We all worry about what others think of us. We all long to succeed and fear failure. We all suffer --- to a greater or lesser degree, usually privately and with embarassment --- from status anxiety.
For the first time, Alain de Botton gives a name to this universal condition and sets out to investigate both its origins and possible solutions. He looks at history, philosophy, ec...
We all worry about what others think of us. We all long to succeed and fear failure. We all suffer --- to a greater or lesser degree, usually privately and with embarassment --- from status anxiety.
For the first time, Alain de Botton gives a name to this universal condition and sets out to investigate both its origins and possible solutions. He looks at history, philosophy, economics, art and politics --- and reveals the many ingenious ways that great minds have overcome their worries. The result is a book that is not only entertaining and thought-provoking --- but genuinely wise and helpful as well.
作者简介
· · · · · ·
Alain de Botton was born in 1969. He is the author of Essays in Love (1993), The Romantic Movement (1994), Kiss and Tell (1995), How Proust Can Change Your Life (1997), The Consolations of Philosophy (2000), The Art of Travel (2002) and Status Anxiety (2004).
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 pr...
2018-12-23 21:07:461人喜欢
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.引自 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.
2017-05-30 09:15:281人喜欢
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.引自 Snobbery
privations 贫困 rationale 根本原因 zealous 热心的 被他人注意、被他人关怀，得到他人的同情、赞美和支持，这就是我们想要从一切行为中得到的价值。 To be observed, to be attended to, to be taken notice of with sympathy, complacency, and approbation, are all the advantages which we can propose to derive from it. 一旦感到自己被世界所忽略，人类天性中最强烈的欲望将必然难以得到满足。 To feel that we are ta...
2022-04-07 22:53:33
privations 贫困
rationale 根本原因
zealous 热心的
被他人注意、被他人关怀，得到他人的同情、赞美和支持，这就是我们想要从一切行为中得到的价值。
To be observed, to be attended to, to be taken notice of with sympathy, complacency, and approbation, are all the advantages which we can propose to derive from it.
一旦感到自己被世界所忽略，人类天性中最强烈的欲望将必然难以得到满足。
To feel that we are taken no notice of necessarily disappoints the most ardent desires of human nature.
金钱、名声和影响只能视为“爱”的表征——或者是获取爱的途径——而非终极目标。 Money, fame and influence may be valued more as tokens of – and as a means to – love rather than as ends in themselves. “爱”这一字眼，一般用于表述我们想要从父母或爱人那里得到的东西，怎么可以用来描述一种我们求之于社会，并受之于社会的诉求呢？ How might a word, generally used only in relation to what we would want fro...
2022-04-06 23:11:40
金钱、名声和影响只能视为“爱”的表征——或者是获取爱的途径——而非终极目标。
Money, fame and influence may be valued more as tokens of – and as a means to – love rather than as ends in themselves.
How might a word, generally used only in relation to what we would want from a parent or a romantic partner, be applied to something we might want from and be offered by
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.
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 pr...
2018-12-23 21:07:461人喜欢
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.引自 Status Anxiety
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 flouris...
2017-05-30 08:43:48
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.引自 The desire for status
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."引自 The desire for status
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.
2017-05-30 09:15:281人喜欢
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.引自 Snobbery
privations 贫困 rationale 根本原因 zealous 热心的 被他人注意、被他人关怀，得到他人的同情、赞美和支持，这就是我们想要从一切行为中得到的价值。 To be observed, to be attended to, to be taken notice of with sympathy, complacency, and approbation, are all the advantages which we can propose to derive from it. 一旦感到自己被世界所忽略，人类天性中最强烈的欲望将必然难以得到满足。 To feel that we are ta...
2022-04-07 22:53:33
privations 贫困
rationale 根本原因
zealous 热心的
被他人注意、被他人关怀，得到他人的同情、赞美和支持，这就是我们想要从一切行为中得到的价值。
To be observed, to be attended to, to be taken notice of with sympathy, complacency, and approbation, are all the advantages which we can propose to derive from it.
一旦感到自己被世界所忽略，人类天性中最强烈的欲望将必然难以得到满足。
To feel that we are taken no notice of necessarily disappoints the most ardent desires of human nature.
privations 贫困 rationale 根本原因 zealous 热心的 被他人注意、被他人关怀，得到他人的同情、赞美和支持，这就是我们想要从一切行为中得到的价值。 To be observed, to be attended to, to be taken notice of with sympathy, complacency, and approbation, are all the advantages which we can propose to derive from it. 一旦感到自己被世界所忽略，人类天性中最强烈的欲望将必然难以得到满足。 To feel that we are ta...
