I think this is a complex class based thing. There are probably seven or eight clearly defined social sub-classes of upper middle class people; the home of two childless widely published academics and the home of an investment banker - big law lawyer couple with three kids and the house of two doctors who live in a second-tier city but consider themselves to be particularly cultured and the home of the chair or chief executive of a major arts or humanities nonprofit and the country home of an insurance executive and a veteran homemaker in local county life descended from the minor gentry will all be vastly different in nevertheless predictable ways.
In general, prints of old masters were for a long time considered somewhat trashy as a hangover from the Trumpian 80s, following which new money Essex types in the UK and white ethnics in the US decorating their homes in sort of gold leaf rococo or baroque pastiche complete with titanic gold-framed prints was considered the thing to distance oneself from if one wanted to be more respectably PMC (even if one was from, or only one generation removed from, the very same background) by the early-mid ‘90s. Today I think that’s changing, since 2018 or so when the Deano and McMansion types had for some years adopted a twisted version of 2000s beige Scandi minimalism the upper-middle class meta has clearly returned to full-on maximalism complete with a lot of (even in dreary London) very dark 19th century living rooms and antique shop clutter.
2rafa
10hr ago
Yes, the Amish would do fine if they were the only ones around
If you mean the only humans around in the world then maybe, sure. If you mean if they controlled solely their own territory absolutely - would they? The Amish don’t have an army or any real means of defending themselves while they live on some of the world’s best and highest yielding farmland. They aren’t welfare dependent in the way the ultra-orthodox are, but they are ultimately reliant on the United States’ power, military, borders and technological leadership. They live in a garden inside a nearly impenetrable geographic stronghold maintained by the United States.
I think it can work in those late georgian / regency terraces with high ceilings on the first or raised ground floor. And, with enough care taken, in very modern apartment buildings with a nice contrast if they have floor to ceiling glass windows (some people consider this trashy, I will accept their judgment).
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