Alain de Botton expresses his beliefs regarding equality, expectations, and envy in his work Equality, Expectation, and Envy. Botton analyzes how the populations of Westerner’s feel concerning these three emotions. Botton uses David Hume to validate his point, quoting “A common soldier bears no envy for his general compared to what he will feel for his sergeant or corporal.” (Botton 27). Often times the Westerners will judge their wealth and esteem through comparing their life to those they believe themselves to be equal to and are dissatisfied by the differences found in importance, achievement, and income. Botton says that if one lives in a draughty house that they will not notice because they see all their neighbors in houses like it as well, so they will believe it is normal however, if one neighbor is living in a well house then the others will notice and be envious. (Botton 26). So the more people we find ourselves to be equal to then the more envy we will feel. …show more content…
Property rights went to daughter and slaves no longer called their owner “master”. (Botton 31) Now democratic societies all find themselves to be equal, where everyone has a shot at the same thing. Bottoms tells about how in aristocracies lower class accepted their position versus now democracies lower class want to grow and be equal to the people above them. Botton later writes about William James, a man that took a psychological look into the problems created by society. James didn’t agree that you feel envy and disappointment at something you don’t invest pride in. James believes that our self-esteem is dependent on our levels of expectation and pretensions. The westerners however were not known to give up their