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Status & Culture
The book lays out how individuals in pursuit of status trigger the cultural mechanisms behind taste, identity, fashion, art, class, subcultures, retro/canon, and the current state of Internet culture.
If Ametora was a specific case study of "how culture happens" and how trends form, this new book is a deep look into the universal principles of cultural change — all with status as the motor.
If Ametora was a specific case study of "how culture happens" and how trends form, this new book is a deep look into the universal principles of cultural change — all with status as the motor.
First published January 1, 2022
About the author
W. David Marx
3 books87 followersW. David Marx is a long-time writer on culture based in Tokyo. He is the author of "Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style" (2015) and "Status and Culture" (2022). Marx's newsletter can be found at culture.ghost.io.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 110 reviews
May 31, 2022
Tough to rate. In terms of thoughts and ideas, I'd rate it 4.5 stars--it really provided a terrific framework from which to view the primary animating forces driving our sociopolitical divisions. In terms of readability, it's more like 3-3.5 stars--it's capably written, but often circuitous with overlong, densely packed sentences. I often lost the thread trying to navigate passages. It's also repetitive at times.
I'm glad I read this. It enhanced my range of lenses from which to view and understand humans and society.
I'm glad I read this. It enhanced my range of lenses from which to view and understand humans and society.
November 7, 2022
Posting on Goodreads has negative status value but here I go anyway:
I would have liked for this to cover 50% less material and for there to be no talk of "the Grand Mystery of Culture." Also sort of strikes me as a compendium of just-so stories. But at the same time ... I'm 100% on board.
The most interesting section was the last one, where he talks about what the internet is doing to culture. He points to two forces that are making economic capital (as opposed to social/cultural/educational) more important than ever. First, easy and rapid access to information (i.e. if everyone on TikTok can instantly know X thing is cool, it no longer has status value to know it). And also the predominant "omnivorism" of taste (i.e. frowned upon to make "low culture"/ "high culture" value judgments -- or really any judgment on what another person might find entertaining):
Anyway, I don't think that this is a particularly useful set of ideas to keep front of mind in day-to-day, at least from a "living a peaceful and integrated life" standpoint. I don't really agree with this bit in the conclusion:
I think this will land us in weird Spiderman pointing at Spiderman meme territory / twist us up into knots as we try to engage directly with status while also -- unavoidably, inevitably, perpetually -- pursuing it. Not to say status isn't a valuable lens..just not sure that it would do good things to someone's psyche to make it the primary one.
Marx: "We have been cursed to understand the mechanisms of culture too well, making earnest taste nearly impossible." After reading this book I'm feeling very, "I have been cursed to understand the mechanisms of status too well, making earnest existence nearly impossible." Luckily I have a bad memory so I'm sure I'll be back to my unselfconscious pursuit of status in no time! 🥂
I would have liked for this to cover 50% less material and for there to be no talk of "the Grand Mystery of Culture." Also sort of strikes me as a compendium of just-so stories. But at the same time ... I'm 100% on board.
The most interesting section was the last one, where he talks about what the internet is doing to culture. He points to two forces that are making economic capital (as opposed to social/cultural/educational) more important than ever. First, easy and rapid access to information (i.e. if everyone on TikTok can instantly know X thing is cool, it no longer has status value to know it). And also the predominant "omnivorism" of taste (i.e. frowned upon to make "low culture"/ "high culture" value judgments -- or really any judgment on what another person might find entertaining):
Omnivorism also may have a dampening effect on the cultural ecosystem. If the “friction” of status struggles is an important creative force, omnivorism defuses tensions within the social groups most likely to create new conventions: namely, artists, the creative class, the media, and subcultures. Much great art and culture arose from righteous indignation toward bad taste, commercialist kitsch, and the conservative establishment. By eliminating these as legitimate targets for criticism we create much weaker, less meaningful conventions.
Anyway, I don't think that this is a particularly useful set of ideas to keep front of mind in day-to-day, at least from a "living a peaceful and integrated life" standpoint. I don't really agree with this bit in the conclusion:
All analysis of cultural trends should thus first work through an innovation’s status implications. In 2019 Vox identified mini Australian shepherds as the “dog of the moment,” attributing their popularity to “portable, apartment-friendly size and striking good looks.” Many dog breeds are handsome and small enough for apartment life; the article neglected to mention that mini Australian shepherds may also serve as status symbols. Just because no one who was interviewed for the article openly admitted their status seeking doesn’t mean we should take their alibis in good faith.
I think this will land us in weird Spiderman pointing at Spiderman meme territory / twist us up into knots as we try to engage directly with status while also -- unavoidably, inevitably, perpetually -- pursuing it. Not to say status isn't a valuable lens..just not sure that it would do good things to someone's psyche to make it the primary one.
Marx: "We have been cursed to understand the mechanisms of culture too well, making earnest taste nearly impossible." After reading this book I'm feeling very, "I have been cursed to understand the mechanisms of status too well, making earnest existence nearly impossible." Luckily I have a bad memory so I'm sure I'll be back to my unselfconscious pursuit of status in no time! 🥂
September 28, 2022
This is five stars with two qualifiers, which are explained below.
I enjoyed Marx's previous book, "Ametora," and if you did as well, then I anticipate that you will enjoy "Status and Culture". "Status and Culture" seeks to explain the various forces that shape what we call culture. Marx methodically provides a taxonomy of the various facets that influence culture, status being foremost. He then explores how differing forms of status can shape the evolution of culture: how certain things become classics, while other things vanish as mere fads. If you had asked me to explain the interplay of culture and status before reading this book, I would have been hard pressed to provide the cogent overview contained in "Status and Culture". From that standpoint, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants a primer on what drives our cultural tastes.
That said, this book contains one glaring blind spot. Marx observes that today the ubiquity of content on the internet has caused taste to be more egalitarian. For example, the rockist attitude that all forms of music are interpreted through a rock prism has been replaced by "poptimism," an attitude that all forms of music, are worthy of praise. While Marx acknowledges the existence of social media as a factor in flattening hierarchy, he ignores how tastes have been shaped and altered by the AI in social media platforms themselves.
A smaller quibble. Early in the book, Marx describes an interview of Beck conducted by Thurston Moore on MTV's "120 Minutes" as an example of someone signaling their bona fides with a particular audience. Marx quotes Beck as saying that the first record he bought was "Haino or Xanadu," "Haino" supposedly referring to Keiji Haino, an experimental Japanese guitarist, and thus a signal to avant-garde noise weirdos that Beck is one of them. Actually, Beck was referring to Heino, a traditional German singer with distinctive white blonde hair and dark glasses who was held in ironic regard by hipsters who were probably Beck's core audience at the time. (Heino appears on the cover of a Beck single from that time period.)
I enjoyed Marx's previous book, "Ametora," and if you did as well, then I anticipate that you will enjoy "Status and Culture". "Status and Culture" seeks to explain the various forces that shape what we call culture. Marx methodically provides a taxonomy of the various facets that influence culture, status being foremost. He then explores how differing forms of status can shape the evolution of culture: how certain things become classics, while other things vanish as mere fads. If you had asked me to explain the interplay of culture and status before reading this book, I would have been hard pressed to provide the cogent overview contained in "Status and Culture". From that standpoint, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants a primer on what drives our cultural tastes.
That said, this book contains one glaring blind spot. Marx observes that today the ubiquity of content on the internet has caused taste to be more egalitarian. For example, the rockist attitude that all forms of music are interpreted through a rock prism has been replaced by "poptimism," an attitude that all forms of music, are worthy of praise. While Marx acknowledges the existence of social media as a factor in flattening hierarchy, he ignores how tastes have been shaped and altered by the AI in social media platforms themselves.
A smaller quibble. Early in the book, Marx describes an interview of Beck conducted by Thurston Moore on MTV's "120 Minutes" as an example of someone signaling their bona fides with a particular audience. Marx quotes Beck as saying that the first record he bought was "Haino or Xanadu," "Haino" supposedly referring to Keiji Haino, an experimental Japanese guitarist, and thus a signal to avant-garde noise weirdos that Beck is one of them. Actually, Beck was referring to Heino, a traditional German singer with distinctive white blonde hair and dark glasses who was held in ironic regard by hipsters who were probably Beck's core audience at the time. (Heino appears on the cover of a Beck single from that time period.)
March 9, 2023
Congratulations to W. David Marx, who took an extremely interesting subject—the intersection that manifests between culture and status—and spun that gold into straw. This may be the world’s most boring term paper masquerading as a substantive book. He literally defines nouns (so many nouns) and then supports them via a bunch of examples that mostly seem chosen to demonstrate Marx’s status as an intellectual with lots of time on his hands. The examples include downtown art stalwarts like Trisha Brown as well as more prosaic choices such as the Beatles.
One could only wish he’d collaborated with someone who could write more conversationally and with a touch of creativity. (Calling anybody from The Atlantic.) This leaden, stultifying prose will probably come in handy to the college kids assigned to read this as it lulls them off to sleep.
