This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Thoughts on Consumption, Ethical and Otherwise
TLDR: As costs have changed with automation/globalization/etc the status implications attached to items or forms of consumption have changed, despite the costs reflecting less or even opposite directions of status. Why have the implications persisted beyond the mechanical reasons for it?
A discussion elsewhere since lost, and that acid-trip TEMU ad at the Super Bowl, had me thinking about a statistic I saw in a WSJ article that has really stuck with me.
American’s average spending on apparel has declined from 14% of expenditures in 1901 to 10% in 1960 to 4% in 2002. For the most part, we can see that as early industrialization in 1901, when many things were still tailored, to full factory industrialization in 1960, to early globalization in 2002. In 2023, with full globalization, expenditure on clothing declined all the way to 2%.*
My wife and I are probably a little fancier and more enthusiastic about clothing than the average on the Motte, if asked I would say that I spend more on clothing than I need to and own too much and too expensive of clothing, but we were absolutely blown away by the idea of spending 10% of our annual income on clothing. We agreed that we could probably do it, and have fun doing so!, for one or maybe two years, but after that the budget that would create would just be insane. The idea, as an upper-middle class professional couple, of spending something like $30k-$40k on clothing per year every year is insanity! Buying the best and starting with nothing, I don’t really see how a man in my position could spend more than $10k on clothing, once, with less than $1k/yr spending after that to maintain/freshen, unless one gets deep into really truly strange and expensive frivolities. Yet we still talk about clothing items as status symbols in the same way, despite clothing making up a decreasing percentage of spending, despite the obvious fact that if a lower income American spent like a 1960 American they could easily afford to look like a modern upper class American. Clothing just isn’t actually expensive anymore.
And this got me thinking of how many status symbols have changed so thoroughly in their cost, while remaining essentially the same in their perception. I own a 25 year old BMW 3 Series, which had a $27,000 msrp when new, which I like driving around casually; I also have a 2008 Chevrolet Avalanche which I drive for work, which had an MSRP of $48,000 new. ((For those of you following along at home, I never got around to actually buying a new-er manual car to replace it)) Persistently, people will give me “rich kid” jokes about the BMW, while the Chevy is treated as working class. Not only that, guys driving new pickups that retail north of $60k will give me the same guff about the BMW! The branding still gives credibility or prestige, even long after the relationship of cost has evaporated or reversed. Small “sporty” BMW = rich, pickup truck = blue collar.
I’m utterly confused as to how people around me spend their money, and I’m fairly certain they are equally confused by how I spend mine. I have friends with similar incomes to mine, who are in credit card debt, but also don’t have the things I would expect a person with my income who is also in credit card debt to have. The money seems to evaporate into nights out, travel, concerts, and house renovations. They look at things I “waste" money on, and I can’t say they don’t have a point: I could probably reduce my clothing budget significantly, I own too much expensive assorted strength training and fitness crap, I could reduce my grocery/food budget considerably if I cooked more from scratch. But then I equally look at their spending, and they invite me to go on a trip, or out to a bar, and I look at the price and say I’m not spending $2k on travel, or $100 on a night out. Though I’ll equally admit that my own travel habits are extremely cheap, and my own tastes in food and especially alcohol relatively light and plebeian.
We’re factually in the same social class, we make similar money in similar positions, but our consumption patterns are different. And what fascinates me is that one set of consumption patterns is judged as normal, even blue collar, while another is judged as fancy, bougie, aristocratic. And the meanings of these symbols of upper-class taste have endured beyond and transcended the actual cost-balance of the activities. The expensive microbrewery play-acts as industrial space. Expensive travel is normal, even treated as normative. Housing, education, healthcare are ruinously expensive but treated as normal, invisible even. I’m not sure I know who is right and who is wrong, or even if someone is right or wrong, in terms of what form of spending will lead to The Good Life. But I’m sure we’re both going wrong in reading into status symbols in the way people once did, when the meanings are so twisted and confused.
Did they?
I don't know what clothing you and your wife wear, but in general is seems like clothing primarily signals things about youth/age/region/tastes/subculture, and signals about wealth very little unless your wife is buying those bespoke ballgowns from the Oscars or something. Plumber is by far the most enthusiastic describer of clothing in the SSC-sphere, and is credibly an actual plumber.
