Horizon

Oddly enough, I owe Thorstein Veblen for some pretty smart personal finance decisions. I was lucky enough to be reading his Theory of the Leisure Class while Sara and I were shopping for houses. His point about "respectability" — reinforced by the more practical but inane stuff in Millionaire Next Door — drove our choice of neighborhood.

Happily, five years later, we've had a gelato shop, independent video rental shop, head shop, and one of those dine-in cinemas move within walking distance.

Thanks, Thorstein!

Alan, your conference link goes to a review of FMJ, which I suspect is not what you'd intended.

Incidentally, I wonder what someone would wear to a Veblen conference. I suppose you'd already be showing conspicuous leisure by attending, so you'd probably have to dress in cheap sweats and affect an ignorance of fine wines and dead languages to get into the spirit of the thing.

Theory of the Leisure Class would make a good song title.

Link fixed, sorry.

Yeah, I was thinking that attending a conference like that would inevitably heighten self-consciousness to dangerous levels.

I mean, if I buy a Tivo, then will I ever be allowed to go to a Veblen conference?

Vassar political scientist Sidney Plotkin went so far as to call Veblen "the first theorist of red-state America."

The article implies that the conferees assume that Veblen would be on their side in some political sense. I find this highly unlikely, as Veblen would have looked at a great deal of the sneering at red staters as expressions of taste and aesthetics, which are, of course, trophies of conspicuous leisure. With the exception of the Lind quotes, there doesn't seem to be any awareness of the blasting that Veblen gives the intellectual classes in the final chapter -- a far cry from "elitist suspicion of the average American".

I'm not saying their efforts are doomed — Veblen provides useful tools for understanding the world, and is sometimes the simplest way to explain things like why poor Americans are overweight. Hey, I used him to pick out a house, so I can't criticise. Still, it seems a bit oblivious to read "vanity of vanities; all is vanity" and assume that it only applies to somebody else.

this post-911 recidivism

Which post-911 recidivism? Spending? I thought we were encouraged to do that after the attacks, to keep the economy going. Have you done your part to strike a blow against terror, Alan? If not, may I make a few suggestions?

Seriously, though, although it offends my sensibilities, calls to shop after the attacks probably did have a point.

Do not get me started on the "shop for America" thing that started up, what, two weeks after the attacks(?). I think it was a local thing: people started putting up these posters in every store. I couldn't believe my eyes.

I don't think looking at OBL's public announcements is necessarily a good way to shed light on domestic policy.

What I really have in mind is what seems to me a renewed nostalgia for an imaginary past. The Tolkein movies, the custom suits of armor, the spate of dragon and medieval-themed (and I hear uniformly bad) movies, especially ones having an Arthurian setting. I have in mind mainly fantasy medieval stuff but I think the sudden insterest in Homer and the ancient world probably goes along the same lines.

It could be a coincidence, but I have a hard time imagining that the new, more frightening world doesn't have something to do with it. As far as I recall, it had been a long, long time since Hollywood produced anything like Troy, Alexander, or King Arthur.

As far as I recall, it had been a long, long time since Hollywood produced anything like Troy, Alexander, or King Arthur.

Gladiator? Braveheart? Both predate 9/11.

Perhaps the attraction of sword-and-sandal pics in the wake of the terrorist attacks was that the Bruckheimeresque disaster genre which had been riding high in the late 90s had to go into temporary suspension (although since The Day After Tomorrow I guess the ban is officially off), and ancient or fantasy battle scenes provided the necessary excuse for fancy CGI. Or maybe it's just that it was time for a change, a cyclical thing.

Gladiator? Braveheart? Both predate 9/11.

Forgot those. I should have said that a lot more of them have been made since then.

Don't forget that the LOTR films were funded and filmed before 9/11 as well.