One could only wish he’d collaborated with someone who could write more conversationally and with a touch of creativity. (Calling anybody from The Atlantic.) This leaden, stultifying prose will probably come in handy to the college kids assigned to read this as it lulls them off to sleep.
January 24, 2024
What a rare find. It’s one of those books that answer not only the questions I sought to have answered but also those I never thought of asking.
“Status is a relative ranking, so not everyone can simultaneously achieve a high position. Status is zero-sum. For every person who goes up, someone must go down.”
In the book, the author analyses what status is and presents how it’s been changing over the years. He introduces you to the social hierarchies (classes) and presents findings of how each signals their status through various symbols. Moreover, he addresses subcultures and countercultures—groups that give status to those who can’t get it from conventional ways. The book is recent (published in 2022), so he also covers how the internet and social media changed the status game.
I am thoroughly impressed by the author’s research. It was rich in examples, quotes, studies, and linguistic, historical and sociological observations. Although the book is quite academic, it is by no means dry. I found it enjoyable and curiosity-causing.
“But kitsch and flash are a better means for companies to profit, because most people in the marketplace have conservative, emulative tastes that correspond to people low to middle in the status ladder. There is always demand for obvious status symbols and immediate pleasures.”
“Status is a relative ranking, so not everyone can simultaneously achieve a high position. Status is zero-sum. For every person who goes up, someone must go down.”
In the book, the author analyses what status is and presents how it’s been changing over the years. He introduces you to the social hierarchies (classes) and presents findings of how each signals their status through various symbols. Moreover, he addresses subcultures and countercultures—groups that give status to those who can’t get it from conventional ways. The book is recent (published in 2022), so he also covers how the internet and social media changed the status game.
I am thoroughly impressed by the author’s research. It was rich in examples, quotes, studies, and linguistic, historical and sociological observations. Although the book is quite academic, it is by no means dry. I found it enjoyable and curiosity-causing.
“But kitsch and flash are a better means for companies to profit, because most people in the marketplace have conservative, emulative tastes that correspond to people low to middle in the status ladder. There is always demand for obvious status symbols and immediate pleasures.”
October 11, 2022
I pre-ordered this book inspired by a hyper-enthusiastic review by Michelle Goldberg of the NYT, whom I've aways considered a very insightful, super intelligent person. What did Marx do to her to have her write a praise for this sh*t? Kidnapped her cat? She owes him money? I haven't read a book so devoid of any new, original ideas for years and I regularly come across a lot of published mediocrity. Out of respect for Goldberg I read this until the end, hoping for I don't know what. What a waste of time and money (and trees!).
January 19, 2023
A superb and indispensable book for understanding culture, both our own and more broadly.
"Status and Culture" offers two key tools to the reader. The first is its thesis: that the inchoate idea we call "culture" is best understood as an omnipresent struggle for status, a zero-sum commodity whose desire is universal, even if the methods of obtaining it vary wildly. The second is a simplified model to understand how status struggles are waged. The author (it seems misleading to attribute this idea to "Marx") posits four key groups: "new money," who obtain status through conspicuous consumption; "old money," who don't need to scramble for money and instead obtain status by mastering elite culture codes; "professionals," who acquire status through their mastery of new and privileged information; and lower classes, who lack both financial and cultural capital and are left to pursue status either through imitation or more privileged classes, or on a smaller scale within subgroups. But it is often these un-privileged sub-classes, the author argues, who originate the new fashions that diffuse into broader society through the intermediary of more privileged classes.
This can sound a little trite summarized so briefly, and even the author would certainly admit his model is a simplification of the real world. But the book is written with both care and clarity, simultaneously accessible and useful.
If I had any critique, it's that its final full chapter — speculating on whether the model Marx has spent the entire book laying out is changing due to the internet — is the weakest part of the book. It feels like cover-your-butt hedging, even if that wasn't the intent. Regardless, as opposed to the confidently developed theses of the rest of the book, this final chapter is on shakier ground, since the themes it discusses have not yet played out. Perhaps the internet is creating a new system of status after centuries (or more), but the author doesn't come to any firm conclusions. The doubts expressed here could probably have been dealt with in a sub-section rather than occupying an entire chapter. But this is nit-picking — even lopping off this final chapter, "Status and Culture" is superb.
"Status and Culture" offers two key tools to the reader. The first is its thesis: that the inchoate idea we call "culture" is best understood as an omnipresent struggle for status, a zero-sum commodity whose desire is universal, even if the methods of obtaining it vary wildly. The second is a simplified model to understand how status struggles are waged. The author (it seems misleading to attribute this idea to "Marx") posits four key groups: "new money," who obtain status through conspicuous consumption; "old money," who don't need to scramble for money and instead obtain status by mastering elite culture codes; "professionals," who acquire status through their mastery of new and privileged information; and lower classes, who lack both financial and cultural capital and are left to pursue status either through imitation or more privileged classes, or on a smaller scale within subgroups. But it is often these un-privileged sub-classes, the author argues, who originate the new fashions that diffuse into broader society through the intermediary of more privileged classes.
This can sound a little trite summarized so briefly, and even the author would certainly admit his model is a simplification of the real world. But the book is written with both care and clarity, simultaneously accessible and useful.
If I had any critique, it's that its final full chapter — speculating on whether the model Marx has spent the entire book laying out is changing due to the internet — is the weakest part of the book. It feels like cover-your-butt hedging, even if that wasn't the intent. Regardless, as opposed to the confidently developed theses of the rest of the book, this final chapter is on shakier ground, since the themes it discusses have not yet played out. Perhaps the internet is creating a new system of status after centuries (or more), but the author doesn't come to any firm conclusions. The doubts expressed here could probably have been dealt with in a sub-section rather than occupying an entire chapter. But this is nit-picking — even lopping off this final chapter, "Status and Culture" is superb.
February 17, 2024
Exceptionally well-structured, really great analysis of how status seeking behaviours drive cultural change and artistic production, for good and bad. Marx does a good job of synthesising the ideas of major thinkers (sociologists like Bourdieu, cultural theorists like Dick Hebdige and Stuart Hall, philosophers like Kant and René Girard) without making the book feel overly abstruse or hard to read.
The book is great pop sociology/cultural theory, and I mean that in the most positive sense!
The conclusion, where Marx suggests that internet culture has made art and culture feel more static and superficial, is really well done and one of the most interesting arguments I’ve read lately on Why Culture Feels Bad Now (without relying on lazy points like ‘Gen Z is shallower!’ or ‘great art isn’t being made anymore!’, which deeply irritate me as arguments lol). Recommend! I love fashion nerds writing about culture ❤️
The book is great pop sociology/cultural theory, and I mean that in the most positive sense!
The conclusion, where Marx suggests that internet culture has made art and culture feel more static and superficial, is really well done and one of the most interesting arguments I’ve read lately on Why Culture Feels Bad Now (without relying on lazy points like ‘Gen Z is shallower!’ or ‘great art isn’t being made anymore!’, which deeply irritate me as arguments lol). Recommend! I love fashion nerds writing about culture ❤️
January 24, 2023
I don't know that I left 100% convinced of the author's theory - it sometimes felt unfalsifiable or even circular - but honestly I just loved reading this. I found it delightful, thought-provoking, and a useful frame for understanding a lot of what happens in culture.
January 19, 2024
The subject of this book was super intriguing to me so I’m really disappointed that it mainly left me bored and confused.
Jake gave this one a 4/5 and laughed throughout reading it. I laughed exactly zero times. I couldn’t even tell you what parts might have been funny. Am I not funny? (I actually think I’m sometimes really funny so now I’m worried that it’s all in my head.)
It almost reads like a textbook, or a term paper. Since I understood very little of it, I wonder about the limitations of my intelligence.
I wish this book was written in a more accessible manner. Rather, it felt as if a concept was introduced, defined, then linked to another concept like if this, then this, and therefore that but hold on there are nuances like these to consider and so on and so on.
In conclusion, I could not follow this book.
Jake gave this one a 4/5 and laughed throughout reading it. I laughed exactly zero times. I couldn’t even tell you what parts might have been funny. Am I not funny? (I actually think I’m sometimes really funny so now I’m worried that it’s all in my head.)
It almost reads like a textbook, or a term paper. Since I understood very little of it, I wonder about the limitations of my intelligence.
I wish this book was written in a more accessible manner. Rather, it felt as if a concept was introduced, defined, then linked to another concept like if this, then this, and therefore that but hold on there are nuances like these to consider and so on and so on.
In conclusion, I could not follow this book.
November 16, 2023
I love it when a book matches the expectations set by the cover. In this case, a very intriguing "how our desire for social rank creates taste, identity, art, fashion, and constant change". As GenX , and a marketer, I have often tried to make sense of the changing nature of culture courtesy the effects of the internet. This book is extremely insightful as it navigates what culture is, how it gets fashioned, and then, how it has changed in the last couple of decades.
The premise is that beyond functionality and pleasures, most things we do is for status-seeking. And this sparks creativity, which in turn, creates culture. David Marx uses a bunch of sciences, including anthropology, neuroscience, economics, philosophy and meshes them with art history, and media studies to answer why things become popular, why that changes over time, and how it shapes our identity and our behaviour.
