Status Anxiety

To the injury of poverty, a meritocratic system now added the insult of shame.

Life, put simply, is all about status. I recently read W. David Marx’s book Status and Culture —thanks Bryce Ferguson for the rec—and that fact was my clear takeaway. The book subtly changed how I look at the world; when you start to pay attention, status dictates nearly everything in our lives.

In the book, Marx argues that:

1. There is no human soci

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We are not always humiliated by failing at things, he suggested; we are humiliated only if we invest our pride and sense of worth in a given aspiration or achievement and then are disappointed in our pursuit of it.