2022-04-07 22:53:33
privations 贫困
rationale 根本原因
zealous 热心的
被他人注意、被他人关怀，得到他人的同情、赞美和支持，这就是我们想要从一切行为中得到的价值。
To be observed, to be attended to, to be taken notice of with sympathy, complacency, and approbation, are all the advantages which we can propose to derive from it.
一旦感到自己被世界所忽略，人类天性中最强烈的欲望将必然难以得到满足。
To feel that we are taken no notice of necessarily disappoints the most ardent desires of human nature.
金钱、名声和影响只能视为“爱”的表征——或者是获取爱的途径——而非终极目标。 Money, fame and influence may be valued more as tokens of – and as a means to – love rather than as ends in themselves. “爱”这一字眼，一般用于表述我们想要从父母或爱人那里得到的东西，怎么可以用来描述一种我们求之于社会，并受之于社会的诉求呢？ How might a word, generally used only in relation to what we would want fro...
2022-04-06 23:11:40
金钱、名声和影响只能视为“爱”的表征——或者是获取爱的途径——而非终极目标。
Money, fame and influence may be valued more as tokens of – and as a means to – love rather than as ends in themselves.
How might a word, generally used only in relation to what we would want from a parent or a romantic partner, be applied to something we might want from and be offered by
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.
1. Hierachy vs Democracy society with rigid hierachy, no upward social mobility → 每个阶层的比较参照仅限于本阶层，例如仆人不会与贵族比较 democracy → 追求打破阶层，每个人的比较参照猛增，反而不容易感到满足 Those without status are all but invisible: they are treated brusquely by others, their complexities trampled upon and their singularities ignored. 2. Self-Esteem Formula Self-esteem = Succes...
2021-04-12 20:07:56
1. Hierachy vs Democracy
society with rigid hierachy, no upward social mobility → 每个阶层的比较参照仅限于本阶层，例如仆人不会与贵族比较
democracy → 追求打破阶层，每个人的比较参照猛增，反而不容易感到满足
Those without status are all but invisible: they are treated brusquely by others, their complexities trampled upon and their singularities ignored.
2. Self-Esteem Formula
Self-esteem = Success / Pretensions (不是pretention) = 实际成功 / 自我期待
所以要提高满足感，要么更多成功，要么降低自我期待
“Wealth is not an absolute. It is relative to desire. Every time we yearn for something we cannot afford, we grow poorer, whatever our resources. And every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess.”
“Our “ego” or self-conception could be pictured as a leaking balloon, forever requiring the helium of external love to remain inflated, and ever vulnerable to the smallest pinpricks of neglect.”
4. Media
the opportunity to study the lives of people of higher status 强化了人们的期待值
open up unlimited gaps between what we want and what we can afford
5. Social Darwinism
让贫穷成为一件可鄙的事情
6. unconditional love vs conditional respect
Without socially recognized achievements, we are ignored and looked down upon by them, a far cry from the unconditional love we experienced as children.
7. Anxiety & Desire
Anxiety is the handmaiden of contemporary ambition.
“Life seems to be a process of replacing one anxiety with another and substituting one desire for another--which is not to say that we should never strive to overcome any of our anxieties or fulfil any of our desires, but rather to suggest that we should perhaps build into our strivings an awareness of the way our goals promise us a respite and a resolution that they cannot, by definition, deliver.”
“We are not always humiliated by failing at things; we are humiliated only if we first invest our pride and sense of worth in a given achievement, and then do not reach it.”
"We are tempted to believe that certain achievements and possessions will give us enduring satisfaction. We are invited to imagine ourselves scaling the steep cliff face of happiness in order to reach a wide, high plateau on which we will live out the rest of our lives; we are not reminded that soon after gaining the summit, we will be called down again into fresh lowlands of anxiety and desire."
8. 为什么我们这么在乎别人的观点？
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.”
Our minds are susceptible to the influence of external voices telling us what we require to be satisfied, voices that may drown out the faint sounds emitted by our souls and distract us from the careful, arduous task of accurately naming our priorities.
MOTIVES OF STATUS SEEKING - LOVE There are common assumptions about which motives drive us to seek high status; among them, a longing for money, fame and influence. Alternatively, it might be more accurate to sum up what we are searching for with a word seldom used in political theory: love. ... Money, fame and influence may be valued more as tokens of - and as a means to - love rather than as ...