The book is divided into four parts, beginning with understanding status, conventions, signalling, and how this relates to taste, authenticity and identity. It then delves into classes and sensibilities, subcultures and countercultures, how status-seeking feeds creativity, and fuels culture, and its changes. Further, it uses fashion cycles as a means to understand how cultural changes happen, and the role of mass media in it. This section also studies the part that history plays in shaping culture, and how frequent blasts of 'retro' are inevitable. All of this puts us in a great place to understand what the internet age has done to culture, and some direction on what is ahead.
I found the book engaging and accessible, and very useful in understanding my own behaviour and 'tastes', as well as that of people I know, and society at large. Highly recommended.
Notes
1. The Beatles mop top haircut's origin story is Stu Sutcliffe's (the original bass guitarist of the Beatles) German girlfriend trying to imitate the French mode, which was becoming popular among the local art boys. After their reluctant conversion, it became their signature, and a global trend!
2. Status denotes a specific position in the social hierarchy. Every status comes with specific rights and duties, the most desirable benefits coming to those at the top (more attention and rewards, deference, access to scarce resources, dominance - make others do thigs against their wishes). Status is bestowed by others, it is social. Status is contextual - local, global. And it is zero-sum, when one gains, someone else has to lose.
3. Achievements get embodied in particular forms of capital - political, educational, economic, social. This capital determines our memberships in different groups.
4. Different status levels have different conventions. At first conventions of social interactions regulate behaviour at a conscious level, then we internalise them and they become habits. And then they set our perceptual framework for observing the world, and our expectations. Our sense of meaning and order. Lifestyle is thus a requirement of social rank and an expression of it.
5. Just as we internalise conventions, status value acts on our brains at a subconscious level. Conventions with high status value appear to us as beautiful, and vice versa. But we attribute this liking to other things like practicality, cost, sentimental value or just personal preferences. (vacations)
6. The moral duty of self actualisation is a status duty - individuals at the top of the hierarchy must pursue unique behaviours and distinctive choices.
7. Status symbols are a signal that allow a quick reading of and by others. But they offer alibis (quality, aesthetic features etc) so it is not just a symbol.
8. There are five signalling costs - money, time (PhD), exclusive access, cultural capital (knowledge of conventions by spending time among high status), norm breaking
9. Taste, as reflected by multiple signals, is how status appraisals happen. To have good taste means making better choices than others.
10. Lifestyle choices must reveal congruence - an internal consistency with the target sensibility. Deep knowledge opens the door to better taste, and congruence reveals our commitment to high status sensibility. The highest status people make distinctive choices through bounded originality.
11. In signalling, we build personas - observable packages of signals, taste, sensibility, immutable characters and cues absorbed from our upbringing and background. Others use this persona to determine our identity. And we have a 'self', known only to us.
12. Our 'cultural DNA' = hidden elements, immutable characters and cues, conventions for normal status, emulations (of higher status) and individual distinctions
13. iPod won as a status symbol, though Microsoft Zune had better features
14. Old Money taste focuses on patina, visual proof of age in their possessions (vintage) They uses this as an advantage over New Money.
15. The professional class (70s onward) built a balance of economic, social and cultural capital. Impressing old money and embarrassing new money's 'loud' tastes
16.New Money's use of economic capital in signalling spurs the creation of expensive luxury goods - sports cars, summer homes, designer clothes etc. Old Money's countersignalling and focus on patina and cultural capital get companies to make classic, modest goods with functional appeal. The professional class's signalling through information creates a market for middlebrow/consumer media guides, functional goods, artisanal goods, and copies of Old Money lifestyles. Underprivileged individuals' desire to be part of culture outdo peers pushes companies to offer kitsch and flashy entry-level consumer goods.
17. Immanuel Kant a sorted 3 authoritative criteria for artistic genius - the creation of fiercely original works, which over time become imitated as exemplars, and are created through mysterious and seemingly inimitable methods.
18. Individuals make adoption decisions within the framework of human interaction. They consider how when and from whom they receive information, how they view uncertainty about switching and how they will be judged in the community for making the switch This creates five distinct groups, innovators, early adopters, early majority, let majority and laggards. The diffusion process - high status adoption of new convention for distinction, early adopters' embrace of that convention as emulation of their status superiors, early majority reinvention and simplification to follow an emerging social norm, late majority imitation to avoid losing normal status , laggards' passive adoption without intention
19. Elite flock to three particular categories of items that fulfil their needs. Rarities, novelties and technology innovations.
20. Four related phenomena, in the internet age - the explosion of content, the clash of maximalist and minimalist sensibilities accompanying the rising global wealth, the rejection of taste as a legitimate means of distinction, the over evaluation of the past in Gen X's retromania and the abandoning of the past in Gen Z's Neomania.
21. "You can't just walk around and be visible on the internet for anyone to see you. You have to act and the main purpose of this communication is to make yourself look good." Social media also enables us to quantify our status like never before in like retreats comments and followers.
22. Before the internet, elites could protect their status symbols behind information barriers and exclusive access to products. The internet broke that.
23. Another elite group has stepped in to countersignal gauche extravagance, the professional class tech billionaires who are forming their own taste culture. They created wealth without shedding their professional class habitus. Skeptic of glamour and respect for thoughtful thrift, they make their choices based on functional rationales rather than the open pursuit of status symbols.
24. Omnivorism (consume and like everything) has had major effects on culture over the last few decades. In the past taste worked as a decision classifier by drawing clear lines between social groups. Omnivorism drains this power by declaring nearly everything suitable for consumption.
25. Collectively reaching the stage of meta knowledge we come to understand the arbitrariness of our own preferences taste and culture. The proclaimed superiority of preferred styles over others is accordingly and arrogant and bigoted act.
26. Omnivore tastes then can be used to dismantle the status structures that prevent the equitable distribution of respect. In a world of celebrity wealth-gospel, and millennial financial anxiety, young entertainers face little backlash for aggressively courting likes, subscribers and advertisers. Follower counts and gross earning appear to be the only relevant sign of cultural import.
27. Youth find 'self expression by enlisting in a global army (e.g. BTS)
28. Hysteresis - the lingering values of a previous age continuing to guide our judgments
The premise is that beyond functionality and pleasures, most things we do is for status-seeking. And this sparks creativity, which in turn, creates culture. David Marx uses a bunch of sciences, including anthropology, neuroscience, economics, philosophy and meshes them with art history, and media studies to answer why things become popular, why that changes over time, and how it shapes our identity and our behaviour.
The book is divided into four parts, beginning with understanding status, conventions, signalling, and how this relates to taste, authenticity and identity. It then delves into classes and sensibilities, subcultures and countercultures, how status-seeking feeds creativity, and fuels culture, and its changes. Further, it uses fashion cycles as a means to understand how cultural changes happen, and the role of mass media in it. This section also studies the part that history plays in shaping culture, and how frequent blasts of 'retro' are inevitable. All of this puts us in a great place to understand what the internet age has done to culture, and some direction on what is ahead.
I found the book engaging and accessible, and very useful in understanding my own behaviour and 'tastes', as well as that of people I know, and society at large. Highly recommended.
Notes
1. The Beatles mop top haircut's origin story is Stu Sutcliffe's (the original bass guitarist of the Beatles) German girlfriend trying to imitate the French mode, which was becoming popular among the local art boys. After their reluctant conversion, it became their signature, and a global trend!
2. Status denotes a specific position in the social hierarchy. Every status comes with specific rights and duties, the most desirable benefits coming to those at the top (more attention and rewards, deference, access to scarce resources, dominance - make others do thigs against their wishes). Status is bestowed by others, it is social. Status is contextual - local, global. And it is zero-sum, when one gains, someone else has to lose.
3. Achievements get embodied in particular forms of capital - political, educational, economic, social. This capital determines our memberships in different groups.
4. Different status levels have different conventions. At first conventions of social interactions regulate behaviour at a conscious level, then we internalise them and they become habits. And then they set our perceptual framework for observing the world, and our expectations. Our sense of meaning and order. Lifestyle is thus a requirement of social rank and an expression of it.
5. Just as we internalise conventions, status value acts on our brains at a subconscious level. Conventions with high status value appear to us as beautiful, and vice versa. But we attribute this liking to other things like practicality, cost, sentimental value or just personal preferences. (vacations)
6. The moral duty of self actualisation is a status duty - individuals at the top of the hierarchy must pursue unique behaviours and distinctive choices.
7. Status symbols are a signal that allow a quick reading of and by others. But they offer alibis (quality, aesthetic features etc) so it is not just a symbol.
8. There are five signalling costs - money, time (PhD), exclusive access, cultural capital (knowledge of conventions by spending time among high status), norm breaking
9. Taste, as reflected by multiple signals, is how status appraisals happen. To have good taste means making better choices than others.
10. Lifestyle choices must reveal congruence - an internal consistency with the target sensibility. Deep knowledge opens the door to better taste, and congruence reveals our commitment to high status sensibility. The highest status people make distinctive choices through bounded originality.
