Status Anxiety

定义snob:

..who declares one kind of person or music or wine to be plainly better than another. Snobs comprise - according to this understanding - all those who insist too loudly on a scale of values.

The distinctive mark of snobs if not simple discrimination, it is an insistence on a flawless equation btw social rank and human worth.

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. Our sense of identity is held captive by the judgements of those we live among. If they are amused by our jokes, we grow confident in our power to amuse. If they praise us, we develop an impression of high merit. And if they avoid our gaze when we enter a room or look impatient after we have revealed our occupation, we may fall into feelings of self-doubt and worthlessness.

Perhaps we could define love, at once in its familial, sexual and worldly forms, as a kind of respect, a sensitivitity by one person to another's existence. To be shown love is to feel ourselves the object of concern. Our presence is noted, our name is registered, our views are listened to, our failings are treated with indulgence and our needs are ministered to. And under such care, we flourish.

..enjoy protection under the benevolent gaze of others.

But why..

the attentions of o might be said to matter to us principally becasue we are afflicted by a congenital uncertainty as to our own value - as a result of which what o think of us comes to play a determining role in how we are able to view ourselves. Our sense of identity is held captive by the judgements of those we live among. // = that theory..(PSYC215)

We would, in an ideal world, be more impermeable. We would be unshaken whether we were ignored or noticed, praised or jeered at."