關於地位的焦慮

De Botton reminds us that as children we need do nothing to be loved and wanted. As adults, we must take our place in society, but who is to decide what place that shall be, and what kind of rewards can we expect in return? In the modern world, low status rarely means starvation, but it often involves a loss of self-respect. Such a blow would have been impossible in the pre-modern world, where roles were fixed for life, and where only the rich suffered from status anxiety. A medieval peasant had a hard life, but he never felt personal failure because he did not own the manor. There was, too, a strong sense that the poor were spared the corrosive ambitions of life, and could live contentedly with their lot, knowing that God had ordained it. What de Botton calls "Three stories about our lives" vividly describe the psychological switch from pre-modern societies, to our own still-evolving complex social structure: 1) The poor are not responsible for their condition. 2) Low status has no moral connotations. 3) The rich are greedy and parasitic, exploiting the skills and resources of the poor. Such stories cushioned the impact of low status, and kept the rich mindful of their duties to others, whether or not they fulfilled them. But by the middle of the 18th century, three new stories appeared alongside these reassuring and seemingly self-evident explanations of life's inequalities. 1) The rich are the useful ones, not the poor. Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1776) is a beguiling defence of the utility of riches, and, incidentally, the book Margaret Thatcher cited as being the most influential on her political thinking. 2) Status does have moral connotations. This changeabout began benignly enough as a challenge to hereditary power; a person born to rule is not necessarily fit to rule. Napoleon was proud of appointing most of his generals from the street, and the call of revolution and reform alike was away from an aristocracy and towards meritocracy. The growing power of America, and its fiercely egalitarian principles, ensured a modern world where, in theory, everyone would have a chance, while in practice any failure could only be ascribed to oneself. 3) The poor are sinful and corrupt and fail because they are lazy and or stupid. Andrew Carnegie, once the world's richest man, wrote: "Those worthy of assistance seldom require assistance. The really valuable men never do." The Social Darwinism so popular in the 19th century soon espoused a code in which the rich man was not just richer, but in every way better. Under the new meritocracy, charity and compassion were reluctant virtues; why help those who did not help themselves? It is easy to see where such thinking leads. In a money culture like ours, only money guarantees status, and those who do not have money must strive for more or settle for less. Rousseau believed that there are only two ways to make people richer; give them more money or restrain their desires. Sadly, as de Botton points out, capitalism depends on creating new desires, so that people want what they have never wanted. The gap between what we want and what we can afford may be necessary to keep markets growing, but in psychological and emotional terms it is a gulf that daily threatens our fragile sense of who we are and what matters. It is heartening to find that Part Two of this clever and wise book is titled "Solutions". De Botton believes that art and philosophy offer value systems different from our prevailing money culture. We can settle for less, that is, restrain our desires, if we really are convinced that time for play, creativity, reading, thinking, travelling, is time well spent. We will not use all our time obsessing over money and status if we have a private philosophy that allows us genuine freedom from the anxieties forced on us by the market place. In a chapter titled "Bohemia", de Botton reminds us that artists have often chosen to live cheaply in order to have time to work. We need not be artists to find that there is much of true worth in an independence of mind that keeps us from the infection of perceived failure. Why is it better to have a new car and a 12-hour day, when one could choose an old car and a six-hour day? The answer is in the choosing. Supposedly we are all free, but we seem to be free only to want the same things as everyone else. To choose a different way requires courage and clear-sightedness of the kind found in art and philosophy. De Botton credits politics for encouraging social change — particularly in relation to women, for whom low status was traditionally a condition of being born, but politics now is struggling against the huge force of unaccountable corporations. It is a pity that de Botton does not go a little further down the George Monbiot route, to ask why we have handed power so completely to a devouring money-god much more careless of human life than any of the gods of old. There is nothing here either about the beginning of the backlash against a celebrity culture — a backlash surely fuelled by the fact that we no longer believe that the likes of Posh Spice or Liz Hurley "deserve" to be rich and famous. Perhaps we are returning to a pre-modern story where the rich deserve nothing and the poor refuse to be blamed for their condition? But these are not criticisms. De Botton's gift is to prompt us to think about how we live and, just as importantly, how we might change things. The one real omission in his solutions to status anxiety is, of course, a dog. What's more ... A three-part documentary to accompany the book will be broadcast starting today, 7pm, Channel 4 Envy by Joseph Epstein (OUP): witty take on the enduring power of a very old sin The Age of Consent by George Monbiot (Flamingo): political manifesto for a new world order