Sometimes once you notice something, it gets funnier every time you watch other people not notice it. In reading about prehistoric groups and violence, the point keeps arising that some of the materials of war that clear elites are buried with (or depicted with, as the Mesoamericans) look to be unused. They show no signs of wear, neither for battle nor cutting trees or clubbing animals or whatever. From this the conclusion is they were clearly ornamental, you fools, you fools. If they were so warlike, how did their elites get through life without any blood on their blades?
Well...how many generations does it take for elites to move from "leading the tribe into battle" to "I present you, my important ally, with this incredibly cool jade axe-head, made especially for you." Elite males like to display the tokens of hypermasculinity, which their grandfathers may have earned, or at least used. Does this seem strange? What were the activities of the young elite males of the 20th C, to show that they were both rich and masculine? WASPS liked sailing, and shooting grouse, and fencing. Generalissimos still wear swords and carry pistols. In Britain, there is fox hunting (horses for ornament run into money), polo (ditto), more shooting sports, and in earlier decades rugby.
I told my son in Norway how much I admired the difficulty of the biathlon. To cross-country ski in 10 below zero a few kilometers, hold your aim steady to shoot, then resume...repeat, repeat, in any weather. Can't be easy. He shrugged. Yeah, but it's just rich people who bother with that.
Lacrosse, hockey, and even baseball are expensive if you want to move beyond the rudiments, and I am not the first to notice that such sports, with $300 bats or $2K weekend tournaments for yen-year-olds, keep the riffraff out.
Recreational sports were originally adopted because the ability to do them at all signified belonging to a leisure class. But in those sports where equipment mattered less and less and even uggh! middle-class or even Jews and worse could get involved, and actual merit eventually won out, like track and field, golf and tennis, cricket, archery...It's getting that we can't keep them out anymore, Sumner.
Is anthro still an elite major and career choice? It was in my day, but my day is long past.
I don't know what will come next. But I predict, based on a few thousand years of history, that the elite males will find ways of decorating themselves that are redolent with the masculinity of their great-grandfathers. Which is why we should not be the least bit shocked to see such things in grave goods and be so foolish as to conclude that there was no real warfare, only the symbolic stuff.
There is probably some female equivalent, but I am not putting my brain to the task at this point.
8 comments:
Female equivalent... jewelry or other 'useless' ornamentation? The modern equivalent would be her SUV perhaps.
The biathlon has its roots in military training in eighteenth-century Norway. It got coopted by the leisure class.
That completely makes sense.
This may translate beyond elite males. I love using my grandfather's old Craftsman tools to work on cars, which he did professionally (and on semi-trucks), and I just to keep costs down. Likewise his old "Sioux" air wrench: I have better impact wrenches that are electric, even battery powered, because I don't have a powerful air compressor like he did. But I still set the air wrench up and use it sometimes.
Implicit assumption needs to be that no one engages in these activities for *fun*
Well, they do of course, especially if you grow up with them and have positive associations. But lots of things are fun, and gravitating to the rich, masculine ones suggests there is some second or third factor in play.
Something I saw at Twitter & immediately thought, 'this seems like something AVI would be interested in:
"Great cities mimic their most dynamic eras —NYC the late 19th century; LA the mid-20th...
This is true of industry/technology towns:
— NYC: gilded age aesthetics/finance cult
—LA: mid 20th century cinema/aerospace glam
—Palo Alto: late 20th century Internet, bad khakis/muted suburbia
Cultures are mimetic and self-reinforcing, why it’s hard to export an industry."
Katherine Boyle
https://twitter.com/KTmBoyle/status/1612829466039926786
As a female, my take:
- Low weight/high fitness (honed in expensive gyms). Personal trainers. Time-consuming vegetable drinks blended up into an unappetizing green. A fridge with very little other than cheese, wine (for Whining about how HARD her life is), and boutique bottled water.
- Clothing - not just the 'dress up' clothing, but the everyday clothes. VERY expensive, even for t-shirts and leggings. Elite women not only wear the Jimmy Choos, but also the $600-$1500 sneakers. Don't let me get started on the unders!
- Cell phone plans have cut the cost of expensive phones, but other things, covers, 'bling', apps, and wireless accessories still serve as markers.
- Transportation - hybrids and electrics are still status symbols. Disdaining commercial flights for chartered or - better yet - your OWN jet. If a woman has a bike, you better believe it will be one that rivals the cost of a low-end car. And, she will be burning gasoline to travel to a remote destination where she can use it - AND have her companions post zillions of pictures and videos about "the AMAZING tranquility of this place, where, of course, EVERYONE should go". Although, not when SHE is there. That crowding by the proles would harsh her mellow.
- Leisure. Because the rich woman's needs are taken care of by her minions, she is free to dedicate herself to shopping and immediately getting on social media about it. If she works, it is a flex-time arrangement, or in her own boutique business, where the profit is NOT the point.
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