An insight of bohemians has been that our ability to maintain confidence in a way of life at odds with the mainstream culture greatly depends on the value system operating in our immediate environment, on the kind of people we mix with socially and on what we read and listen to.

They have recognised that our peace of mind can be only too easily shattered and our commitments challenged by a few minutes of conversation with an acquaintance who feels, even if he or she does not say, that money and a public profile are ultimately estimable - or by reading a magazine which, by reporting only on the feats of bourgeois heroes, insidiously undermines the worth of any alternative ambitions.

- Alain de Botton, Status Anxiety : 287.