Status Anxiety

by Alain de Botton

Thanks to the meritocratic ideal, multitudes were granted the opportunity to fulfil themselves. Gifted and intelligent individuals of the sort who for centuries had been kept down within an immobile, castelike hierarchy were now free to express their talents on a theoretically level playing field. No longer was background, gender, race or age an impassable obstacle to advancement. An element of justice had finally entered into the distribution of rewards. But there was also, 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, an element of justice appeared to enter into the distribution of poverty no less than that of wealth. Low status came to seem not merely regrettable but also deserved.