Status Anxiety - Video Documentary - Part 1 of 3

Status Anxiety discusses the desire of people in many modern societies to "climb the social ladder" and the anxieties that result from a focus on how one is perceived by others. De Botton claims that chronic anxiety about status is an inevitable side effect of any democratic, ostensibly egalitarian society. De Botton lays out the causes of and solutions to status anxiety as follows:

Causes:

Lovelessness
Expectation
Meritocracy
Snobbery
Dependence

Solutions:

Philosophy
Art
Politics
Religion
Bohemianism