Arizandy Rios

AP Lang

Mrs.Kacvinsky

10-05-16

American Dream Project

Chapter 1 Lovelessnes

Questions

1. Why are we affected by the absence of love?

2. Why are we so anxious to know where we end up in the world?

3. Which love do we desire more?

Quotes

1. To be shown love is to feel ourselves the object of concern( de Botton page 6)

2. Our ego or self-conception could be pictured as a leaking balloon, forever requiring the helium

of external love to remain inflated, and ever vulnerable to the smallest pinpricks of neglect. (de

Botton page 9)

3. This place will determine how much love we are offered and so, in turn, whether we can like or

must lose confidence in ourselves.(de Botton page 10)

Summary

Each adult is defined by two great love stories the quest for sexual love and the quest for love from the

world. The first is acceptable and celebrated; the second is secret and ignominious.The impact of low

status is not primarily material for most people. Its in the challenge that it poses to ones sense of

self-reverence.The place we occupy in the world determines how much love we are offered and in turn
whether we can relish ourselves or lose confidence in ourselves.

Authors Argument

Everyone is looking for love but there is two different kind. One is considered sexual love meaning

having a significant other and the other is love from the world in being accepted and adored by the

world. No one wants to be considered low-status. If in life we turn out successful we are important but if

we dont then we arent.

My Opinion

I think there is two loves in this world having a significant other and love from the world. However I

dont think it is shameful to want love from the world. Wanting to be successful in life isnt something

that should be kept a secret. But I do believe the love you receive from people depend on if you are

successful.

Chapter 2 Expectations

Questions

1. Have materialistic items always been important?

2. Why do we envy the people that seem to be like us?

3. Is it the expectations that we fear or not being enough for them?

Quotes

1. the old cyclical view of the world, wherein one expected next year to be like (and just as bad as)

last, gave away to the notion that mankind could progress yearly towards perfection.(de Botton

page 17)

2. Such feelings of deprivation may seem less peculiar if we consider the psychology behind the

way we decide precisely how much is enough. (de Botton page 25)

3. The price we have paid for expecting to be so much more than our ancestors is a perpetual

anxiety that we are far from being all we might be. ( de Botton page 44)
 Summary

In 1800s England, accommodations and goods that previously only the affluent had access to were now

available to the middle class people. The changes were mostly due to agricultural innovations from

1700-1820s, and in the 1800s to technological innovations. It was believed by most as Aristotle verbally

expressed, Some by nature are free and others by nature are slaves. The working class were visually

perceived without rights and aspirations. Most believed inequality was fair, or at least

ineluctable.Christianity verbalized the notion in inequality. God was visually perceived as engendering all

beings in rank order, with some superior and some inferior.With prospect and a sense of endless

possibility comes concern that we are far from being what we might be.

Authors Argument

Shows how the working class was viewed as which was without rights and ambition. Explains how God

as well made some people superior and some inferior. Talks about the changes throughout years because

of the new modifications.

My Opinion

I think the working class shouldnt be viewed without rights because they are still people with equal

rights. I also believe inequality isnt fair.

Chapter 3 Meritocracy

The chapter is on three stories that were for the lowest Western society. The poor are not responsible for

their condition and are the most useful members of society. This is the medieval and pre-modern story.

God and the natural order are responsible for societal position. In the story, theres a sense of mutual

dependence among the classes, and the lowest classes are acknowledged for making life easier for the

upper classes. Low status has no moral connotation. Neither wealth nor poverty are an accurate index of
moral worth. Jesus was poor and good. If anything, poverty was good because it led to the recognition of

ones dependence on God. The rich are sinful and corrupt and owe their wealth to the robbery of the poor.

This chapter just talks about different stories about how the poor were viewed.

Chapter 4 Snobbery

Questions

1. At what point are you consider a snob?

2. What makes you a snob?

3. How did the meaning of snob change throughout the years

Quotes

1. In the words earliest days, a snob was taken to mean someone without high status,( de Botton

page 76)

2. Only as we mature does affection begin to depend on achievement: being polite, succeeding at

school and later, acquiring rank and prestige.(de Botton page 77)

3. In a pattern common to all abusive behaviour, snobs generate snobs.( de Botton page 80)

Summary

Snobs believe there is a impeccable equation between social rank and human worth. Before snob meant

someone who didnt have a high status but throughout the years transmuted into meaning someone

offended by a lack of high status in others. As babies we are looked after for and is praised for every

precious thing we do. As we mature, affection from others depends on achievement, on our being

polite,education, etc. Snobs combine a weak capacity for independent judgment with a vigorous appetite

for the views of influential people. Making friends with people with power or fame.

