That was pretty insightful. But also deeply discouraging.
How does a society right itself when the winners of that society are determined to destroy society? They pay no penalty for the damage since their wealth shields them from the consequences. And if worse comes to worst, the bobo cosmopolitan class will just decamp to a stabler nation.
Mockery works wonders. If they pick up even a whiff of being laughed at as a lower-class ignorant fraud, one they can’t dismiss as coming from uneducated rubes, then they change their behavior. Most such people are keenly insecure about their social status near the top of the pyramid, and their greatest fear is being knocked off the peak.
The wide acceptance of out-of-wedlock births and non-traditional marriage is probably a good example of that, since that was one of the easiest and most common ways for a society girl to be exposed as nothing more than a cheap low-class tart, closing off her social options so that she’d end up unwed or married to a cab driver. So instead of traditional family values, whose violation could immediately cast one into the outer circle, it was advantageous for the rich to advance more avant garde ideas about dating serial rock stars, having polyamorous affairs in the south of France, and having it all.
“And if worse comes to worst, the bobo cosmopolitan class will just decamp to a stabler nation.”
Which one? They’ve destabilized the entire West.
Sure, they have bunkers in New Zealand, but if the US goes down, New Zealand will soon be a Chinese colony.
And China doesn’t want a bunch of rich people who destroyed their own countries.
China is more than enough of it’s own elites capable of destroying a country.
White privilege might be more useful to those who are 1/1000th Native American. Mixed heritage of any kind is common upper classes and I don’t think Warren family bragging about being part Indian was unusual. And if it’s not actually the case, one can also simply lie about it.
The Chinese Mandarins cultivated a taste for rotten food as one way to establish their superiority over the middle class peasants. Similar to today’s modern art and far left politics.
Source?
#1 China Buffet on West 3rd.
Rotten eggs, swallow nests made of saliva and bird poop, pond scum, and MSG. If you don’t feel sick afterward, you didn’t eat well. Yessiree!
My quick search turned up that such foods were eaten for survival at great risk, but that people eventually learned which were safe reasonably and which weren’t. The classification of “stinky food” emerged, and persists to this day. But it isn’t a class thing. Most people who eat such things do so because a) these foods are easily preserved b) people in the culture that eat them have developed an affinity for the taste, and c) in part because there may be some genuine health benefits. For example, Japanese Natto, a fermented soybean, is ragingly popular despite (or perhaps because) of its ghastly flavor. It genuinely is high in several vitamins, notably vitamin K.
Even in Western cultures, there are some “rotten foods” that are widely consumed. In Australia, there’s Vegemite, which is supposed to be as much of an acquired taste as Natto. (I tasted it once, and really liked it.) And then in Great Britain, there’s…everything.
If Marmite has to be the sludge you get when you leave a bottle of soy sauce open to evaporate. Even Morton’s Iodized Salt isn’t that salty.
And the Roman aristocratic classes also seemed to enjoy eating “the garbage parts of the food” (–Chef Elzar).
I believe Marmite is the sludge left after making beer. Which is why it tastes so good.
Based on the taste, I’d say Vegemite is basically concentrated Marmite. Kind of the Fentanyl of yeast-based sandwich spreads.
One thing you can say about the Mandarins: They destroyed the Ming Empire. And then the Manchurians came and made them wear pigtails.
They also invented those great oranges. And that wind that Rod Stewart sang about in the 70s.
In primate societies, status is the thing that helps ensure access to food, sex, and overall security — so of course the pursuit of status takes on a quasi-religious importance among “more-highly-evolved” humans. And the bigger the social circle, the more desperate the pursuit.
Luxury belief?
No mention of Climate Change?
Wealthy people purchase carbon offsets to the emissions from their airline travel. One source of carbon offsets is replacing Diesel irrigation pumps with hand-cranked or pedal power?
Since everything is interconnected and inter-tied in our global-economy, picture a wealthy person in Business Class, propelled across expanses of ocean by legions of impoverished villagers pedaling away. This is a 21st century version of a potentate being carried in one of those chairs with the pole handles, but on a much larger scale.
That was pretty insightful. But also deeply discouraging.
How does a society right itself when the winners of that society are determined to destroy society? They pay no penalty for the damage since their wealth shields them from the consequences. And if worse comes to worst, the bobo cosmopolitan class will just decamp to a stabler nation.
