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Fashion, art cycles are driven by counter-dominance signals of elite competition

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Re: Fashion, art cycles are driven by counter-dominance signals of elite competition

#11

Post by eightysixfour »

anm89 wrote: post #6
eightysixfour wrote: post #3

I've been reading Graeber's final book, "The Dawn of Everything," and in it he makes/repeats the observation that many cultures in contact with each other end up defining themselves as "not-the-other-culture," which he called (and I think others call) cultural schismogenesis. I think you can genericize it a bit and say humans are bad at defining themselves and need a reference point, and they often take the opposite…

very interesting point. It seems to be a useful model for thinking about this stuff. I still think Bullshit Jobs was a terrible read but maybe I need to give some of his other stuff a shot.

Debt: The First 5000 Years and The Dawn of Everything are both better than Bullshit Jobs IMO. I'd start with "The Dawn of Everything." While I think Graeber makes the same "jump to conclusions based on your worldview" mistakes he criticizes others for, he present new (to me) evidence about the history of human organizations that I have found to be very interesting and, at least, opened me up to some new avenues of thought politically.

Re: Fashion, art cycles are driven by counter-dominance signals of elite competition

#12

Post by beebeepka »

optimalsolver wrote: post #4

Worth a read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circulation_of_elite

> Changes of regime, revolutions, and so on occur not when rulers are overthrown from below, but when one elite replaces another. The role of ordinary people in such transformation is not that of initiators or principal actors, but as followers and supporters of one elite or another.

Easy to say duh to this in 2021 thanks to education, internet, and everything. Must've been a breakthrough a few hundred years ago. For various reasons

Re: Fashion, art cycles are driven by counter-dominance signals of elite competition

#13

Post by sdwr »

belugacat wrote: post #7
eightysixfour wrote: post #3

I've been reading Graeber's final book, "The Dawn of Everything," and in it he makes/repeats the observation that many cultures in contact with each other end up defining themselves as "not-the-other-culture," which he called (and I think others call) cultural schismogenesis. I think you can genericize it a bit and say humans are bad at defining themselves and need a reference point, and they often take the opposite…

Oh wow, super fascinating reference, thank you for posting it! I’ll have to check it out, I’ve been prototyping game concepts with many thousands of agents who all do interesting things for the player to investigate (the key here is that they don’t have to be particularly complex or meaningful, they just have to overlap in enough thought provoking ways to keep the player engaged), and I’ve had a similar insight (“mak…

Sounds interesting! I see games in a similar way, as collections of simple mechanics that overlap/intersect/stack.

I think one of the keys to a complementary bundle of mechanics is that they're distinct. Acting on different time scales, different reward structures that tug the brain around, creating choices that feel meaningful and don't ever repeat exactly.

Re: Fashion, art cycles are driven by counter-dominance signals of elite competition

#14

Post by crawfordcomeaux »

This tracks with how I'm changing the art I embody/make. A driving intention I carry is to bring about a future where all people have the 0-payment option of living in a community where everyone's committed to meeting all needs while denying none, practicing a culture that's learned from and let go of cultural components of debt, capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, preferentialism (a culture of catering to preferences), democracy, domination, violence, punishment/reward, racism, sexism, rape, adultism, ageism, and maybe all the other isms.

Any government, including human beings who identify as nations, can signal they've shifted to practicing such a culture by adopting the following symbol and integrating it into their symbology:

∀

This is the mathematic notation for the phrase "for all." A government that's operating on a model to meet all needs while denying none can signal this by including this symbol in their art, like flags, seals, etc.

Re: Fashion, art cycles are driven by counter-dominance signals of elite competition

#15

Post by crawfordcomeaux »

belugacat wrote: post #7
eightysixfour wrote: post #3

I've been reading Graeber's final book, "The Dawn of Everything," and in it he makes/repeats the observation that many cultures in contact with each other end up defining themselves as "not-the-other-culture," which he called (and I think others call) cultural schismogenesis. I think you can genericize it a bit and say humans are bad at defining themselves and need a reference point, and they often take the opposite…

Oh wow, super fascinating reference, thank you for posting it! I’ll have to check it out, I’ve been prototyping game concepts with many thousands of agents who all do interesting things for the player to investigate (the key here is that they don’t have to be particularly complex or meaningful, they just have to overlap in enough thought provoking ways to keep the player engaged), and I’ve had a similar insight (“mak…

I feel excitement over reading this. Would you be open to trying out some ideas to experiment with? I've been wondering if a framework for amplifying/accelerating evolution in bacterial cultures that's based in graph theory holds for culture in general. Also, trying to identify a sustainable model for a gift economy that can outperform debt economies.

Re: Fashion, art cycles are driven by counter-dominance signals of elite competition

#16

Post by crawfordcomeaux »

eightysixfour wrote: post #11
anm89 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

very interesting point. It seems to be a useful model for thinking about this stuff. I still think Bullshit Jobs was a terrible read but maybe I need to give some of his other stuff a shot.

Debt: The First 5000 Years and The Dawn of Everything are both better than Bullshit Jobs IMO. I'd start with "The Dawn of Everything." While I think Graeber makes the same "jump to conclusions based on your worldview" mistakes he criticizes others for, he present new (to me) evidence about the history of human organizations that I have found to be very interesting and, at least, opened me up to some new avenues of th…

What are some of these political changes?

Re: Fashion, art cycles are driven by counter-dominance signals of elite competition

#17

Post by turdnagel »

eightysixfour wrote: post #3

I've been reading Graeber's final book, "The Dawn of Everything," and in it he makes/repeats the observation that many cultures in contact with each other end up defining themselves as "not-the-other-culture," which he called (and I think others call) cultural schismogenesis. I think you can genericize it a bit and say humans are bad at defining themselves and need a reference point, and they often take the opposite…

See also Dr. Seuss' seminal "The Sneetches".

Re: Fashion, art cycles are driven by counter-dominance signals of elite competition

#18

Post by germinalphrase »

crawfordcomeaux wrote: post #14

This tracks with how I'm changing the art I embody/make. A driving intention I carry is to bring about a future where all people have the 0-payment option of living in a community where everyone's committed to meeting all needs while denying none, practicing a culture that's learned from and let go of cultural components of debt, capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, preferentialism (a culture of catering to preferen…

There’s a lot of “not this” in your statement, but can you provide an example of your work that helps me understand what “this” remains?

Re: Fashion, art cycles are driven by counter-dominance signals of elite competition

#19

Post by martythemaniak »

BoysenberryPi wrote: post #9
anm89 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

very interesting point. It seems to be a useful model for thinking about this stuff. I still think Bullshit Jobs was a terrible read but maybe I need to give some of his other stuff a shot.

Out of curiosity, what did you not like about Bullshit Jobs?

I thought "Debt" was absolutely fantastic and "Bullshit Jobs" was err.. complete bullshit. To best honest, the very premise of that view - that the only thing that matters is people's own opinions of their job - is one of the dumbest things I've ever read and it's probably downright harmful to people that adopt it.

There are essential jobs that need doing regardless of the opinions of the workers who perform them. In fact, if people focused on the value their so-called "bullshit" jobs provide other people, rather than on their own assessment of how meaningful their job is, they would likely end up much happier.

It's an incredibly condescending and self-centered way to look at the world.

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