We now live in a
western-led globalised urban culture that has hyper-contextualised
the idea of wealth and an apparent ferocious concomitant
personal and group demand of the enormously expensive in all consumer items.
Perhaps even Thorsten Veblen himself would be ashamed of the extent his 18th century observations have materialised; sent at warp speed into the 21st century.
Perhaps even Thorsten Veblen himself would be ashamed of the extent his 18th century observations have materialised; sent at warp speed into the 21st century.
It seems that the
yesteryear ideal of 'personal wealth' – that of typically hard earned
cumulative experience and wisdom that provided the level of an
individual's social worth – became redundant long, long ago...often now absent when broken and maladapted societies need it most.
There are of course
those relatively few who sit on massive personal and family wealth,
the best of whom give back to broad society, ranging from International Aid to sponsorship of high-culture performances; so as to elevate the
bodies and minds of those far less fortunate.
But unfortunately,
popular culture through music videos and reality shows envelopes
little more than 'televisual torture' for the many, seeking to
emulate the crassest elements of the 1%.
Hollywood (and now
Bollywood and its other EM equals) and the ever more sensationalist
seeking fashion industry channeled through formal and social media
obviously shapes much of that social consciousness; and has
unsurprisingly perpetuated the mass-desire for all that is apparently
“glamorous”.
The most prevalent and endemic now being the creation of woman's 'lounge-wear' which in
essence transfers the sexuality of bedroom lingerie and
nightclub-wear into the ever more everyday public area. Whilst their men are supposed
to be driving Lambo's, Ferrari's, Porsche's, Rolls-Royce's and
Bentley's whilst simultaneously ordering cases of premium champagne
and cutting multi-million dollar deals on gold-plated iPhones.
TV reality-show puppets perpetuate the fantasy for the mass
youth whilst their own personal debt piles from education, high rents and
lifestyle and experience spending; actually keeps them in an ever more complex high
anxiety web, which itself spirals with paradoxically more consumeristic "antidotes".
Money does indeed make
the world go around, and 'high finance' through equity and fixed-income does indeed fuel the
industrial and services economies by which most earn a living.
But this
Christmas, next Christmas and thereafter....don't be stupid enough to make money your religion.