Mockery works wonders. If they pick up even a whiff of being laughed at as a lower-class ignorant fraud, one they can’t dismiss as coming from uneducated rubes, then they change their behavior. Most such people are keenly insecure about their social status near the top of the pyramid, and their greatest fear is being knocked off the peak.
The wide acceptance of out-of-wedlock births and non-traditional marriage is probably a good example of that, since that was one of the easiest and most common ways for a society girl to be exposed as nothing more than a cheap low-class tart, closing off her social options so that she’d end up unwed or married to a cab driver. So instead of traditional family values, whose violation could immediately cast one into the outer circle, it was advantageous for the rich to advance more avant garde ideas about dating serial rock stars, having polyamorous affairs in the south of France, and having it all.
“And if worse comes to worst, the bobo cosmopolitan class will just decamp to a stabler nation.”
Which one? They’ve destabilized the entire West.
Sure, they have bunkers in New Zealand, but if the US goes down, New Zealand will soon be a Chinese colony.
And China doesn’t want a bunch of rich people who destroyed their own countries.
China is more than enough of it’s own elites capable of destroying a country.
White privilege might be more useful to those who are 1/1000th Native American. Mixed heritage of any kind is common upper classes and I don’t think Warren family bragging about being part Indian was unusual. And if it’s not actually the case, one can also simply lie about it.
The Chinese Mandarins cultivated a taste for rotten food as one way to establish their superiority over the middle class peasants. Similar to today’s modern art and far left politics.
Source?
#1 China Buffet on West 3rd.
Rotten eggs, swallow nests made of saliva and bird poop, pond scum, and MSG. If you don’t feel sick afterward, you didn’t eat well. Yessiree!
My quick search turned up that such foods were eaten for survival at great risk, but that people eventually learned which were safe reasonably and which weren’t. The classification of “stinky food” emerged, and persists to this day. But it isn’t a class thing. Most people who eat such things do so because a) these foods are easily preserved b) people in the culture that eat them have developed an affinity for the taste, and c) in part because there may be some genuine health benefits. For example, Japanese Natto, a fermented soybean, is ragingly popular despite (or perhaps because) of its ghastly flavor. It genuinely is high in several vitamins, notably vitamin K.
Even in Western cultures, there are some “rotten foods” that are widely consumed. In Australia, there’s Vegemite, which is supposed to be as much of an acquired taste as Natto. (I tasted it once, and really liked it.) And then in Great Britain, there’s…everything.
If Marmite has to be the sludge you get when you leave a bottle of soy sauce open to evaporate. Even Morton’s Iodized Salt isn’t that salty.
And the Roman aristocratic classes also seemed to enjoy eating “the garbage parts of the food” (–Chef Elzar).
I believe Marmite is the sludge left after making beer. Which is why it tastes so good.
Based on the taste, I’d say Vegemite is basically concentrated Marmite. Kind of the Fentanyl of yeast-based sandwich spreads.
Taoist Alchemy has a long history in China ( Chinese alchemical elixir poisoning | Wikipedia audio article). Really the evil sibling to Traditional Chineses Medicine (TCM).
Of course in the West we have fad diets and medical malpractice….
One thing you can say about the Mandarins: They destroyed the Ming Empire. And then the Manchurians came and made them wear pigtails.
They also invented those great oranges. And that wind that Rod Stewart sang about in the 70s.
In primate societies, status is the thing that helps ensure access to food, sex, and overall security — so of course the pursuit of status takes on a quasi-religious importance among “more-highly-evolved” humans. And the bigger the social circle, the more desperate the pursuit.
Luxury belief?
No mention of Climate Change?
Wealthy people purchase carbon offsets to the emissions from their airline travel. One source of carbon offsets is replacing Diesel irrigation pumps with hand-cranked or pedal power?
Do you think I am making this up? https://www.entitymag.com/guide-to-carbon-offsets/
Since everything is interconnected and inter-tied in our global-economy, picture a wealthy person in Business Class, propelled across expanses of ocean by legions of impoverished villagers pedaling away. This is a 21st century version of a potentate being carried in one of those chairs with the pole handles, but on a much larger scale.
Luxury belief!