Authors Argument
Describing what a snob is like. Before snob meant someone with no high status but now means someone

who believes that their tastes in a particular area are superior to others. As we grow up we have to win

people over to receive love and affection. Snobs tend to surround themselves with people of money or

power.

My Opinion

I agree snobs try to befriend people who are usually rich. Maybe the meaning of snob changed throughout

the years because people started to use it differently.

Chapter 5 Dependence

Questions

1. How many ways is there to achieve a high status?

2. How many things can we truly depend on to reach financial achievement?

3. Can we be financially stable without talent, luck, an employer, an employers profitability, global

economy?

Quote

1. The great aspiration of modern societies has been to reverse this equation, to strip away both

inherited privilege and inherited under-privilege in order to make dependent on individual

achievement, (de Botton page 87)

2. So far are we from owning what talent we do on occasion display, that our achievements can

seem like a gift granted to us by an external agency. (de Botton page 88)

3. The survival of both companies and their employees is further threatened by the performance of

the economy as a whole. (de Botton page 95)

Summary

Status, historically, was tied to what one was at birth, not what one achieved in ones lifetime. Modern

societies try to reverse this, to make rank dependent only on achievement usually financial achievement.
He list five elements

1. Talent

2. Luck

3. Dependence on an employer

4. Dependence on an employers profitability

5. Dependence on the global economy

Worker's status is never guaranteed, is always dependent on their own performance and on factors that

are outside of their control.

Authors Argument

Before if you born wealthy you would always be known as that you were already considered high

status without doing anything. But later it wasnt enough you had to start making your own

accomplishments. There is five ways of achieving financial stability. All of them have their own risk. All

them arent always going to be there or lead you directly to what you want to achieve in life.

My Opinion

I think there are many ways of becoming successful. Getting to be successful is the tricky part. You can

get fired from your job because they found someone better, run out of luck, run out of talent. Wanting to

be successful is easy but getting there is hard.

Part II

Chapter 1 Philosophy

Questions

1. What exactly is philosophy?

2. Does accepting the opinion of others ease anxiety?

 3. How does philosophy contribute to becoming financially stable?

Quotes

1. Painful though it may be to acknowledge the poverty of public opinion, the very act of doing so

may somewhat ease our anxieties about status, (de Botton page 117)

2. Dispensing advice from their isolated studies, philosophers have recommended that we follow

the internal markers of our conscience rather than any external signs of approval or

condemnation. ( de Botton page 119)

3. Neither does philosophy deny the utility of certain kinds of anxiety. (de Botton page 114)

Summary

For duelers, others opinions were the only factor in composing their sense of self. If others judged a

dueler a coward, a failure, dishonorable, he could not remain acceptable in his own eyes viewer. He

would sooner die or kill than let an threatening assessment go unanswered.We may not duel but we may

have extreme sensitivity to the disdain of others.

Authors Argument

Everyone has their opinion. Whether you do something great or horrible someone will always be there to

say something. And sometimes how others see us can affect us.

My Opinion

People will always judge you for anything you do whether good or bad. Opinions dont matter to most

people but sometimes the opinion from someone influential can mean something.

Chapter 2 Art

Questions

1. Why is art important?

 2. How many emotions can art show?

3. Does being an artist guarantee success?

Quotes

1. History reveals no shortage of jokes intended to amend the vices of high-status groups and

shake the mighty out of their pretensions or dishonesty. (de Botton page 164)

2. A world in which a majority had imbibed the lessons implicit within tragic art would be one in

which the consequences of our failures would necessarily cease to weigh upon us so heavily. (

de Botton page 155)

3. Beyond being a useful weapon with which to attack the high-status of others, humour may also

help us to make sense of, and perhaps even mitigate, our own status anxiety (de Botton page

170)

Summary

The history of art is filled with challenges to the status quo.Tragedy avails to re-inject empathy into the

equation by exhibiting how like everyone else the tragic figure is.

