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blueinkedfrostThis 1899 book is glorious! An academic examination of the well-born worthless wastrel and parasite on society.
It is where the term "conspicuous consumption" originates. It's sociological satire with a point, somewhat similar to the later 'Bodily Ritual Among the Nacirema'. Because of its density, it's very difficult to locate a quote that's both representative and capable of standing alone. Basically, the thesis is that humans are broken because we regard leisure as symbolic of prestige, and tend to judge people by the extent to which they can prove they lead useless lives that contribute nothing of practical value to the community.
In order to gain and to hold the esteem of men it is not sufficient merely to possess wealth or power. The wealth or power must be put in evidence, for esteem is awarded only on evidence. And not only does the evidence of wealth serve to impress one's importance on others and to keep their sense of his importance alive and alert, but it is of scarcely less use in building up and preserving one's self-complacency. In all but the lowest stages of culture the normally constituted man is comforted and upheld in his self-respect by "decent surroundings" and by exemption from "menial offices". Enforced departure from his habitual standard of decency, either in the paraphernalia of life or in the kind and amount of his everyday activity, is felt to be a slight upon his human dignity, even apart from all conscious consideration of the approval or disapproval of his fellows.
The archaic theoretical distinction between the base and the honourable in the manner of a man's life retains very much of its ancient force even today. So much so that there are few of the better class who are not possessed of an instinctive repugnance for the vulgar forms of labour. We have a realising sense of ceremonial uncleanness attaching in an especial degree to the occupations which are associated in our habits of thought with menial service. It is felt by all persons of refined taste that a spiritual contamination is inseparable from certain offices that are conventionally required of servants. Vulgar surroundings, mean (that is to say, inexpensive) habitations, and vulgarly productive occupations are unhesitatingly condemned and avoided. They are incompatible with life on a satisfactory spiritual plane - with "high thinking". From the days of the Greek philosophers to the present, a degree of leisure and of exemption from contact with such industrial processes as serve the immediate everyday purposes of human life has ever been recognised by thoughtful men as a prerequisite to a worthy or beautiful, or even a blameless, human life. In itself and in its consequences the life of leisure is beautiful and ennobling in all civilised men's eyes.
Some criticism of this book is also interesting, such as this quote from HL Mencken:
Do I enjoy a decent bath because I know that John Smith cannot afford one—or because I delight in being clean? Do I admire Beethoven's Fifth Symphony because it is incomprehensible to Congressmen and Methodists—or because I genuinely love music? Do I prefer terrapin à la Maryland to fried liver, because plowhands must put up with the liver—or because the terrapin is intrinsically a more charming dose? - Mencken, Professor Veblen, Prejudices, First Series, 1919. (Quoted in Wikipedia.)
(The way that terrapin isn't especially popular today might suggest something about this reply.)
This book's especially enjoyable in that it holds a mirror up to the reader and invites them to look: what do you like because it is expensive or socially conventional (or socially unconventional), rather than because it's fit for purpose or suits a personal aesthetic? Surely the way we are now isn't any more normal than any other form of human society; therefore isn't it best to analyse rather than accept? The satire bites with some excellent points. So excellent that it's probably sufficient to set off its own trend of conventional unconventionality.
Recommended to try this read! Still relevant today.
Also, this text mentions Ruskin.
As has already been pointed out, the cheap, and therefore indecorous, articles of daily consumption in modern industrial communities are commonly machine products; and the generic feature of the physiognomy of machine-made goods as compared with the hand-wrought article is their greater perfection in workmanship and greater accuracy in the detail execution of the design. Hence it comes about that the visible imperfections of the hand-wrought goods, being honorific, are accounted marks of superiority in point of beauty, or serviceability, or both. Hence has arisen that exaltation of the defective, of which John Ruskin and William Morris were such eager spokesmen in their time; and on this ground their propaganda of crudity and wasted effort has been taken up and carried forward since their time. And hence also the propaganda for a return to handicraft and household industry. So much of the work and speculations of this group of men as fairly comes under the characterization here given would have been impossible at a time when the visibly more perfect goods were not the cheaper.
Perhaps the Ruskin argument referred to is something like this quote, from STONES OF VENICE:
[I]mperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know of life. It is the sign of life in a mortal body, that is to say, of a state of progress and change. Nothing that lives is, or can be, rigidly perfect: part of it is decaying, part nascent... Accept this then for a universal law, that neither architecure nor any other noble work of man can be good unless it be imperfect.
Ruskin has a point that variety is one of the criteria for beauty, and that personally created items bear a stronger impression of the maker than a factory-manufactured item designed to lack ornament and individuality.
I think these two lines of argument can coexist: Ruskin tends to give more complex and nuanced explanations for his aesthetic preferences than Veblen would have it, but on the other hand Veblen's thesis that evidence of leisure is a subconsious factor increasing pleasure is convincing.
Here's a simple example that Ruskin might approve - architecture, then and now. Houses created in Australia before mass production took off have individual, interesting ironwork designs around the doors and unique ceramic tiles indoors. Pictures included:
source
source
source
source
Factory-built houses have plain, mass-produced designs. We consider the unique houses more beautiful because they give us something new to look at. But the functionality of mass-produced houses gives people somewhere to live in the first place, which in turn gives people a chance to admire old houses without having to worry which park bench they'll sleep on overnight.
