Thorstein Veblen coined the term conspicuous consumption to describe inessential and wasteful consumption by the upper social classes
In his most famous work, The Theory of the Leisure Class, Veblen writes critically of the leisure class for its role in fostering wasteful consumption, or conspicuous waste. In this first work Veblen coined the term conspicuous consumption, which he defined as spending more money on goods than they are worth.
We might go on to say that there is also another social trait which we could refer to as conspicuous assurance. It is necessary for elite classes to exhibit a level of assurance about certain important public narratives where the level of assurance is greater than the narrative will rationally bear. In many cases, much greater.
As communication technologies have become cheaper and thereby more widely available, knowledge is no longer restricted to those with an elite education. Mass-produced books, magazines, newspapers and lending libraries made knowledge more democratic. The internet is taking that development much further.
Elite social classes still have a need to exhibit assurance and confidence, but have been nudged into areas of knowledge which are at best uncertain. These are areas where confidence about the mainstream narrative is unwarranted, where consensus may be a worthless social fabrication or worse.
Examples are climate change, sustainable energy, electric transport, gender politics, race politics, pandemics and immigration. All of these are sustained by irrational confidence in consensus narratives which vary from dubious to false to absurd. Yet they partly define certain social classes which do not appear to know how to extricate themselves. Or more likely, they do not care.
As a consequence, elites have been nudged into impossible positions where the only exit may be totalitarian politics.
Elite social classes still have a need to exhibit assurance and confidence, but have been nudged into areas of knowledge which are at best uncertain. These are areas where confidence about the mainstream narrative is unwarranted, where consensus may be a worthless social fabrication or worse.
Examples are climate change, sustainable energy, electric transport, gender politics, race politics, pandemics and immigration. All of these are sustained by irrational confidence in consensus narratives which vary from dubious to false to absurd. Yet they partly define certain social classes which do not appear to know how to extricate themselves. Or more likely, they do not care.
As a consequence, elites have been nudged into impossible positions where the only exit may be totalitarian politics.
6 comments:
You could also add Conspicuous Virtue Signalling.
The elite at one time could get away with 'My blood is bluer than yours'
More recently it became 'I have much more money than you'
Even more recently 'I understand how the world works much more than you do'
And now 'My virtue is much stronger than yours'
All of which is the Leisure Class competing for status with one another.
Another area where complete assurance and confidence is displayed is diet and alcohol. People are absolutely certain that we ought to stay within a certain number of "units" of alcohol per week, and that we need "five a day" of our fruit and veg. Yet there is no research on the figures; they were just pulled out of the air by some quangoist who just thought that alcohol was bad and veg was good.
I think your point about our elites backing themselves into a corner is very telling. It's only over the last ten years or so that we've heard the phrase "doubling down", which is how the assured tend to behave when challenged by bolshie but disorganised oppositions armed with the internet. Once their bluff is called, they run out of options. Nobody has yet, so far as I know, admitted they were wrong and made stuff up just to stay in power.
Nor will they admit.
Having met and talked to a number of politicians and aspiring politicians through my Conservative Party connections, I heard their assertions that they went into politics to try to "make things better". My reaction was 'what makes you think that you could make things better?'
A couple of years back I had an appointment at the hospital to discuss my progress after my blood clots, the consultant was not the normal one but a woman of some size, not gross but very big.
We went through the usual question and answer routine and then she asked me how much I drank, when I told her she said 'Good God no break in the week and that much at weekends'.
She then went on to tell me how it affected my anti coagulation routine and that I would seriously limit my length of life! I replied at my age it is a bit late to change and what would be the point as we all have to go sometime and I am still enjoying life, the reaction was for much shuffling of papers and mumbling.
DJ - once it was breeding of course, often explicitly stated too. Maybe it still is.
Sam - yes, "doubling down" is a telling phrase. This is the positive aspect of things, their superior standpoints keep on crumbling and many must know it. Gives an advantage to outright charlatans perhaps.
James - they can't, it would be a retreat.
Tammly - I'm sure many are sincere to begin with, but the establishment is far more powerful than individuals.
Wiggia - and as we get to a certain age we know we can live too long anyway. As my mother did.
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