The book The Spirit Level – Why Equality is Better for Everyone, by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, takes a wide range of social studies in order to assess inequality and its implications in modern societies across the globe.
Am I looking stupid?
“By the standards of any previous society, we have become highly self-conscious, obsessed with how we appear to others, worried that we might come across as unattractive, boring, stupid or whatever, and constantly trying to manage the impressions we make. And the core of our interactions with strangers is our concern at the social judgments and evaluations they might make: how do they rate us, did we give a good account of ourselves? This vulnerability is part of the modern psychological condition and feeds directly into consumerism.” We then buy goods that will make a good impression on others.
INEQUALITY INCREASES EVALUATION ANXIETIES
“Instead of accepting each other as equals on the basis of our common humanity as we might in more equal settings, getting the measure of each other becomes more important as status differences widen. We come to see social position as a more important feature of a person´s identity.”
(...) Surveys have found that when choosing a prospective marriage partners, people in more unequal countries put less emphasis on romantic considerations and more on criteria such as financial prospects, status and ambition, than do people is less unequal societies.”