2021-02-22 17:35:38
MOTIVES OF STATUS SEEKING - LOVE
There are common assumptions about which motives drive us to seek high status; among them, a longing for money, fame and influence.
Alternatively, it might be more accurate to sum up what we are searching for with a word seldom used in political theory: love. ... Money, fame and influence may be valued more as tokens of - and as a means to - love rather than as ends in themselves.引自第11页
ON SNOBBERY
It has grown common to describe as a snob almost anyone who practises overt social or cultural bias ... Snobs comprise all those who insist too loudly on a scale of values.
Yet it might be more accurate to limitthe meaning of snobbery to a particular way of resolving the question of who and what to respect...It is an insistence on a flawless equation between social rank and human worth.引自第22页Belittling others is no pastime for those convinced of their own standing. There is terror behind haughtiness. It takes a punishing impression of our own inferiority to leave others feeling that they are not good enough for us.引自第26页
So well said.
Rather than scorn, sorrow and understanding might be more accurate responses to behavior motivated at heart by a frightened and frustrated desire for dignity.
Rather than teasing the buyers, we may blame the society in which they lived for setting up a situation where the purchase of ornate cabinets felt psychologically necessary and rewarding...the history of luxury could more accurately be read as a record of emotional trauma.引自第28页
lol on vanity above
ON EQUALITY, EXPECTATION, AND ENVY
A sharp decline in actual deprivation may - paradoxically - have been accompanied by a continuing and even increased sense of deprivation and a fear of it.
Our sense of an appropriate limit to anything - for example, to wealth and esteem - is never decided independently. It is arrived at by comparing our condition with that of a reference group. We cannot appreciate what we have in isolation. 引自第45页We are not always humiliated by failing at things; we are humuliated only if wefirst invest our pride and sense of worth in a given achievement, and then do not reach it.
引自第55页
Our self-esteem is determined by the ratio of our actualities to our supposed potentialities. Thus Self esteem = success/pretensions.
The relativity of wealth:
Rousseau's argument hung on a thesis about wealth: that wealth does not involve having many things. It involves having what we long for. Wealth is not an absolute. It is relative to desire. Every time we seek something we cannot afford, we grow poorer, whatever our resources. And every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted s rich, however little we may actually own.引自第62页
ON MERITOCRACY
An increasing faith in a reliable connection between merit and worldly position in turn endowed money with a new moral quality...in a meritocratic world, where prestigious and well-paid jobs could be secured only on the basis of one's own intelligence and ability, it now seemed that wealth might be a sound sign of character. The rich were not only wealthier, they might also be plain better.引自第85页But there was, inevitably, a darker side to the story for those of low status. If the successful merited their success, it necessarily followed that the failures had to merit their failure. In a meritocratic age, justice appeared to enter into the distribution of poverty as well as wealth. Low status came to seem not merely regrettable, but also deserved.引自第86页
ON PHILOSOPHY
When we begin to scrutinize the opinions of other people, philosophers have long proposed that the views of the majority of the population on the majority of subjects are permeated with extraordinary confusion and error.
Chamfort: "public opinion is the worst of all opinions."
The reason for this defectiveness of opinion lies in the public's reluctance to submit its thoughts to the rigours of rational examination and its reliance on intuition, emotion, and custom instead...what is flatteringly called common sense is usually little short of common nonsense, suffering as it does from simplification and illogicality, prejudice and shallowness.引自第125页Philosophers have recommended that we follow our internal consciences rather than signs of approval or condemnation from outside. What matters is not what we seem to a random group, but what we know we are....to settle instead for the more solidly grounded satisfactions of a logically based sense of our worth.引自第128页
ON POLITICS
What defines, and lends bitterness to, the state of poverty is not so much direct physical suffering as the shame that flows from the negative reactions of others to one's state...people are poverty-stricken whenever their income, even if adequate for survival, falls markedly behind that of the community. Then they cannot have what the larger community regards as the minimum necessary for decency; and they cannot wholly escape, therefore, the judgment of the larger community that they are indecent.
It is this idea that "decency" should be attafched to wealth - and "indecency" to poverty - that forms the core of one strand of sceptical complaint against the modern status-ideal.引自第196页
ON CHRISTIANITY
The Death of Ivan Ilyich is, in the vest tradition of the Christian memento mori, a study in how the thought of death may reorient our priorities away from the worldly and towards the spiritual, away from whist and dinner parties towards truth and love.