There's a certain class of mostly older women who wear large pieces of turquoise jewelry. It's especially common among realtors in their professional photography. As far as I can tell, it signals "fussy and hard to work with," but I assume they're going for something else. Regionally sensitive PMC? I'm not exactly sure, but it's consistent enough to be meaningful and intentional. Turquoise jewelry is not so cheap that people don't think about buying it, but not so expensive that even a burger flipper working their first job couldn't save up and buy an elaborate piece if they really wanted to. Or couldn't get it at a second hand shop at a steep discount. But they generally don't, because it's a signal from a previous generation, from a time when a person could spend 10% of their income on clothing, and actually project a meaningful image. From a time when people inherited things for reasons other than nostalgia, and there weren't a bunch of china tea sets in the second hand stores for $10.
Keeping slim and in shape later in life signals status, and it does seem like there's a trend of people over 30 who want to show how young they still are training for and running marathons and climbing mountains. Especially the training part. our user name seems to fit into that pattern?
I looked this up. It just looks like a sedan? A nice-ish sedan. I'm surprised you're getting comments on that car, were they joking? Is it because you have to find a special mechanic or something? I'm trying to recall people around me talking about cars, and other than comments about "compensating" or "mid life crisis," it's mostly been for hobby cars that they clearly put some personal attention into, like turquoise muscle cars that people decorate for car parades. I have heard some shade thrown at the big trucks that look like they haven't ever been used to haul anything, and likely never will, but I do also see a lot of expensive trucks genuinely hauling things (RV looking trailers if they're well off, but still), so it can be hard to guess.
My workplace tends lower middle class, with less money than yours, very far from the coasts, and I have been surprised by how many people talk about taking their kids to Disney World, especially, and also parties with a lot of other kids at trampoline sorts of places. It's not that we don't go on trips ourselves, or wouldn't go to Disney World on principle, but these are the same people talking about how they hope they can make it to their next paycheck, as though credit is not a thing. Are they not using credit because they're worried they'll go too far if they start, or just exaggerating about needing to wait until actual payday?
Sure. Construction contractors sometimes make a decent amount of money, but they will buy pickup trucks and take their kids to Disney World with it. They will not buy nice suites, because where would they wear them? Going to the opera costs the same as going to three regular movies, but then you have to sit through an opera. Visibly training for running events is extremely bougie.
Bmw 3 (especially the M series) series from the 90s and 80s are the ultimate driver's car. Rear wheel drive. Very powerful, temperament, hard to tame. All around fun.
More options
Context Copy link
They don't think about using credit, on principle.
I'm from a very similar background to your co-workers -- lower-middle class, not coastal -- and it was drilled into my head from a young age that debt meant slavery and you use credit cards only and exclusively to build credit for mortgages or cars (if you have to), and you must pay it off each month, and preferrably keep your credit utilization low. My parents have a solid nest-egg and little debt, but if you talked to them about money you'd think they were constantly in danger of bankruptcy. In their household, paying interest on a credit card even one month is something close to a mortal sin -- it's just unthinkable.
While I think this is probably an overreaction to the problems of debt, I suspect it's the same sort of cultural overreaction that made Baptists go hard against liquor. The American frontier was full of drunks -- literally, there were stories of preachers having their church ransacked by drunk mobs on Sunday morning. So the clergy who ministered to them (mostly congregationalists, Methodists, and Baptists) ended up taking the nuclear option: "You people obviously can't handle your booze, so we're going full abstentionist, no liquor at all, you show up drunk and we're disfellowshipping you. Shape up, you sinners."
And that view became crystalized and theologized from a discipline based on prudence to a definitive theological approach of Methodists and Baptists, the same way that clerical celibacy in the Latin Church went from a discipline based on preventing the direct inheritance of parishes to (in the trad days) a definitive theological approach where clergy are seen as marrying the Church.
Nowadays, the American interior (where evangelicals are the primary ministers, interestingly enough) is now full of people trapped in debt. So, the approach of normie American interior culture is shaped by this problem in a similar way alcohol to how alcohol shaped the frontier, eschewing it totally because of the potential for abuse (and perhaps because it signals separation from less conscientous people for whom debt is less controlled). I think in religious terms, so what strikes me is how this gets tangled up in the prosperity gospel, producing "supernatural debt cancellation", the favorite of slimy televangelists the world over. Call it evangelicals finally figuring out usury is supposed to be a sin.