It is where the term "conspicuous consumption" originates. It's sociological satire with a point, somewhat similar to the later 'Bodily Ritual Among the Nacirema'. Because of its density, it's very difficult to locate a quote that's both representative and capable of standing alone. Basically, the thesis is that humans are broken because we regard leisure as symbolic of prestige, and tend to judge people by the extent to which they can prove they lead useless lives that contribute nothing of practical value to the community.
In order to gain and to hold the esteem of men it is not sufficient merely to possess wealth or power. The wealth or power must be put in evidence, for esteem is awarded only on evidence. And not only does the evidence of wealth serve to impress one's importance on others and to keep their sense of his importance alive and alert, but it is of scarcely less use in building up and preserving one's self-complacency. In all but the lowest stages of culture the normally constituted man is comforted and upheld in his self-respect by "decent surroundings" and by exemption from "menial offices". Enforced departure from his habitual standard of decency, either in the paraphernalia of life or in the kind and amount of his everyday activity, is felt to be a slight upon his human dignity, even apart from all conscious consideration of the approval or disapproval of his fellows.
The archaic theoretical distinction between the base and the honourable in the manner of a man's life retains very much of its ancient force even today. So much so that there are few of the better class who are not possessed of an instinctive repugnance for the vulgar forms of labour. We have a realising sense of ceremonial uncleanness attaching in an especial degree to the occupations which are associated in our habits of thought with menial service. It is felt by all persons of refined taste that a spiritual contamination is inseparable from certain offices that are conventionally required of servants. Vulgar surroundings, mean (that is to say, inexpensive) habitations, and vulgarly productive occupations are unhesitatingly condemned and avoided. They are incompatible with life on a satisfactory spiritual plane - with "high thinking". From the days of the Greek philosophers to the present, a degree of leisure and of exemption from contact with such industrial processes as serve the immediate everyday purposes of human life has ever been recognised by thoughtful men as a prerequisite to a worthy or beautiful, or even a blameless, human life. In itself and in its consequences the life of leisure is beautiful and ennobling in all civilised men's eyes.
Some criticism of this book is also interesting, such as this quote from HL Mencken:
Do I enjoy a decent bath because I know that John Smith cannot afford one—or because I delight in being clean? Do I admire Beethoven's Fifth Symphony because it is incomprehensible to Congressmen and Methodists—or because I genuinely love music? Do I prefer terrapin à la Maryland to fried liver, because plowhands must put up with the liver—or because the terrapin is intrinsically a more charming dose? - Mencken, Professor Veblen, Prejudices, First Series, 1919. (Quoted in Wikipedia.)
(The way that terrapin isn't especially popular today might suggest something about this reply.)
This book's especially enjoyable in that it holds a mirror up to the reader and invites them to look: what do you like because it is expensive or socially conventional (or socially unconventional), rather than because it's fit for purpose or suits a personal aesthetic? Surely the way we are now isn't any more normal than any other form of human society; therefore isn't it best to analyse rather than accept? The satire bites with some excellent points. So excellent that it's probably sufficient to set off its own trend of conventional unconventionality.
Recommended to try this read! Still relevant today.
Also, this text mentions Ruskin.
As has already been pointed out, the cheap, and therefore indecorous, articles of daily consumption in modern industrial communities are commonly machine products; and the generic feature of the physiognomy of machine-made goods as compared with the hand-wrought article is their greater perfection in workmanship and greater accuracy in the detail execution of the design. Hence it comes about that the visible imperfections of the hand-wrought goods, being honorific, are accounted marks of superiority in point of beauty, or serviceability, or both. Hence has arisen that exaltation of the defective, of which John Ruskin and William Morris were such eager spokesmen in their time; and on this ground their propaganda of crudity and wasted effort has been taken up and carried forward since their time. And hence also the propaganda for a return to handicraft and household industry. So much of the work and speculations of this group of men as fairly comes under the characterization here given would have been impossible at a time when the visibly more perfect goods were not the cheaper.
Perhaps the Ruskin argument referred to is something like this quote, from STONES OF VENICE:
[I]mperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know of life. It is the sign of life in a mortal body, that is to say, of a state of progress and change. Nothing that lives is, or can be, rigidly perfect: part of it is decaying, part nascent... Accept this then for a universal law, that neither architecure nor any other noble work of man can be good unless it be imperfect.
Ruskin has a point that variety is one of the criteria for beauty, and that personally created items bear a stronger impression of the maker than a factory-manufactured item designed to lack ornament and individuality.
I think these two lines of argument can coexist: Ruskin tends to give more complex and nuanced explanations for his aesthetic preferences than Veblen would have it, but on the other hand Veblen's thesis that evidence of leisure is a subconsious factor increasing pleasure is convincing.
Here's a simple example that Ruskin might approve - architecture, then and now. Houses created in Australia before mass production took off have individual, interesting ironwork designs around the doors and unique ceramic tiles indoors. Pictures included:
source
source
source
source
Factory-built houses have plain, mass-produced designs. We consider the unique houses more beautiful because they give us something new to look at. But the functionality of mass-produced houses gives people somewhere to live in the first place, which in turn gives people a chance to admire old houses without having to worry which park bench they'll sleep on overnight.