11. In signalling, we build personas - observable packages of signals, taste, sensibility, immutable characters and cues absorbed from our upbringing and background. Others use this persona to determine our identity. And we have a 'self', known only to us.
12. Our 'cultural DNA' = hidden elements, immutable characters and cues, conventions for normal status, emulations (of higher status) and individual distinctions
13. iPod won as a status symbol, though Microsoft Zune had better features
14. Old Money taste focuses on patina, visual proof of age in their possessions (vintage) They uses this as an advantage over New Money.
15. The professional class (70s onward) built a balance of economic, social and cultural capital. Impressing old money and embarrassing new money's 'loud' tastes
16.New Money's use of economic capital in signalling spurs the creation of expensive luxury goods - sports cars, summer homes, designer clothes etc. Old Money's countersignalling and focus on patina and cultural capital get companies to make classic, modest goods with functional appeal. The professional class's signalling through information creates a market for middlebrow/consumer media guides, functional goods, artisanal goods, and copies of Old Money lifestyles. Underprivileged individuals' desire to be part of culture outdo peers pushes companies to offer kitsch and flashy entry-level consumer goods.
17. Immanuel Kant a sorted 3 authoritative criteria for artistic genius - the creation of fiercely original works, which over time become imitated as exemplars, and are created through mysterious and seemingly inimitable methods.
18. Individuals make adoption decisions within the framework of human interaction. They consider how when and from whom they receive information, how they view uncertainty about switching and how they will be judged in the community for making the switch This creates five distinct groups, innovators, early adopters, early majority, let majority and laggards. The diffusion process - high status adoption of new convention for distinction, early adopters' embrace of that convention as emulation of their status superiors, early majority reinvention and simplification to follow an emerging social norm, late majority imitation to avoid losing normal status , laggards' passive adoption without intention
19. Elite flock to three particular categories of items that fulfil their needs. Rarities, novelties and technology innovations.
20. Four related phenomena, in the internet age - the explosion of content, the clash of maximalist and minimalist sensibilities accompanying the rising global wealth, the rejection of taste as a legitimate means of distinction, the over evaluation of the past in Gen X's retromania and the abandoning of the past in Gen Z's Neomania.
21. "You can't just walk around and be visible on the internet for anyone to see you. You have to act and the main purpose of this communication is to make yourself look good." Social media also enables us to quantify our status like never before in like retreats comments and followers.
22. Before the internet, elites could protect their status symbols behind information barriers and exclusive access to products. The internet broke that.
23. Another elite group has stepped in to countersignal gauche extravagance, the professional class tech billionaires who are forming their own taste culture. They created wealth without shedding their professional class habitus. Skeptic of glamour and respect for thoughtful thrift, they make their choices based on functional rationales rather than the open pursuit of status symbols.
24. Omnivorism (consume and like everything) has had major effects on culture over the last few decades. In the past taste worked as a decision classifier by drawing clear lines between social groups. Omnivorism drains this power by declaring nearly everything suitable for consumption.
25. Collectively reaching the stage of meta knowledge we come to understand the arbitrariness of our own preferences taste and culture. The proclaimed superiority of preferred styles over others is accordingly and arrogant and bigoted act.
26. Omnivore tastes then can be used to dismantle the status structures that prevent the equitable distribution of respect. In a world of celebrity wealth-gospel, and millennial financial anxiety, young entertainers face little backlash for aggressively courting likes, subscribers and advertisers. Follower counts and gross earning appear to be the only relevant sign of cultural import.
27. Youth find 'self expression by enlisting in a global army (e.g. BTS)
28. Hysteresis - the lingering values of a previous age continuing to guide our judgments
September 9, 2022
If you are shallow and status obsessed, then this is the book for you.
W. David Marx fails to question (or prove) the theory that all human beings crave status over others; that all human beings give or withhold respect for others based on their perceived status; and that one person's gain in status is automatically another person's loss.
His basic premise is vile and goes completely unchallenged (or convincingly supported).
Unlike baboons, human beings are capable of treating everyone with compassion and respect, regardless of how "low status" they're supposed to be.
Being of low status does NOT have to mean being any less valuable than any other human being.
According to Marx, we humans can't help ourselves. We have no choice but to degrade those less fortunate than ourselves, and to worship those who are greedy and "high status" no matter how despicable they may be as people.
W. David Marx should speak for himself when it comes to valuing people based on their "status".
As human beings, we have an obligation to rise above the behavior of insects and apes, and to treat every human being with the respect and compassion we ourselves desire.
We are more than capable of this, despite what status obsessed fools prefer to believe.
W. David Marx fails to question (or prove) the theory that all human beings crave status over others; that all human beings give or withhold respect for others based on their perceived status; and that one person's gain in status is automatically another person's loss.
His basic premise is vile and goes completely unchallenged (or convincingly supported).
Unlike baboons, human beings are capable of treating everyone with compassion and respect, regardless of how "low status" they're supposed to be.
Being of low status does NOT have to mean being any less valuable than any other human being.
According to Marx, we humans can't help ourselves. We have no choice but to degrade those less fortunate than ourselves, and to worship those who are greedy and "high status" no matter how despicable they may be as people.
W. David Marx should speak for himself when it comes to valuing people based on their "status".
As human beings, we have an obligation to rise above the behavior of insects and apes, and to treat every human being with the respect and compassion we ourselves desire.
We are more than capable of this, despite what status obsessed fools prefer to believe.
March 21, 2023
I read this through a tech-adjacent book club... it fits comfortably into the popular social science category in the way it reads: informal, snappy, fun pop culture anecdotes, tidy bullet points at the end of every chapter. For that reason I find it hard to take W. David Marx at his word about the critical stakes of this book: that it genuinely puts forth a grand unified theory of how our innate desire for high status drives cultural change. My impression (a loosely-held impression, to be sure, I mostly did not have my close reading glasses on) is that he makes few meaningfully falsifiable or disputable claims; he doesn't go far enough to shift any paradigms! But I think as an ambitiously-scoped survey of the field and as a provocation to view questions of taste, art, trends, etc. through the lens of status it is exciting and successful. It's dense with references to influential thinkers and ideas. And I loved the framing of artistic value as relating to being able to resolve open questions in art, which felt like a missing piece in my own understanding of the distinction between "enjoyable art" vs. "art that contributes to the discourse".
November 11, 2023
The canon, or snobbery, or less descriptively, elitism is walling off status and doling it out only to those who are already the most powerful in a society: since around 1800, that means straight, white, men run the world and the canon.
Poptimism is the collapsing of status into economics, where what sells becomes what is good. Its goal is to describe, not to evaluate, and it reduces all human experiences to the lowest common denominator, that is: works of art with no complexity or ambiguity. However, these works of art are often not by straight white men, since that group accounts for a minority of the global population.
Instead, why don't we push for social egalitarianism with the knowledge that our societies will always be, to some extent, unequal due to status, and embrace radical creativity with the knowledge that such creativity will always be too difficult to access for people without the time and energy to invest in learning a lot about art, fashion, music, film, or (most importantly for this platform) books?
Marx gets me (and, I recommend, you) out of the cul-de-sac of the current critical consensus, which is marred by the idea that the sole function of criticism is to correct status inequalities. Criticism should be aware of status inequalities, but it also should be aware of what is ambitious, ambiguous, and authentically new, and it should elevate that over the retro and the kitsch.
Poptimism is the collapsing of status into economics, where what sells becomes what is good. Its goal is to describe, not to evaluate, and it reduces all human experiences to the lowest common denominator, that is: works of art with no complexity or ambiguity. However, these works of art are often not by straight white men, since that group accounts for a minority of the global population.
Instead, why don't we push for social egalitarianism with the knowledge that our societies will always be, to some extent, unequal due to status, and embrace radical creativity with the knowledge that such creativity will always be too difficult to access for people without the time and energy to invest in learning a lot about art, fashion, music, film, or (most importantly for this platform) books?
Marx gets me (and, I recommend, you) out of the cul-de-sac of the current critical consensus, which is marred by the idea that the sole function of criticism is to correct status inequalities. Criticism should be aware of status inequalities, but it also should be aware of what is ambitious, ambiguous, and authentically new, and it should elevate that over the retro and the kitsch.
February 12, 2023
Really thoughtful sociological analysis that examines stuff that seems obvious in hindsight if you put an ounce of thought to it but isn't ever really obvious at first glance. I like when he goes over the history of status and culture and how they're all related sociologically. It helped me understand why sneakers are a phenomenon amongst my students. The last chapter on taste is my favorite though, especially taste in the age of the internet where monoculture has effectively dissolved. I'm someone who still stands by some metrics of taste, in that there have got to be some works of art that are objectively better than others no matter how subjective that is, because I cannot fathom putting John Grisham on the same plane as James Baldwin.
As much as the book is clear, it is sometimes a slog to read because it feels like it borders on the academic in points. I would have enjoyed some more Klostermanian or Wallace-ian style writing that is both analytical and easy to read. Still, it's worth reading and using this book to explain just how status-infected culture is. Everything we own or everything we do signals some marker of status. It's one of those books that lets you develop a new lens with which to see the world, which is a super invaluable tool.
