Solum Ac Procerus Quidam Vicinus Est Breve

What drives people in this modern age? Do we strive to better ourselves, reaching for some Platonic ideal? Are we simply trying to accumulate the material resources we need to live in the manner we would wish?

Alain de Botton says no. In his wonderfully accessible and yet thought-provoking work Status Anxiety, he (unknowingly) agrees with David Brook's comments in "One Nation, Slightly Divisible" (Atlantic Monthly, 12/2001) that people are satisfied or unsatisfied with their lots in life based almost entirely on the circumstance of the people they grew up with, and the people around them. Should the people they see as peers be on their level (or perhaps just a bit below) and accept them as being worthwhile and successful, no shortfall in resources, no general inequity in the wealth distribution of their larger society will shake their self-esteem.

Conversely, should one's childhood friends or neighbors manage to outstrip one's own achievements, feelings of inadequacy and bitterness result. De Botton makes the controversial claim that in this regard, citizens of societies that have hard class stratification actually have a greater personal peace of mind. (Yes, even the poor ones) To be able to say that one has all one could, given the injustice of the system, the will of God or natural order of things, allows one to separate one's own worth from one's economic and sociopolitical standing. If everyone is equal, those who do not achieve pinnacles of accomplishment are failures. There are no excuses for underperformance if there are not barriers to success.

This criticism of meritocracy may be counter-intuitive but nonetheless rings true. A meritocracy is different than an egalitarian society in that the former allows for a hierarchy (even aristocracy) based on performance, whereas the latter posits normative equality even if it does not impose economic equality. While the social opprobrium that failure brings in a meritocracy is a powerful incentive to strive for success, the vast majority of the population must inherently "lose". In the name of economic growth the vast majority of the population must battle feelings of utter worthlessness without the comfort of plausible deniability.

Reviews

• Boston Globe
• Boston Herald
• The Atlantic Monthly (nonsubscribers can get the full article from here
• The Independent
• The Guardian
• another review from the Guardian
• The Times Literary Supplement
• Jeanette Winterson (author/columnist)
• Flak Magazine
• Christian Science Monitor