as the determinants of high status keep shifting, so, too, naturally, will the triggers of status anxiety be altered.

It is according to how we are able to answer the question of what we do (normally the first enquiry we will have to field in any new acquaintance) that the quality of our reception is likely to be decided.

The desire for high status is never stronger than in situations where "ordinary" life fails to answer a median need for dignity and comfort.

Far from rejecting outright any hierarchy of success or failure, philosophy instead reconfigures the judging process, lending legitimacy to theidea that themainstream value system may unfairly consign some people to disgrace and others to respectability.

Philosophy, art, politics, religion and bohemia have never sought to do away entirely with the status hierarchy; they have attemptee, rather, to institute new kinds of hierarchies based on sets of values unrecognised by, and critical of, those of the majority.. They have provided us with persuasive and consoling reminders that there is more than one way of succeeding in life.

The largest part of what we call 'personality' is determined by how we've opted to defend ourselves against anxiety and sadness".