Are they beliefs or just rituals as a fashion accessory? Is there any discussion of "belief/believing" and its history as an intentional state? How do these luxury beliefs relate to analytical philosophers' beliefs as 'propositions that x'? Are these beliefs …are they things held dear to prove one's mental obedience and thus loyalty ( for example to the Catholic Church in England way back when the word belief was invented in marketing Imperial dreams to Germanic warlords).
I mean Veblen's great and all..
Is there any discussion of the worlding we do when we world but do not have the words to see what we do, and so end up using the words we have, like belief etc. I mean there are some useful criticism here, but, from Tasmania, it just look like another smear in your culture war that we will have to put up with soon enough. We get anti-woke rhetoric imported before we had any woke-woke here, we had anti-political correctness before we had any political correctness.
Isn't real woke restricted to some anti-racist but ultimately racialist definition of everything. I mean from this distance it all seems insane.
Or are we just rebranding what Marx called ideology, false consciouness etc, without discussing all that communist malarky?
The human interest story is great though. Reminds me of Jesus as a orphan or some monomyth where he nods to lawful good not chaotic evil.
I find the idea of luxury beliefs is fascinating, but I don’t think there’s a collective conscious effort on the part of the upper class to embrace it for status signalling. I think it’s more of those who are capable of believing in and propagating it simply trying their best to spread the beliefs. Then, like throwing eggs at a wall, some stick (eg other upper class people) and some don’t stick (eg the less privileged who cannot afford to keep such beliefs). Nevertheless, an intriguing idea
While I think there's great merit to the idea of luxury beliefs as signaling in status for certain upper class people, and Henderson has discussed that the elite academics are more 'do as I say, not as I do", there are a fair number of people I've met who really do believe in the validity of these "belief systems", and with little critical analysis of longterm impacts.
Those of us who shake our heads are just trying to ride the wave and get by without getting swallowed and sucked in. Nice article overall btw.
I think you can see that throughout history, it's a pretty fixed human constant, and that's why I often stress the role of elites (Egyptian, Chinese, whatever). A vast majority of people don't care about the actual content of beliefs, they follow along seeking for whatever is more beneficial, for themselves and their kin. That's why only people with wealth and resources truly have room to pick this and discard that.
He still does, yes, but that's a business. Not always a great business at this point (except for Musk) but definitely a growth industry. Pyramids, like luxury beliefs, provide you with little benefit other than ornamentation and display; like luxury beliefs, they have a massive cost on the little people who build them
"luxury beliefs"
Are they beliefs or just rituals as a fashion accessory? Is there any discussion of "belief/believing" and its history as an intentional state? How do these luxury beliefs relate to analytical philosophers' beliefs as 'propositions that x'? Are these beliefs …are they things held dear to prove one's mental obedience and thus loyalty ( for example to the Catholic Church in England way back when the word belief was invented in marketing Imperial dreams to Germanic warlords).
I mean Veblen's great and all..
Is there any discussion of the worlding we do when we world but do not have the words to see what we do, and so end up using the words we have, like belief etc. I mean there are some useful criticism here, but, from Tasmania, it just look like another smear in your culture war that we will have to put up with soon enough. We get anti-woke rhetoric imported before we had any woke-woke here, we had anti-political correctness before we had any political correctness.
Isn't real woke restricted to some anti-racist but ultimately racialist definition of everything. I mean from this distance it all seems insane.
Or are we just rebranding what Marx called ideology, false consciouness etc, without discussing all that communist malarky?
The human interest story is great though. Reminds me of Jesus as a orphan or some monomyth where he nods to lawful good not chaotic evil.
https://whyweshould.substack.com/p/fideism-the-heresy-and-obedience
I find the idea of luxury beliefs is fascinating, but I don’t think there’s a collective conscious effort on the part of the upper class to embrace it for status signalling. I think it’s more of those who are capable of believing in and propagating it simply trying their best to spread the beliefs. Then, like throwing eggs at a wall, some stick (eg other upper class people) and some don’t stick (eg the less privileged who cannot afford to keep such beliefs). Nevertheless, an intriguing idea
While I think there's great merit to the idea of luxury beliefs as signaling in status for certain upper class people, and Henderson has discussed that the elite academics are more 'do as I say, not as I do", there are a fair number of people I've met who really do believe in the validity of these "belief systems", and with little critical analysis of longterm impacts.
Those of us who shake our heads are just trying to ride the wave and get by without getting swallowed and sucked in. Nice article overall btw.
I think you can see that throughout history, it's a pretty fixed human constant, and that's why I often stress the role of elites (Egyptian, Chinese, whatever). A vast majority of people don't care about the actual content of beliefs, they follow along seeking for whatever is more beneficial, for themselves and their kin. That's why only people with wealth and resources truly have room to pick this and discard that.
Jeff Bezos might not be building a pyramidal tomb for himself, but he did engage in a race to get into space with Elon Musk and Richard Branson.
He still does, yes, but that's a business. Not always a great business at this point (except for Musk) but definitely a growth industry. Pyramids, like luxury beliefs, provide you with little benefit other than ornamentation and display; like luxury beliefs, they have a massive cost on the little people who build them