Hope is an embrace of the unknown and the unknowable, an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists.
I don't fully understand this. Wouldn't an embrace of the unknown be inherently optimistic? I assume most people do not hope for a worse future. And she uses political and social rights movements as examples of hope. All of those embrace the future with the assumption that work will make it better,
Some activists are afraid that if we acknowledge victory, people will give up the struggle. I have long been more afraid that people will give up and go home or never get started in the first place if they think no victory is possible or fail to recognise the victories already achieved.
I agree with this. I've noticed this phenomenon in the COVID-19 pandemic in the form of debates as to whether publishing optimism about variants and vaccines in government statements and news media encourages the public or makes them think the pandemic is over. Los Angeles Times published the headline "The devil is already here" to describe the California variants early in the year, even though in the same article the variant described did not interfere with vaccinations in a meaningful way. I think this messaging did not make people more careful, but more nihilistic and counterintuitively willing to break safety rules because if it's a hopeless fight, what's the point in continuing to follow safety rules?
“Critical thinking without hope is cynicism, but hope without critical thinking is naivety,”
I like this statement, it does a good job of defining the lines between realistic thinking and cynicism or naivety. I think hope is often incorrectly written off as an intrinsically naive thing. I've heard many cynics deny their cynicism by saying "I'm just being realistic" which implies that the most realistic scenario is always most likely to be the worst. I don't hear that phrase used to justify a hopeful or optimistic opinion. Cynicism without justification should be regarded as just as irrational as hope without justification.
The upshot is that those who call for a luxury tax would never eliminate luxuries. Nor would something be lost, as Bloom suggests. The well-off would still enjoy the experience of choosing excess; they’d just choose less dramatic excesses.
Kahn criticized Bloom's lack of a definition for luxury and defined it himself as "excess." However, I interpreted Bloom and the others' luxury tax as applying to what most Americans think of as luxury brands (ex. Gucci, Rolex, Burberry.) So, in the context of the luxury tax that Kahn advocates for, what does he mean by luxury? By his definition, it could be a Burberry coat or it could be a $4 avocado during a drought. I wish he was more specific.
excess is a relative term
I appreciate Kahn's more flexible definition of the term "luxury" in different contexts. When I and probably most other Americans think of the word luxury, the mind jumps to Rolexes and Armani suits. I like how he broadens Bloom's discussion to include other cultures and times.
It seems likely that sacred sites and objects will also generate authentic biases that evoke some deeper metaphysical property like an essence.
The correlation Hood makes between a memorabilia item that a famous person touched with religious sites is very interesting and plausible. I wish he expanded on this more.
That might explain why Darren Julien, founder and president of one of the world’s largest celebrity memorabilia auction houses, notes that, despite increasing demand for investment opportunities in Eastern countries, interest in memorabilia is not yet as strong as in the United States.
This passage is in the context of memorabilia specifically, but I wonder if the value of luxury goods in other countries or regions of the world would differ from that of the United States, and if the social values of those regions could provide further insight into what makes authentic luxury items so popular.
William James effectively said that we are what we own, and marketing strategies strive to connect our idealized sense of self with products for sale.
This is similar to Gelman's suggestion that the lure of luxury for those who cannot easily afford it is that it brings them closer to the more glamorous fantasy of their lives. This makes a lot of sense to me and gives credence to both luxury as a status symbol and as creative self expression.
What exactly is the “historical” connection? Aside from an extremely attenuated market connection, there is no link between owner and Rolex maker, except perhaps in the sense that its owner feels pleasure because he owns what he believes is a real Rolex.
I think the legacy of the wealthy and the elite clientele in the abstract is sufficient for establishing the historical value of a Rolex. It is also possible that the buyer of a Rolex saw their favorite star actor wearing it, or their boss wearing it, which are both more personal histories. Perhaps the Rolex would have more historical value if it was the actual Rolex the actor wore, but being the same genuine brand I believe is good enough. In my opinion, both Satz and Postrel interpreted Bloom's historical value argument too literally.
A utilitarian would count whatever pleasure the rich get from paying $50,000 for a wristwatch that keeps time as well as a $50 one. But that pleasure would not outweigh the utility generated by using the same money to meet urgent social needs.
I agree, Bloom's argument against the utilitarian philosophy in regards to luxury goods does not diminish the potential benefit to greater society that ultilitarian public policy would have in regards to luxury goods. Both can coexist.
Segregation and institutionalized discrimination reflect this impulse to avoid contact across social groups.
I do see how luxury items promote socioeconomic class segregation. Luxury goods are not accessible at all to lower classes, so by buying luxury a wealthy person will be sure that they will not, for example, encounter lower classes in stores or match clothing with someone in a lower class.
In our own research, Meredith Meyer, Sarah-Jane Leslie, Sarah Stilwell, and I found similar negative responses to a homeless person, someone with low IQ, someone with schizophrenia, or someone who has committed a crime.
I find Gelman's criticism intriguing but I don't understand how this or the passage about AIDS relates to the lure of luxury goods. The example of the aversion to objects associated with a homeless person, a criminal, or a schizophrenic are the opposite effect of luxury items. Does Gelman mean to argue that for some marginalized groups certain luxury brands have a repulsive history that would prevent them from purchasing them, such as the Nazi history of the Volkswagon car brand, and that groups who were always privileged by purchasing the item show their indifference or ignorance to that history? Or does Gelman only mean to comment on the phenomenon of being drawn or repulsed by the story and history of an object not in the context of luxury goods at all?
This kind of intangible value is different from a good’s history or “its deeper nature,” as Bloom puts it. Santana never touched, much less wore, the object Christian purchased. The belt only looked like Santana’s. It was worth $350 to Christian not because of its provenance but because of his imagination.
I interpreted Bloom's argument as being inclusive of Christian's belt. I believe Postrel is taking it too literally. The "story" of the item, in Bloom's definition, could be that Santana literally touched the belt, but Santana wearing the same model is a story in itself.
If you were to discover that your Rolex is an inexpensive duplicate, you would experience the same effect.
This reminds me of a conversation I overheard in high school where a few boys in my class were gossiping about one of their friends who had impressed everyone with his $700 rare Nike sneakers but was now ridiculed because someone found out they were actually $100 replicas.
While I agree that without the story and emotion behind a luxury item, a dupe might be less enticing on a personal level I also think that owning a dupe is a social risk that would prevent someone from rewearing the hypothetical Rolex dupe. There is a risk in owning a knock-off luxury item in that if peers discover that the item is not genuine, it communicates that the owner is trying to pretend that they have enough wealth to purchase the item even though they only have enough for the cheaper knock-off.
Going back to the sneaker example, the boy would have been more respected had he just worn a pair of genuine $100 Nike Air Force 1's because he would be emulating wealth he did have rather than wealth he didn't have. Instead his knock-offs marked him as a "poser."
Consistent with this, neuroscience studies reveal that when people look at products they judge to be “cool,” brain areas associated with praise and social approval are activated.
This phenomenon makes a lot of sense to me. An item being "cool" or "trendy" usually implies that members of society have a high opinion of it. Subsequently, wearing a "cool" item of clothing will influence others to have a higher opinion of you, ie. to think you yourself are cool. Many people have the inherent understanding that if they own cool items such as clothing or cars their social status may go up.