A Japanese Pen Maker Anticipated the Fountain-Pen Renaissance

  the symbolic capital of a pen…
  (a system that inculcates desires for useless commodities)…
  (a status game in which useless things are feted).

To me, a pen is utilitarian, not useless. I can see how the additional usefulness of a $4000 pen Vs a $400 pen could theoretically be questioned, but having no experience of using either, I wouldn't like to argue that case.

  I don't think there is an axiomatic answer about the 'cut-off' above: it's contextual.

The reason I'm specifically questioning this is that your responses seem to demonstrate an axiomatic answer: $4000. That figure (and presumably any amount above $4000) is, in your words, "obviously utterly grotesque", but there's no indication how you came to that figure.

  in the global political, economic and cultural conditions
  in which we live the purchase of a $4000 pen is grotesque

Are you saying that for everyone, the purchase of a $4000 pen is grotesque? That context does not matter once the sum reaches $4000? I appreciate there may be shades of gray, but is there a range where you would start to challenge this? Say, 10 times the median price for a pen in that particular location? What's justifying that figure of $4000, other than "it's obvious"?

When it comes to challenging behaviour, and especially describing certain behaviour as "grotesque", it feels like there might be a better way to separate them.

The numbers matter when it comes to discussing (and influencing/lobbying) policy. The world's richest 8 people have the same wealth as 50% of the world's population [1]. Is that grotesque? Bill Gates uses some of that wealth to help some of the poorest people in the world. Does that offset his grotesque wealth? Does that justify it?

In the USA, a CEO earns 2,617 times the average salary for American workers [2]. Is that grotesque?

In the UK, the average FTSE100 CEO earns 129 times their average employee. 20 years ago, that figure was only 45 times, or roughly a third of the current inequality [2]. Which is fairer? What could be done to make things more fair?

These questions and discussions are important, because they can inform policy. For example, tax rates and bands - such as 90% tax rate on earnings over $X (which has been done in the past, but seems to be politically untenable at the moment). If you want to call certain spending grotesque, it's helpful to have a reasonable rationale for that figure.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/jan/16/w...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/29/business/britain-ceo-exec...

  forcing a binary state on an opinion.

Shades are OK too. For example: "$4000 is grotesque, $400 is sketchy, anything above $100 could potentially be justified, and below $100 is safe territory".

It doesn't have to be binary, but when someone states a certain figure - "$4000 is obviously grotesque" - then a binary state has already been established. $4000 and above is grotesque, below is, well, possibly grotesque, possibly not. Uncertain, clearly. That seems a sensible starting point for a discussion, to understand what makes $4000 grotesque, and does it also apply to $3000, $2000 - to understand the rationale for such a statement.

  I can't imagine you saying the same to a friend who said 
  "I went for a very long drive last weekend"
  > "What's the cutoff for long? 50 miles? 100 miles?"

I can imagine asking "So how long is long?"

I grew up in mid Cornwall, where a trip to Plymouth (55 miles) was generally considered a long drive. These days, I consider driving to Chamonix (780 miles) a long-ish drive, and to Istanbul a properly long drive. So knowing that my idea of a "long drive" has changed over time, and knowing my notion could easily differ from theirs, yes, I'd easily ask what they considered a long drive.

I stopped with pencils as soon as I learned to type on a mechanical typewriter in school. Well, as much as I was allowed to, teachers were much happier when they were able to read whar I wrote :)

I am not formulating policy, so I need not act as such.

Pen's are not useless. But the clear implicature of what I said is that the functional difference between an ordinary pen and a $4000 pen is negligible such that the $4000 pen is useless given that fact (i.e. one might as well go ahead and use a normal pen).

That is not an axiomatic answer, it's my answer under the present state of things (I was explicit on that point).

I don't really understand the point of this pedantry? I think all of the things you list are fairly grotesque. But I don't have any great interest in wandering from a discussion about conspicuous consumption to one about tax policy. To be frank: I am interested in alternatives to capitalism, and a great deal of the existing order of things bothers me profoundly.

"If you want to call certain spending grotesque, it's helpful to have a reasonable rationale for that figure."

I have already given you a rationale. To claim otherwise is supercilious. You may not like it; but there is one.

Sailor 1911 standard: greatest fountain pen ever.