Tragedy reflects:

1. how apparently small missteps can result in grave consequences

2. the blindness we suffer with regard to the effects of our actions

3. A foolish tendency to presume that we are in conscious command of our destiny

4. the speed and integrity with which all that we cherish can be lost

5. the mysterious forces against which our powers are pitted

Comedy also can be used to make sense of and reduce status anxiety.
 Authors Argument

Showing how much art can show. Tragedy is everywhere including in art. Anything can be made into

something tragic. Comedy is something used to help and lessen status anxiety.

My Opinion

I think humor can always help in anything. Art can be used to show so many emotions. It has the ability to

make something tragic into beautiful.

Chapter 3 Politics

Questions

1. How did politics change throughout the years ?

2. What are the major difference between politics then and now?

3. Why did they change?

Quotes

1. Every society holds certain groups of people in high esteem while condemning or ignoring

others, whether on the basis of their skills, accent, temperament, gender, physical attributes,

ancestry, religion, or skin color. ( de Botton page 175)

2. Aside from the equation it draws between making money and being good, the modern ideal of a

successful life posits a further linkage between making money and being happy(de Botton page

189)

3. More ambitiously, understanding may also be first step towards an attempt to shift, or tug at, a
 societys ideals, ( de Botton page 213)

Summary

A timeline of who and what has been held in high status

1. 400 BC Sparta

2. Western Europe 476-1096

3. Western Europe 1096-1500

4. England 1750-1890

5. Brasil, 1600-1960

6. London, Sydney, New York, LA, 2004

How is status distributed?

1. By threatening and bullying

2. By defending others. Where the livelihood of the majority depends on trade and high-tech,

entrepreneurs and scientists are celebrated.

3. By impressing others with goodness, talent, skill or wisdom

4. By appealing to conscience or sense of decency of peers by moral authority.

Ideals are not cast in stone; the process by which they alter is politics.

Authors Argument

Politics is something that can always change because ideals always change. There are quite a few
principles how status is distributed.

My Opinion

I think before politic were different because they had a different mindset than us. I think thats why it was

always changing but I think now we have a stable one.

Chapter 4 Religion

Questions

1. Has religion changed throughout the years?

2. What does religion have to do with being financially stable

3. Is religion as important as politics, art, and philosophy?

Quotes

1. But how, specifically, might moral illness help to the orient us away from an excessive concern

with status?(de Botton page 220)

2. While the thought of death may occasionally be abused ( to alarm individuals or groups into

doing things they might never do otherwise), (de Botton page 223)

3. If reflecting on our own mortality is instructive we may also find some relief from status anxiety

in dwelling on the deaths of other people-( de Botton page 228)

Summary
The prospect of death may cause us to do what matters most to us and to pay less attention to the verdicts

of others. We all have the same susceptibilities and the same two driving forces: fear, and a desire for

love.Christianity endeavors to enhance the value we place on community through ritual.

Authors Argument

We all are going to die some of us sooner than later but when we see death near we start caring more

about what matters most to us. Religion tries to help us in growing as a spiritual community.

My Opinion

I think religion is everywhere and in many forms. Whether you are religious or not the fear of death is

something no one can escape.

Chapter 5 Bohemia

Questions

1. What/Who is bohemia?

2. How does it relate to the rest of the topics?

3. Did they want to be different from the rest? what

Quotes

1. At the heart of the conflict lay a contrasting assessment of the value of worldly achievement, on

the one hand, and sensitivity, on the other. ( de Botton page 269)

2. Just as money cannot purchase honour within the bohemian value system, neither can
 possessions command it,( de Botton page 274)

3. Bohemia has also carefully redefined its understanding of the word failure. (de Botton page

279)

Summary

Bohemians came to prominence in France after Napoleon, 1815. Bohemians are found in all social

classes.Most importantly, they did not fit into the bourgeois conception of respectability.Bohemians dont

like the bourgeoisie.The bourgeoisie are seen as prudes, materialistic, both cynical and sentimental.Most

generally, bohemia has legitimised the pursuit of an alternative way of life.

Authors Argument

The Bohemians were seen as failures to others because they liked living a simile life. They didnt need

expensive things to be happy. They were not failures simply just chose to live their lives a different way.

My Opinion

These people were judged because they chose to live a different lifestyle than the rest. Not caring about

materialistic items but about art, books, and didnt care much for money.