As much as the book is clear, it is sometimes a slog to read because it feels like it borders on the academic in points. I would have enjoyed some more Klostermanian or Wallace-ian style writing that is both analytical and easy to read. Still, it's worth reading and using this book to explain just how status-infected culture is. Everything we own or everything we do signals some marker of status. It's one of those books that lets you develop a new lens with which to see the world, which is a super invaluable tool.
Read
December 2, 2022Not as insightful as I had hoped for but nice to have this topic explored and presented as a mostly cohesive narrative; quite repetitive in places as others have noted. Not so sure I agree with the author’s conclusion bemoaning the decline in value of cultural capital as access to information doesn’t always necessarily lead to the surfacing of particularly valuable insight.
November 27, 2023
precise and well-said, devoid of ham-fisted propagandizing and rife with illustrative curiosities—learned in this book that there is a televangelist named Creflo Dollar—O brave new world, that has such people in it!
far more cerebral than I anticipated, and I liked that a lot!
far more cerebral than I anticipated, and I liked that a lot!
March 4, 2023
Admirable effort to link economics, psychology, sociology, and cultural studies; dense, but never dull, free of hypocritical sensibilities. Solid 4.5/5.
February 24, 2023
a fascinating examination on the intersection of status and culture (duh), mostly from the sixties to the present. I really enjoyed the author’s inclusion and choices of pop culture examples and found this a pretty funny read for a work that constantly borderlines on the academic. my favorite aspect of this book has to be the end sections on poptimism and monoculture, and the conclusion positing that conscious consumption can pave the way out of the banal “let people enjoy things” ethos of today.
November 10, 2022
This is an engaging, pop culture savvy extrapolation of Veblen, Bourdieu and other sociological studies of status and social capital. The core insights- that trends are largely driven by the desire to imitate people with greater levels of social capital, and that those with high levels of social capital need to adopt alternate strategies in order to signal status- are nothing new, but they’re perfectly well integrated, and the use of examples from pop culture is likely to make them more engaging to lay readers. Is it some brilliant new synthesis? No, but it’s a perfectly acceptable repackaging of the sociology of consumption literature, designed to appeal to the sort of pop social science readers who have made Gladwell a star.
April 2, 2023
A 1 star review may seem harsh but it represents 20% of the total possible score and only 20% of this book is actually worth reading.
The concepts and ideas that are raised in the book are very interesting and worth exploring. But long drawn out sentences with unnecessary anecdotes which serve to remind us of the authors extensive academic and global experience do nothing but confuse, frustrate and undermine the credibility of the narrative.
“The worst part is, the 20% that is actually worth reading” according to reader Ewan Kavanagh, ‘are quotes from other books.’
And it’s almost always presented in this split quotation style, which I have reluctantly mimicked to show how infuriating it is.
Marx’s constant aim seems to be drawing attention back to himself, rather than let the reader focus on the material. Whether this is egotistical or inadvertent I don’t know. And I’m not sure which would be worse.
Would I recommend this book? Perhaps to an editor who could condense it down to the maximum of 30 pages that it ought to be. But to anyone else? No. Just read the bibliography and you’ll find hundreds of other books far more worth your time than this one.
The concepts and ideas that are raised in the book are very interesting and worth exploring. But long drawn out sentences with unnecessary anecdotes which serve to remind us of the authors extensive academic and global experience do nothing but confuse, frustrate and undermine the credibility of the narrative.
“The worst part is, the 20% that is actually worth reading” according to reader Ewan Kavanagh, ‘are quotes from other books.’
And it’s almost always presented in this split quotation style, which I have reluctantly mimicked to show how infuriating it is.
Marx’s constant aim seems to be drawing attention back to himself, rather than let the reader focus on the material. Whether this is egotistical or inadvertent I don’t know. And I’m not sure which would be worse.
Would I recommend this book? Perhaps to an editor who could condense it down to the maximum of 30 pages that it ought to be. But to anyone else? No. Just read the bibliography and you’ll find hundreds of other books far more worth your time than this one.
August 1, 2023
What's it about?
It explains how every purchase decision is made to signal status in one form or another.
How I Discovered It?
Referenced in a GQ article: https://www.gq.com/story/welcome-to-t...
Thoughts?
The best attempt i've yet discovered to explain why we like what we like.
What I Liked About It
Loved the insights about taste, status and hierarchies. So many references from Philosophers like Kant and others - super well researched
What I Didn't Like About It
I don't fully agree with the books conclusion. Using status as a reason for every purchase decision seems slightly cynical and i like to believe there are genuine other reasons too.
Who Would Like It?
Anyone who works in the fashion industry, or is interested in culture and social hierarchies
Favorite Quotes
Besides signals and cues, there is an important third category of information used in status appraisals: significant absences. Appraisers also look for what is missing. An absence can be a refusal to participate in a convention, or participation in a different one from what is expected. In societies where businessmen wear neckties, not wearing a necktie offers useful information to suss out an individual’s occupation. This may lead to ambiguities: tielessness is customary among blue-collar workers but also employees in the creative industries. But the fact that not doing things plays a role in status appraisals means no one can ever opt out of making status claims. Everything we do, say, and own—or choose not to do, say, or own—becomes a sign. Knowing this, we hide parts of ourselves that may get in the way of our status claims.
Marx, W. David. Status and Culture (p. 55). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
The principle of detachment means all status symbols require alibis—reasons for adoption other than status seeking. Fancy cars always tout desirable features. The ultrapremium Eldorado Brougham Cadillacs of the late 1950s came with “anti-dive control, outriggers, pillarless styling, projectile-shaped gull-wing bumpers, [and] outboard exhaust ports.” Companies that produce luxury goods, from Louis Vuitton to Tiffany, Rolex, and Dom Perignon, understand the need for alibis, and their marketing provides detailed explanations of great craftsmanship, rare materials, unsurpassed comfort, and the highest levels of quality control. And yet, luxury goods never work as luxury goods based purely on functionality. They also must have status value.
Marx, W. David. Status and Culture (p. 57). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Status symbols gain value when associated with elites, but may also lose that value once associated with lower-status groups instead. Too much usage among non-elites, writes Adam Smith, means a status symbol “loses all the grace which it had appeared to possess before, and being now used only by the inferior ranks of people, seems to have something of their meanness and awkwardness.”
Marx, W. David. Status and Culture (p. 59). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
To maintain cachet a convention must be exclusive to a high-status group. Rich people drink water, but the act of drinking water carries no cachet, because everyone drinks water. There must be a marked difference protected through barriers to imitation. In economics, these are called signaling costs—the cost it takes for an individual to acquire a certain signal. A lapel badge that says “I am extremely rich” isn’t convincing because its creation and possession incur no significant costs. A Ferrari 812 Superfast, on the other hand, is more convincing because its $350,000 price tag makes imitation difficult. Successfully claiming high status requires not just demonstrating the ability to pay the signaling costs but to easily pay those costs.
Marx, W. David. Status and Culture (p. 59). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
In the eighteenth century, philosopher Immanuel Kant asserted three still authoritative criteria for artistic genius: (1) the creation of fiercely original works, (2) which over time become imitated as exemplars, and (3) are created through mysterious and seemingly inimitable methods.
Marx, W. David. Status and Culture (p. 145). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
While having good taste qualifies us for normal status, we can aim for higher status by developing great taste. We can “cultivate” ourselves over time to make more advanced choices that will garner more respect. To develop a sophisticated taste for wine, the oenophile Allan Sichel says, the student should first “trust his own palate.” But after that point, there must be a conscious desire to learn more. Then, “as experience grows and perception becomes keener, his taste is certain to change and wines which at first pleased may now bore or actively displease.” To gain status from great taste involves progress across three attributes: deep knowledge, congruence, and bounded originality.
Marx, W. David. Status and Culture (p. 73). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
What we shouldn’t do, however, is to look at mass culture and declare it a perfect expression of the vox populi. The culture industry certainly promotes the idea of a meritocratic market: good things rise, bad ones fall. But so many consumers adopt based on status value rather than any intrinsic qualities. Majorities seem to be satisficing when it comes to their consumer choices—settling on things they find satisfactory but not ideal. And if individuals are consuming simply because others are consuming, this so-called cumulative advantage enables random things of suspect quality to rise as smash hits. Mass culture may only be a “mirror” of consumer sentiment in that it illustrates the principle that most people prefer to consume the same things as others.
Marx, W. David. Status and Culture (p. 201). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
It explains how every purchase decision is made to signal status in one form or another.
How I Discovered It?
Referenced in a GQ article: https://www.gq.com/story/welcome-to-t...
Thoughts?
The best attempt i've yet discovered to explain why we like what we like.
What I Liked About It
Loved the insights about taste, status and hierarchies. So many references from Philosophers like Kant and others - super well researched
What I Didn't Like About It
I don't fully agree with the books conclusion. Using status as a reason for every purchase decision seems slightly cynical and i like to believe there are genuine other reasons too.
Who Would Like It?