Your parents are right about credit card interest.
That improperly risk-averse position is not having/using one for regular spending instead of a debit card.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Is the BMW sticker price fair? Maintenance still has to be at Euro-import level I would assume. Maybe a little cheaper than modern cars. Even a fully paid off bmw I would assume is running 3-6k minimum in yearly costs. While the big American truck probably has cheaper parts.
I have no problem on spending a lot of money on doing things versus clothing.
Funny someone else said they avoid companies that abuse their workers. I got no qualms and think I’m doing a good thing buying from them. In that case your most likely giving someone a wage versus subsistence farming or worse.
More options
Context Copy link
My thought with ethical or conscious consumption is a very basic principle of being frugal about purchases while trying to do as little harm with those purchases as possible especially in areas I personally care deeply about.
Now by frugal, I mean that I tend to try to not buy things I don’t need and when I do, I aim for things that last and aren’t going to be obviously out of style or obsolete quickly. My style hasn’t changed all that much so it doesn’t matter if I don’t buy brand new clothes all the time. I tend toward minimalist ideas.
As far as ethics, I avoid companies that abuse workers and aren’t terrible for the environment. Beyond that, unless the company is doing obvious evil, I don’t spend a lot of time overthinking purchases.
More options
Context Copy link
I think one thing missing from the clothes discussion is that real disposable income has exploded over the covered period. So much so that the 2% people are spending in 2023 is more in real dollars than the 10% in 1901. Americans spend more real dollars on clothes now than they did in 1901, it's just a smaller fraction of income because income has grown even faster than clothing expenditures.
More options
Context Copy link
Really? I'm not saying it's advisable, but it's pretty easy to spend a couple grand per suit, a couple hundred per shirt, and hundreds each on sweaters. Throw in some expensive jeans and fancy socks. Spend another couple grand on Tracksmith running gear. If we're counting shoes, I go through like $500/year in running shoes alone. Don't get me wrong, I don't personally spend all that much on clothes in aggregate, but it's pretty easy to spend a lot as soon as you're into bespoke clothing or just high-end materials.
Yeah, I remain persistently puzzled by how people making anything north of six-figures wind up broke. It is just not very hard at all to look at how much money you're taking in and elect to spend less than that.
I have literally never in my life seen a shirt or sweater that costs $200+. The most expensive shirts I can get cost $100 each, and those are dress shirts (which most people will only ever need one or two of). Everything else is less, often significantly less. The most expensive jeans I have ever seen are Levi's that sometimes cost upwards of $100/pair, but you don't need many and they last years and years. Most people only need one suit, two if they're really feeling fancy and want different colors (and again, those last for years and years).
I'm definitely with @FiveHourMarathon on this one. I can imagine someone who is trying to spend massive amounts of money might spend $10k+/year, for sure. But I can't imagine how someone might have normal clothing habits where they spend that kind of money without even meaning to.
Walk into a Brunello Cucinelli, a Hermes, a Thom Browne, or similar and you'll find hundreds of pretty normal looking clothes selling at 1k+ prices each.
More options
Context Copy link
To be fair, there’s a brigade of women who buy entirely new wardrobes every year to keep up with fashion. That crowd might spend 10% of income on clothes- I’m doubting they all have 6 figure incomes, so maybe more like $6k/yr on average. That seems like a thing that could be true.
More options
Context Copy link
You've never seen a $200 sweater? Take a trip to the mall today.
https://www.nordstrom.com/s/7542724
I confess that while I've been in a Nordstrom (and other mall stores), I haven't actually been shopping there. I am normally just sitting in the husband area while we all dick around on our phones waiting for our respective wives to finish shopping.
This is a human rights issue that needs to be improved upon: the lingerie section at Nordstrom needs a better husband waiting area. My wife always takes a million fucking hours while she gets fitted, is upset that her rib cage didn't get any bigger so the size is still so weird they'll only carry it in three bras, the sales woman digs through the back to find the one weirdo Barbie doll size, then tries all three on until she settles on the one that looks least orthopedic. But the waiting with my credit card area is too exposed! I want somewhere no one sees me!
