Status Anxiety

And under such care, we flourish.

“No more fiendish punishment could be devised, were such a thing physically possible, than that one should be turned loose in society and remain absolutely unnoticed by all the members thereof.

The gravest penalty rarely lies—above subsistence levels, at least—in mere physical discomfort; it consists more often, even primarily, in the challenge that low status poses to a person’s sense of self-respect.

The attentions of others matter to us because we are afflicted by a congenital uncertainty as to our own value, as a result of which affliction we tend to allow others’ appraisals to play a determining role in how we see ourselves.

The second—the story of our quest for love from the world—is a more secret and shameful tale. If mentioned, it tends to be in caustic, mocking terms, as something of interest chiefly to envious or deficient souls, or else the drive for status is interpreted in an economic sense alone. And yet this second love story is no less intense than the first

Perhaps we can define love, at once in its familial, sexual and worldly forms, as a kind of respect, a sensitivity on the part of one person to another’s existence.

The man of rank and distinction, on the contrary, is observed by all the world. Everybody is eager to look at him. His actions are the objects of the public care. Scarce a word, scarce a gesture that fall from him will be neglected.”

our views are listened to, our failings are treated with indulgence and our needs are ministered to.

He feels that it places him out of the sight of mankind.

Those without status are all but invisible: they are treated brusquely by others, their complexities trampled upon and their singularities ignored.