Anyone who works in the fashion industry, or is interested in culture and social hierarchies
Favorite Quotes
Besides signals and cues, there is an important third category of information used in status appraisals: significant absences. Appraisers also look for what is missing. An absence can be a refusal to participate in a convention, or participation in a different one from what is expected. In societies where businessmen wear neckties, not wearing a necktie offers useful information to suss out an individual’s occupation. This may lead to ambiguities: tielessness is customary among blue-collar workers but also employees in the creative industries. But the fact that not doing things plays a role in status appraisals means no one can ever opt out of making status claims. Everything we do, say, and own—or choose not to do, say, or own—becomes a sign. Knowing this, we hide parts of ourselves that may get in the way of our status claims.
Marx, W. David. Status and Culture (p. 55). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
The principle of detachment means all status symbols require alibis—reasons for adoption other than status seeking. Fancy cars always tout desirable features. The ultrapremium Eldorado Brougham Cadillacs of the late 1950s came with “anti-dive control, outriggers, pillarless styling, projectile-shaped gull-wing bumpers, [and] outboard exhaust ports.” Companies that produce luxury goods, from Louis Vuitton to Tiffany, Rolex, and Dom Perignon, understand the need for alibis, and their marketing provides detailed explanations of great craftsmanship, rare materials, unsurpassed comfort, and the highest levels of quality control. And yet, luxury goods never work as luxury goods based purely on functionality. They also must have status value.
Marx, W. David. Status and Culture (p. 57). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Status symbols gain value when associated with elites, but may also lose that value once associated with lower-status groups instead. Too much usage among non-elites, writes Adam Smith, means a status symbol “loses all the grace which it had appeared to possess before, and being now used only by the inferior ranks of people, seems to have something of their meanness and awkwardness.”
Marx, W. David. Status and Culture (p. 59). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
To maintain cachet a convention must be exclusive to a high-status group. Rich people drink water, but the act of drinking water carries no cachet, because everyone drinks water. There must be a marked difference protected through barriers to imitation. In economics, these are called signaling costs—the cost it takes for an individual to acquire a certain signal. A lapel badge that says “I am extremely rich” isn’t convincing because its creation and possession incur no significant costs. A Ferrari 812 Superfast, on the other hand, is more convincing because its $350,000 price tag makes imitation difficult. Successfully claiming high status requires not just demonstrating the ability to pay the signaling costs but to easily pay those costs.
Marx, W. David. Status and Culture (p. 59). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
In the eighteenth century, philosopher Immanuel Kant asserted three still authoritative criteria for artistic genius: (1) the creation of fiercely original works, (2) which over time become imitated as exemplars, and (3) are created through mysterious and seemingly inimitable methods.
Marx, W. David. Status and Culture (p. 145). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
While having good taste qualifies us for normal status, we can aim for higher status by developing great taste. We can “cultivate” ourselves over time to make more advanced choices that will garner more respect. To develop a sophisticated taste for wine, the oenophile Allan Sichel says, the student should first “trust his own palate.” But after that point, there must be a conscious desire to learn more. Then, “as experience grows and perception becomes keener, his taste is certain to change and wines which at first pleased may now bore or actively displease.” To gain status from great taste involves progress across three attributes: deep knowledge, congruence, and bounded originality.
Marx, W. David. Status and Culture (p. 73). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
What we shouldn’t do, however, is to look at mass culture and declare it a perfect expression of the vox populi. The culture industry certainly promotes the idea of a meritocratic market: good things rise, bad ones fall. But so many consumers adopt based on status value rather than any intrinsic qualities. Majorities seem to be satisficing when it comes to their consumer choices—settling on things they find satisfactory but not ideal. And if individuals are consuming simply because others are consuming, this so-called cumulative advantage enables random things of suspect quality to rise as smash hits. Mass culture may only be a “mirror” of consumer sentiment in that it illustrates the principle that most people prefer to consume the same things as others.
Marx, W. David. Status and Culture (p. 201). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
October 31, 2022
W. David Marx's Status and Culture arrived at just the right moment as I've recently developed an interest in mechanical watches and as I just watched the new Cate Blanchett film, Tar. Both of these media invite readers to consider to what extent beauty exists separately from status.
Is a Rolex Explorer, for example, beautiful, or is it just a way of saying "I have money?" Maybe we just find people who can credibly make that declaration attractive, though that doesn't seem beautiful if true. It might be useful to contrast the Explorer against Tudor's Ranger (google them and a comparison image will be your first hit). Almost every Tudor design is a version of a Rolex sold for a lower price, but they're nevertheless well made watches. Tudor has produced a variety of popular models, and many people especially love the Black Bay diver.* And yet, maybe every time a Tudor owner looks at their Ranger they think, however quietly, "it would be nice to have a more iconic model of this design." Or maybe those who own an Explorer are just rationalizing their status obsession. What a tangled web.
We often say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but maybe it's also in the class of the owner/ beholder. W. David Marx invites readers to imagine two men, standing next to each other. Both of them are wearing leather shoes, trousers, a button down, and a jacket. The man on the right's clothes show signs of wear. Who is higher class? In this case, it might be the man on the right if he is rich and is using his expensive but worn clothing to signal that he was born into money and really couldn't care less about his rival upstart. The wealthy man looks at his Explorer and doesn't need to ask whether it's actually beautiful because he can afford it, a Daytona, and an entire line of Tudors if he so pleases. His rival's crisp new clothes, even if they're all the same brands, reveal him to be little more than an avaricious, try-hard yuppie. And if we take Maslow seriously, don't we see the richer man in this case as more "self actualized?" Again, I can't help feeling a tension between my respect for the try-hard and my envy of the man who was born without a care in the world.
Is art ever beautiful in a way that is separate from these games, hierarchies and status signals? In Tar, there is a moment at the end of Mahler's Fifth Symphony that does seem beautiful, and in fact the main character says "beautiful" just after the audience has a moment to think "isn't this nice." Although we see Tar as a , maybe she is right to believe (or claim to believe) in something transcendent and redeeming in art. Or, again, is this all our collective rationalization of an illusion?
Regardless, I don't think the solution is to pretend like there's an escape from these games. Durkheim famously argued that people formed religions to organize into groups, and it seems that we do something with art and fashion. Our styles and interests bind us into groups of punks, office workers, blue collar workers, and internet fandoms. Almost every rebel style eventually seems to form its own hierarchical structures, and sometimes those norms are very awful. I'd still like to believe in concepts like beauty and authenticity, but perhaps they're easily discussed but actually very precious.
Anyway, my command of the philosophy of beauty is pretty limited and remains open to revision, but that's one reason I enjoyed Status and Culture. I think it would read productively alongside Haidt's Righteous Mind and Robin Hanson's Elephant in the Brain. I'm sure I'll recommend it often.
*(I dislike nearly every diver, excepting Longines' Legend divers, especially the green dial with a bronze bezel that is, sadly, only released in a size too big for me.)
Is a Rolex Explorer, for example, beautiful, or is it just a way of saying "I have money?" Maybe we just find people who can credibly make that declaration attractive, though that doesn't seem beautiful if true. It might be useful to contrast the Explorer against Tudor's Ranger (google them and a comparison image will be your first hit). Almost every Tudor design is a version of a Rolex sold for a lower price, but they're nevertheless well made watches. Tudor has produced a variety of popular models, and many people especially love the Black Bay diver.* And yet, maybe every time a Tudor owner looks at their Ranger they think, however quietly, "it would be nice to have a more iconic model of this design." Or maybe those who own an Explorer are just rationalizing their status obsession. What a tangled web.
We often say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but maybe it's also in the class of the owner/ beholder. W. David Marx invites readers to imagine two men, standing next to each other. Both of them are wearing leather shoes, trousers, a button down, and a jacket. The man on the right's clothes show signs of wear. Who is higher class? In this case, it might be the man on the right if he is rich and is using his expensive but worn clothing to signal that he was born into money and really couldn't care less about his rival upstart. The wealthy man looks at his Explorer and doesn't need to ask whether it's actually beautiful because he can afford it, a Daytona, and an entire line of Tudors if he so pleases. His rival's crisp new clothes, even if they're all the same brands, reveal him to be little more than an avaricious, try-hard yuppie. And if we take Maslow seriously, don't we see the richer man in this case as more "self actualized?" Again, I can't help feeling a tension between my respect for the try-hard and my envy of the man who was born without a care in the world.
Is art ever beautiful in a way that is separate from these games, hierarchies and status signals? In Tar, there is a moment at the end of Mahler's Fifth Symphony that does seem beautiful, and in fact the main character says "beautiful" just after the audience has a moment to think "isn't this nice." Although we see Tar as a , maybe she is right to believe (or claim to believe) in something transcendent and redeeming in art. Or, again, is this all our collective rationalization of an illusion?
Regardless, I don't think the solution is to pretend like there's an escape from these games. Durkheim famously argued that people formed religions to organize into groups, and it seems that we do something with art and fashion. Our styles and interests bind us into groups of punks, office workers, blue collar workers, and internet fandoms. Almost every rebel style eventually seems to form its own hierarchical structures, and sometimes those norms are very awful. I'd still like to believe in concepts like beauty and authenticity, but perhaps they're easily discussed but actually very precious.
