"Once food and shelter have been secured the predominant impulse behind ur desire to succeed in the social hierarchy may lie not so much with the goods we can accrue or the power we wield, as with the amount of love we stand to receive as a consequence of high status." Alain de Botton, Status Anxiety, p 11
This love he refers to is not romantic, but that of status: "...we feel ourselves the object of concern, our presence is noted, our name is registered, our views listened to, our failings are treated with indulgence and our needs are ministered to."
How true!
The point de Botton is making seems to be that we gain this "love" through displays of wealth and power. Perhaps this is the motive that drives us to constantly consume and have new things. It might also explain why we always want to have the biggest thing. Size confers status because it implies greater wealth. Hence, the mansion, the ever burgeoning SUV, the constant growing list of "things" that are necessities.
And still, this seems to be describing the symptom, while hiding the cause....why? Why do we assign status to material wealth? Is this where the link to advertising comes in? And "automaticity of behaviour"? Everyone else is doing, therefore I do too.
That said, not everyone does:
"Man is rich in proportion to things he can do without" Henry David Thoreau (p 285 of de Botton)
But let's be honest, how many people give a fuck what Henry David Thoreau thought? How many people even know who he is?
[Also those Schumacher quotes and de Botton draws a link to reference groups and how connected we are today...but notes are a bit thin...p 45 onwards) Plus is there some connection to conectedness...what do all those internet studies people make of the link between the internet and rampant consumerism...?]
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