friends), before revealing ingenious ways in which people have learnt to overcome their worries in their search for happiness. We learn about sandal-less philosophers and topless bohemians, about the benefits of putting skulls on our sideboards and of looking at ruins.
The result is a book that isn't just highly entertaining and thought-provoking, but also genuinely wise and helpful too.
And here's part of a review from the Globe and Mail:
To underscore that point, he includes a strange photograph. It's a picture of the 1902 Heinz Company Convention in Chicago. For this reviewer, that photograph, more than anything else in the book, was chillingly instructive. Looking at the faces of these ketchup and pickle salesmen, then at the date, then back at the faces, you realize that every one of them, to a man, is dead. And so is everything they fretted about at four in the morning: Who's the boss's pet, who got passed over for promotion, who got the job on an uncle's coat-tails -- all gone, poof. De Botton writes, "In the presence of a skeleton, the repressive aspects of others' opinions have a habit of shedding their power to intimidate."