Anyway, my command of the philosophy of beauty is pretty limited and remains open to revision, but that's one reason I enjoyed Status and Culture. I think it would read productively alongside Haidt's Righteous Mind and Robin Hanson's Elephant in the Brain. I'm sure I'll recommend it often.
*(I dislike nearly every diver, excepting Longines' Legend divers, especially the green dial with a bronze bezel that is, sadly, only released in a size too big for me.)
March 19, 2023
A difficult book to summarize and more of a cultural commentary than an argument well supported by research. I suppose that is the nature of the subject matter, although I did regularly wonder if the author's claims were actually true, or even the kinds of claims that could be true or false.
Nonetheless it was consistently interesting and adjusted how I view some things. Our status position relative to peers is far more central to our preferences, our taste, our goals and values, than I previously understood. It explains things I previously found puzzling, like why so many of my neighbours have torn out perfectly serviceable asphalt driveways to put in interlocking stone or concrete ones. Now I see it's a status signal of both taste and success in life (a costly signal because, well, it's quite expensive and even wasteful in such a relatively new neighbourhood). I also understand why most people say they would rather have a small increase in income than a large one so long as their increase exceeds their peers - this is essentially a choice between moving up or down in status.
I had hoped the author might connect the theory to the "luxury beliefs" idea that has been in circulation for a few years, but he does not. He discusses the present day but that section comes across as sort of a lament that no one has good taste anymore and there won't be any more good art because, I don't know, there is no special access to knowledge thanks to the internet and, uh, for social justice reasons or something elites have decided everything is fine. I had trouble following that part. As to luxury beliefs, it will have to be an exercise left to the reader, although the theory advanced here certainly provides a framework for thinking about that.
The author addresses the question whether you can just escape status games altogether and choose not to play (you can't) and whether we could distribute status more equally (he says that you can but what he describes is just a redistribution of status from some groups to others or, rather, individuals from some groups to individuals from some other groups - the very nature of his theory seems to me to be that status is by its very nature relative, he even gives examples of how citizens of Soviet Russia managed to find ways to establish status hierarchies in a nominally egalitarian economy).
One of those books that gives you an idea you start to see everywhere once you have it.
Nonetheless it was consistently interesting and adjusted how I view some things. Our status position relative to peers is far more central to our preferences, our taste, our goals and values, than I previously understood. It explains things I previously found puzzling, like why so many of my neighbours have torn out perfectly serviceable asphalt driveways to put in interlocking stone or concrete ones. Now I see it's a status signal of both taste and success in life (a costly signal because, well, it's quite expensive and even wasteful in such a relatively new neighbourhood). I also understand why most people say they would rather have a small increase in income than a large one so long as their increase exceeds their peers - this is essentially a choice between moving up or down in status.
I had hoped the author might connect the theory to the "luxury beliefs" idea that has been in circulation for a few years, but he does not. He discusses the present day but that section comes across as sort of a lament that no one has good taste anymore and there won't be any more good art because, I don't know, there is no special access to knowledge thanks to the internet and, uh, for social justice reasons or something elites have decided everything is fine. I had trouble following that part. As to luxury beliefs, it will have to be an exercise left to the reader, although the theory advanced here certainly provides a framework for thinking about that.
The author addresses the question whether you can just escape status games altogether and choose not to play (you can't) and whether we could distribute status more equally (he says that you can but what he describes is just a redistribution of status from some groups to others or, rather, individuals from some groups to individuals from some other groups - the very nature of his theory seems to me to be that status is by its very nature relative, he even gives examples of how citizens of Soviet Russia managed to find ways to establish status hierarchies in a nominally egalitarian economy).
One of those books that gives you an idea you start to see everywhere once you have it.
December 3, 2022
An examination of fashion, art, an culture from a Marxist status and class aware perspective. WDM argues that fashion changes are all driven by desire to acquire higher status either within the popular culture or at large or in specific subcultures.
In this way the violent Teddy Boys of 1950s England sought to escape their lower class despair through emulation of the Edwardian dress of the British aristocracy. The later 1970s Teddy Boy revival cemented the position of brothel creepers and drape jackets in the British fashion cannon but was non violent and did not threaten the mainstream establishment in the way the 50s Teddy Boys did.
Various items once the preserve of the upper classes have been emulated and trickled down to successively lower classes: chocolate, automobiles, televisions, oxford cloth button down shirts, North Face apparel, etc.
WDM clearly appreciates the idea of Veblen goods and explores the rise in conspicuous consumption driven by the progeny of oil sheiks, dictators and water barons coming into contact with TikTok and Instagram. These youths WDM argues are consciously seeking global social capital, as they are already locally incredibly well known.
As soon as the lower classes have sullied the cultural cache of an item or art, the cultural elite switch codes to something less accessible. Thus the triumph of abstract art over kitsch, Acronym over the Harrington jacket, microfoams over whole food meals, organic foods over inorganic, Kombucha over Coke, etc.
The lower classes may seize upon abandoned symbols of the upper and lower classes and in doing so make them their own. See the move of the Adidas Country from prep kids to the NY hip-hop scene. Borrowing can also move in the other direction, see Timberlands, Carhartt, and Americana fashion originally worn by bozuku.
Briefly explores rockism, poptimism and the Gen Z triumph of neophilia over the Gen X neophobia and love of the analogue.
Could do with about 80pc less King's Royal Lassie and Stu Sutcliffe references.
In this way the violent Teddy Boys of 1950s England sought to escape their lower class despair through emulation of the Edwardian dress of the British aristocracy. The later 1970s Teddy Boy revival cemented the position of brothel creepers and drape jackets in the British fashion cannon but was non violent and did not threaten the mainstream establishment in the way the 50s Teddy Boys did.
Various items once the preserve of the upper classes have been emulated and trickled down to successively lower classes: chocolate, automobiles, televisions, oxford cloth button down shirts, North Face apparel, etc.
WDM clearly appreciates the idea of Veblen goods and explores the rise in conspicuous consumption driven by the progeny of oil sheiks, dictators and water barons coming into contact with TikTok and Instagram. These youths WDM argues are consciously seeking global social capital, as they are already locally incredibly well known.
As soon as the lower classes have sullied the cultural cache of an item or art, the cultural elite switch codes to something less accessible. Thus the triumph of abstract art over kitsch, Acronym over the Harrington jacket, microfoams over whole food meals, organic foods over inorganic, Kombucha over Coke, etc.
The lower classes may seize upon abandoned symbols of the upper and lower classes and in doing so make them their own. See the move of the Adidas Country from prep kids to the NY hip-hop scene. Borrowing can also move in the other direction, see Timberlands, Carhartt, and Americana fashion originally worn by bozuku.
Briefly explores rockism, poptimism and the Gen Z triumph of neophilia over the Gen X neophobia and love of the analogue.
Could do with about 80pc less King's Royal Lassie and Stu Sutcliffe references.
August 31, 2023
A book that claims to have a big sweeping way to see everything has to do two things. It has to describe the world in a familiar way, but also articulate some better way of understanding that story you already know. This book is good on the first one, but it's so familiar that it doesn't seem like it has much to say. Not sure I needed someone to explain the idea that people do things and form tastes to gain status, and that they join subcultures or new groups that allow them to gain status when they're stuck in low status in their existing groups.
Marx also undercuts his own status as a theorist, in my view, by using so many other new pop social theorists as his sources. It's weird to have him quote Derek Thompson multiple times to support the thesis of a book that is kind of a competitor to a book Thompson wrote. He also quotes Tom Wolfe probably a dozen times, and even Chuck Klosterman more than once. This gives the book a feeling of being a commentary on reality, filtered through commentators of reality.
There are some good parts -- in his discussion of how the new rich like flash things that show off money, the old rich like old things that show off how long they've had their money, and the professional class likes obscure things that show off how good they are at learning things, I felt very seen.
The book really does hit a stride in explaining why the culture of the internet age is stagnating, because barriers to status have flattened in weird ways. In one of the more depressing-because-it-rings-true parts, Marx writes about how the young rich of the middle east are fixated on showing off conspicuous consumption, because they're using the internet to show off to a global audience who they have little other cultural connection to. Since the internet is doing that to all of us, this becomes the primary way of status communication. (The caveat is that I'm old and grumpy and tend to hate the new stuff.)
Marx also undercuts his own status as a theorist, in my view, by using so many other new pop social theorists as his sources. It's weird to have him quote Derek Thompson multiple times to support the thesis of a book that is kind of a competitor to a book Thompson wrote. He also quotes Tom Wolfe probably a dozen times, and even Chuck Klosterman more than once. This gives the book a feeling of being a commentary on reality, filtered through commentators of reality.
There are some good parts -- in his discussion of how the new rich like flash things that show off money, the old rich like old things that show off how long they've had their money, and the professional class likes obscure things that show off how good they are at learning things, I felt very seen.
The book really does hit a stride in explaining why the culture of the internet age is stagnating, because barriers to status have flattened in weird ways. In one of the more depressing-because-it-rings-true parts, Marx writes about how the young rich of the middle east are fixated on showing off conspicuous consumption, because they're using the internet to show off to a global audience who they have little other cultural connection to. Since the internet is doing that to all of us, this becomes the primary way of status communication. (The caveat is that I'm old and grumpy and tend to hate the new stuff.)
