In a chapter of his book Status Anxiety, Alain de Botton theorizes that despite humankind’s ever-growing prospects in life--such as longer life expectancies and increasing material wealth--and an overall decrease in “actual deprivation”, our anxiety levels due to jealousy of our peers and their own prospects have also risen (25). He also postulates that our medieval counterparts did not experience this phenomenon because the root cause of this issue is most likely the Western world’s recent revolution about the way government and the human condition are judged and perceived (25-26, 38-39).
Botton states that these notions of being deprived are not absurd once one considers that we gauge our own status based on the standings of our peers; …show more content…
They anticipated little to begin with, and according to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, they must have been content with what they had (qted. In Botton 43-44). To expand upon this, Botton states that it is a recent notion that systematic inequality is unfair, and that the rise of Christianity enforced the concept that people must obey an unchangeable social hierarchy--even though Jesus’s words promoted equality--as church officials thought this closely resembled the “celestial kingdom (Botton, 28).” Questioning this hierarchy was to question God Himself. Moreover, faith has taken on a new meaning in today’s world; those that believe in an afterlife are not as pressured to improve their status as skeptics are, the pressure to achieve everything possible significantly increases for the latter group, as such accomplishments are the “sum total of all that one will ever amount to …show more content…
contributed to this genre (Botton, 38, 39). These books birthed the notion that anyone can rise above their own station, while medieval and more ancient civilizations had much lower expectations (27-28). Botton cites Thomas Hobbes’s The Leviathan--a text instrumental to the ideologies of this period-- when he states that “the individual predated society.” However, with new forms of government taking hold, it was necessary for citizens to give up some of their individual rights in order for these societies to function as best as they could. With Hobbes’s book also mobilized the notion that governments appeal to the masses by appealing to their desire for self-improvement and upward mobility
Botton states that these notions of being deprived are not absurd once one considers that we gauge our own status based on the standings of our peers; …show more content…
They anticipated little to begin with, and according to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, they must have been content with what they had (qted. In Botton 43-44). To expand upon this, Botton states that it is a recent notion that systematic inequality is unfair, and that the rise of Christianity enforced the concept that people must obey an unchangeable social hierarchy--even though Jesus’s words promoted equality--as church officials thought this closely resembled the “celestial kingdom (Botton, 28).” Questioning this hierarchy was to question God Himself. Moreover, faith has taken on a new meaning in today’s world; those that believe in an afterlife are not as pressured to improve their status as skeptics are, the pressure to achieve everything possible significantly increases for the latter group, as such accomplishments are the “sum total of all that one will ever amount to …show more content…
contributed to this genre (Botton, 38, 39). These books birthed the notion that anyone can rise above their own station, while medieval and more ancient civilizations had much lower expectations (27-28). Botton cites Thomas Hobbes’s The Leviathan--a text instrumental to the ideologies of this period-- when he states that “the individual predated society.” However, with new forms of government taking hold, it was necessary for citizens to give up some of their individual rights in order for these societies to function as best as they could. With Hobbes’s book also mobilized the notion that governments appeal to the masses by appealing to their desire for self-improvement and upward mobility