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I have vintage cashmere sweaters that cost $500+ new, but once again though expensive they lasted the original owners some period of time, and have lasted me years and years since. You can buy several of them but you can't do that every year without amassing a ridiculous collection.
Buying nice "vintage" clothing at thrift stores, both living near the sort of thrift store that regularly has nice things, and having the knowledge and patience to find the nice things also comes across as extremely bougie, with a bit of hipster thrown in. More so than just buying the sweater new, something someone who makes a lot less might be proud of, and see as an accomplishment. I remember someone commenting about how she bought nice boots once, and realizing she was an adult now, and could buy a $200 pair of boots she had always wanted now! Which was empowering for her.
Very true. Second hand shopping is a true High-Low barber pole activity. The Boston Cracked Shoe. The middle class is defined by discomfort with their status, which comes out as a sense of discomfort with buying second hand clothing. Where the poor have no pride to harm, and the rich are comfortable enough with their status that they feel no threat from telling someone they bought a suit at Goodwill. My father in law could not stop laughing about how, in a wedding of two one percenter families, we had a tiny wedding and my wife thrifted her gown while I had an old tux from Goodwill I dusted off for the occasion (though I did buy a pair of new pants for the occasion.
Though I do think more sanitized, online operations like Poshmark and TheRealReal might be changing things around.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
There are definitely people who do just that, though, and they sell their old clothes or donate to thrift stores.
More options
Context Copy link
Or you can sell the old ones to you and buy nice fresh ones!
People do do this; seems crazy to me as well but it's a thing.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I'm someone who's both fairly frugal and has no issue purchasing clothing/items second hand with the plan to wear them until they fall apart. This, combined with being patient, means I've acquired some choice deals over time.
It's also lead to moments where I realize that I'm out and about for outdoor chores while wearing clothing(shirt, pants, shoes, watch) that, had I bought new, would be edging toward a thousand dollars. So... shrugs helplessly
More options
Context Copy link
The first result on Google for the query "how many dress shirts own":
Yes, and most people don't wear dress shirts every day for work. There's a reason I said "most people".
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I've seen literal brain surgeons be very financially clueless.
If you're not educated in how to manage and invest, that sort of thing can get away from you very quickly.
More options
Context Copy link
Really. Though it may be that my definition of "strange and expensive frivolities" is doing a lot of work there. The tough thing isn't spending money once, it's spending money every year. I've always been a big second hand shopper, and I fell for the BIFL/Heritage Fashion/Investment Piece trend of the early 2010s, and the problem is you buy all this great stuff and it doesn't wear out. I like Allen Edmonds shoes, they can easily run $500-600, and those are quality American made leather shoes. But I really liked them, and pretty soon I had five or six pairs from picking them up at thrift stores, and I still have them all eight to ten years later. Same with suits, same with quality shirts (albeit less so). I'm wearing a lot of the same stuff I bought years ago.
If I were to budget $10k+, for a year or maybe two, I could buy a lot of the things I bought second hand brand new, which would be fun. I can easily go buy a few $900 suits, and a few really great $1k winter jackets, and some $500 pairs of shoes to match. But then I'd have all that the next year! And the year after that! The cost of that high-quality wardrobe is high to start, but the maintenance cost is low, you can't just keep buying suits every year or you're going need impractically large closet.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The detailed underlying statistics are available here.
Regarding the footnote: In year 2022, the proportion of income spent on "apparel and services" was 2.7 percent for all consumer units, ranging from 2.1 percent for single people to 3.3 percent for units consisting of five of more people (on average, 5.7 people, including 2.7 children, 0.2 person 65 or older, and 2.8 other adults).
More options
Context Copy link
*Obvious confounding factor here is children. Children grow out of their clothing, ruin their clothing etc in ways that adults don't. This probably accounts for several percentage points in the decline, though that becomes its own discussion about natalism and children as cost and children as status symbol.
I expect this is balanced out by the usual cost saving measures available to families in 1900- namely, every woman could sew, and children weren’t expected to have multiple nice outfits, just one that was decent.
That, and you only really have to buy kids clothes once per gender; even today most families with 3+ kids are generally saving old clothes for the next sibling. The 1900 fertility rate was higher than it is today, but it’s not that much higher to balance this out.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link