December 18, 2022
The author argues that the quest for status changes culture. The elite adopt certain forms of fashion and etiquette that get imitated by people of lower status who want to increase their own status. The elite don't want to be associated by people of lower status, so change their own cultural markers again. This process goes on and on.
Some young people have no chance of becoming high status in mainstream culture, so they create their own subculture where their own conventions mark high status.
The chapter about status and culture in the internet age is the most interesting. The author says cultural capital is irrelevant for status nowadays. Nobody thinks you're special if you know obscure cultural facts, since anyone can look stuff up on the internet in a minute. People are also more tolerant of different views, in a way that there is no hierarchy ascribed to different cultures. Because of the diminishing importance of cultural capital, status is determined by economic capital.
I agree with the author that "Life is more interesting—and arguably better—when more people play in symbolic complexity and find surprising ways to break conventions." and "If society chooses to celebrate economic capital as the supreme virtue and to reject the celebration of any symbolic complexity as an oppressive tool, we should expect further creative stagnation."
I don't think cultural capital is dead though. The majority of people don't care about high art, but that was probably so 100 years ago as well. A lot of people only consume complex and symbolic literature/movies. The majority of people don't ascribe higher status to these people, but in their own subculture the person who has read more obscure works is certainly viewed as more important than some guy who just started.
Some young people have no chance of becoming high status in mainstream culture, so they create their own subculture where their own conventions mark high status.
The chapter about status and culture in the internet age is the most interesting. The author says cultural capital is irrelevant for status nowadays. Nobody thinks you're special if you know obscure cultural facts, since anyone can look stuff up on the internet in a minute. People are also more tolerant of different views, in a way that there is no hierarchy ascribed to different cultures. Because of the diminishing importance of cultural capital, status is determined by economic capital.
I agree with the author that "Life is more interesting—and arguably better—when more people play in symbolic complexity and find surprising ways to break conventions." and "If society chooses to celebrate economic capital as the supreme virtue and to reject the celebration of any symbolic complexity as an oppressive tool, we should expect further creative stagnation."
I don't think cultural capital is dead though. The majority of people don't care about high art, but that was probably so 100 years ago as well. A lot of people only consume complex and symbolic literature/movies. The majority of people don't ascribe higher status to these people, but in their own subculture the person who has read more obscure works is certainly viewed as more important than some guy who just started.
January 26, 2023
Much of this was stuff I already knew, just from being human for so long, but it was fun to read. The quotes were fantastic throughout. But the part I really enjoyed was the chapter on the internet age. I learned a lot of new terms:
Poptimism (love that word!): "An openness to the creative possibilities of all culture, even the songs of teen idols produced by formula in profit-driven sonic laboratories."
Omnivore taste: "All cultural snootiness is now tedious...Distaste has become distasteful."
Trends: "Today a look can become dowdy within weeks. Righteousness about any particular trend is foolish when we may soon be equally righteous about its opposite."
Ultraindividualism: "For everyone to follow their hearts, all idiosyncratic choices must be tolerated." (This is the type of tolerance that makes the Jack Black character in High Fidelity have a conniption fit.)
Retromania: "Where the avant-garde aimed to be seminal, retromania was a cultural vasectomy." Example: Eight live-action Spider-Man films between 2002 and 2019 based on a comic book character who debuted in 1962.
Neomania: The very appeal of TikTok is its "mediocrity" and its lo-fi production values. "[This] makes neomania more inclusive, but the effect is to disconnect it from the twentieth-century paradigm of cool."
According to the author, young people nowadays don't know about the past and don't care, because they're not trying to define themselves against anything. When Beeple sold an NFT for $69 million, he said: "When you say 'Abstract Expressionism,' literally, I have no idea what the hell that is."
Nonetheless, "rightous indignation toward the past remains a strong creative engine, even if the historical specifics are unknown." Yeah, that describes a lot of young people. :o)
Poptimism (love that word!): "An openness to the creative possibilities of all culture, even the songs of teen idols produced by formula in profit-driven sonic laboratories."
Omnivore taste: "All cultural snootiness is now tedious...Distaste has become distasteful."
Trends: "Today a look can become dowdy within weeks. Righteousness about any particular trend is foolish when we may soon be equally righteous about its opposite."
Ultraindividualism: "For everyone to follow their hearts, all idiosyncratic choices must be tolerated." (This is the type of tolerance that makes the Jack Black character in High Fidelity have a conniption fit.)
Retromania: "Where the avant-garde aimed to be seminal, retromania was a cultural vasectomy." Example: Eight live-action Spider-Man films between 2002 and 2019 based on a comic book character who debuted in 1962.
Neomania: The very appeal of TikTok is its "mediocrity" and its lo-fi production values. "[This] makes neomania more inclusive, but the effect is to disconnect it from the twentieth-century paradigm of cool."
According to the author, young people nowadays don't know about the past and don't care, because they're not trying to define themselves against anything. When Beeple sold an NFT for $69 million, he said: "When you say 'Abstract Expressionism,' literally, I have no idea what the hell that is."
Nonetheless, "rightous indignation toward the past remains a strong creative engine, even if the historical specifics are unknown." Yeah, that describes a lot of young people. :o)
January 22, 2024
Very interesting book by W. David Marx
Starting by the basic principles to status:
- it denotes a position within a social hierarchy based on respect and perceived importance. The most esteemed individuals reside at the top of the hierarchy, average members are in the middle and the least important and least valued are relegated to the bottom;
- Every status position comes with specific rights and duties, with the most desirable benefits accruing to those at the top. Social position and social benefits are inextricably linked, because perks are finite in supply.
- Status is bestowed by others. It is a purely social phenomenon. It manifests in the interactions between individuals
- Our status position is always contextual , based on how we are treated in a particular time and place. In living with others, we always have a status position, and this position determines the quality of our daily life. This has been the case for all human beings throughout history. Any organised social group is always a stratified social body.
Also, to gain status balance must be seeked and we:
- imitate group conventions, to secure normal status
- counter imitate rival convention, to avoid low status
- emulate conventions with high status value, to gain higher status and
- strive for individual distinction through unique behaviour, to achieve the highest status.
We’re resigned to a world with divisions, and the struggle between the divisions shapes culture.
Starting by the basic principles to status:
- it denotes a position within a social hierarchy based on respect and perceived importance. The most esteemed individuals reside at the top of the hierarchy, average members are in the middle and the least important and least valued are relegated to the bottom;
- Every status position comes with specific rights and duties, with the most desirable benefits accruing to those at the top. Social position and social benefits are inextricably linked, because perks are finite in supply.
- Status is bestowed by others. It is a purely social phenomenon. It manifests in the interactions between individuals
- Our status position is always contextual , based on how we are treated in a particular time and place. In living with others, we always have a status position, and this position determines the quality of our daily life. This has been the case for all human beings throughout history. Any organised social group is always a stratified social body.
Also, to gain status balance must be seeked and we:
- imitate group conventions, to secure normal status
- counter imitate rival convention, to avoid low status
- emulate conventions with high status value, to gain higher status and
- strive for individual distinction through unique behaviour, to achieve the highest status.
We’re resigned to a world with divisions, and the struggle between the divisions shapes culture.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 15, 2022
I been reading Marx since the days of Neojaponisme/Neomarxisme. For those long time readers, Marx is still the Gen-Xer that moans the loss of curator ship and people with taste propagating trends (its a 90's thing). He brings up Beck and gyaru again, lol.
But, this being Marx, this is still an excellent book that TRIES to analyze Status and culture of mankind. If you don't mind the premium university philosophy English, then its weaves an analytical tale of the ages.
Still if you are like me and think about it, there are many head scratches. He is alluding (but never with total confidence) that humanity will have always high/low status. But how about times during existential crises like wars and such? How about cultures in other countries ? And he will use examples from predominant western sources on western consumption to illustrate his point. How about status and culture in Iran? Ukraine? Taiwan? Maybe it was too much in already ponderous book
At least he acknowledges that Gen-z is a break from millennial in the capitalist consumption.
If you are a smartypants/smartass then this is book is for you so you can show off to your friends that understand status and culture. Yes this book is a tool to become high status, all according to plan......
But, this being Marx, this is still an excellent book that TRIES to analyze Status and culture of mankind. If you don't mind the premium university philosophy English, then its weaves an analytical tale of the ages.
Still if you are like me and think about it, there are many head scratches. He is alluding (but never with total confidence) that humanity will have always high/low status. But how about times during existential crises like wars and such? How about cultures in other countries ? And he will use examples from predominant western sources on western consumption to illustrate his point. How about status and culture in Iran? Ukraine? Taiwan? Maybe it was too much in already ponderous book
At least he acknowledges that Gen-z is a break from millennial in the capitalist consumption.
If you are a smartypants/smartass then this is book is for you so you can show off to your friends that understand status and culture. Yes this book is a tool to become high status, all according to plan......
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