If weath, esteem and power buy us the kind of love that will last only so long, as our status holds, and yet if we are destined to end our lives defenceless and dishevelled, longing to be comforted like a small child, then we have an unusually clear reason to concentrate our energies on those relationships which will best withstand the erosion of our standing. 引自第231页
ON BOHEMIA
An insight of bohemian has been that our ability to maintain confidence in a way of life at odds with the mainstream culture greatly depends on the value system operating in our immediate environment, on the kind of people we mix with socially and on what we read and listen to.
They have recognized that our peace of mind can be only too easily shattered and our commitments challenged by a few minutes of conversation with an acquaintance who feels that money and a public profile are ultimately estimable - or by reading a magazine which, by reporting only on the feats of bourgeois heroes, insidiously undermines the worth of any alternative ambitions. 引自第287页The Bohemian movement's enduring contrubution has been to provide a range of suggestive challenges to the bourgeoisie's ideals. It has accused them of failing to understand the role that wealth should play in a good life; of being too hasty in condemning worldly failure and too slavish in venerating outward success; of having excessive faith in sham notions of property; of dogmatically identifying professional qualifications with talent; of neglecting the value of art, sensitivity, playfulness and creativity; and of being overconcerned with order, rules, bureaucracy and time-keeping.
Like Christianity, for which it has in many ways functioned as an emotional substitute - emerging in the 19th century at around the very time when Christianity began to lose its grip on the imagination - bohemia has articulated a case for a spiritual, as opposed to a material, method of evaluating oneself and others. Like Christianity's monasteries and nunneries, bohemia's garrets and cafes, low-rent districts and cooperative businesses have provided a refuge in which that part of the population uninterested in pursuing the bourgeoisie's rewards has found sustenance and fellowship. 引自第301页
贾不许
上海译文出版社2007版
Hammer_
上海译文出版社2007版
Mindy
上海译文出版社2009版
【读品】
上海译文出版社2007版
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 pr...
privations 贫困 rationale 根本原因 zealous 热心的 被他人注意、被他人关怀，得到他人的同情、赞美和支持，这就是我们想要从一切行为中得到的价值。 To be observed, to be attended to, to be taken notice of with sympathy, complacency, and approbation, are all the advantages which we can propose to derive from it. 一旦感到自己被世界所忽略，人类天性中最强烈的欲望将必然难以得到满足。 To feel that we are ta...
0 有用 omega sun 2012-08-26 11:56:08
洞见是有，但是文字太学究了，硬着头皮才看完
0 有用 freedom 2015-06-17 22:50:04
焦虑在所难免，那就起码选择真正值得焦虑的事情好了。
0 有用 累累 2012-03-12 03:48:23
刚知道de Botton是瑞士人，一直误以为他是英国人。苏黎世一间不大的英文书店里居然集有他的各本书。
0 有用 Surreal 2010-01-06 16:02:11
我买的第一本原版书
0 有用 Puwei 2021-11-16 20:12:03
典型的德波顿论文式作品，比较对我胃口，也有所启发。和The Art of Travel相比，文字优美度差了一些，但依旧有英式小幽默，令人忍俊不禁。
0 有用 GiMu 2022-05-07 18:32:20
与成功学类书籍不同的是，成功学教你如何从实践上去“迎合”引起身份焦虑的种种问题，这本发书教你如何从观念上避开这些问题；与成功学类书籍相同的是，除非你从观念和实践上都尊崇一条自己选择的路径，都不能给你的生活带来实质性地改变。
0 有用 好大一棵树 2022-01-15 12:20:24
词句太好了，优美的英文。status anxiety确实是现代meritocracy的通病。这本书认同了我个人对身份焦虑的看法，要有自己的道德标准和思考体系，才能更真实地解读自己的内心。
0 有用 Puwei 2021-11-16 20:12:03
典型的德波顿论文式作品，比较对我胃口，也有所启发。和The Art of Travel相比，文字优美度差了一些，但依旧有英式小幽默，令人忍俊不禁。
0 有用 琳达 2021-10-31 20:30:22
这本书是张哲瀚书单里我最喜欢的一本，希望他能好好品读这本书，会对走出阴影有帮助的。
0 有用 张霹雳 2021-07-07 04:25:30
status anxiety不仅正常还应该多多少少有一点 作者从几个角度分析了一下源头和解决办法 浅显易懂 有点意思