Status Anxiety
Chapter One
LOVELESSNESS
Our Need for Love, Our Desire for Status
1.
Every adult life could be said to be defined by two great love
stories. The first-the story of our quest for sexual love-is well
known and well charted, its vagaries form the staple of music and
literature, it is socially accepted and celebrated. 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, it is no less complicated, important or universal, and
its setbacks are no less painful. There is heartbreak here too.
2.
Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (Edinburgh, 1759):
"To what purpose is all the toil and bustle of this world? What is
the end of avarice and ambition, of the pursuit of wealth, of power
and pre-eminence? Is it to supply the necessities of nature? The
wages of the meanest labourer ca ... read full excerpt from: Status Anxiety ebook
