竹白
As traditional luxury goods, such as the iconic Louis Vuitton monogram bags or Chanel number 5, have become more widespread and attainable than in the past, the wealthy need alternative ways to signal their prestige and power.
Silvia Bellezza • The Mystery of the $2,000 Ikea Shopping Bag
You would think that going to school is about learning and acquiring skills, but then why do students pay tens of thousands of dollars for Ivy League schools when all of the learning material is effectively available online for free? Why do we use grading systems when we know that students learn worse when being graded? The answer, again, is signal... See more
Julian Lehr • Signaling as a Service
As social provision shrunk, striving became a form of personal insurance against future risk; as employment became more precarious, education was advertised as the most reliable path to upward mobility. Competition was extolled as the most effective way to keep afloat, and the purchase of new products the surest path to self-expression.
Astra Taylor • The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart (The CBC Massey Lectures)
Contrary to dominant ideology, higher education is far from serving as the key location for upward mobility and intellectual freedom. Its curriculum, pedagogy, and stratification reproduce the very hierarchies it is purported to undermine.
Becky Thompson • Teaching With Tenderness
A large-scale review found that inequality drives materialistic behaviour in an effort to ‘keep up with the Joneses’, often called status consumption.32 If you own something that makes you feel better relative to other people, then other people will need to own more again to make themselves feel better. It’s a self-defeating game where the goalpost
... See morePaul Behrens • The Best of Times, The Worst of Times: Futures from the Frontiers of Climate Science
