Fashion, art cycles are driven by counter-dominance signals of elite competition
royalsocietypublishing.org
Fashion, art cycles are driven by counter-dominance signals of elite competition
1–10 of 70 posts
Re: Fashion, art cycles are driven by counter-dominance signals of elite competition
#2Slate star codex has a very fun and nerdy explanation of fashion cycles.
Let’s explain fashion using cellular automata. This isn’t going to be cringe-inducingly nerdy at all!
Re: Fashion, art cycles are driven by counter-dominance signals of elite competition
#3I'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 stance of that reference point. I think this model fits in with that pretty well - there are groups who want to be "not-the-elite" which, if successful, the elite adopt. Classic "hipsterism."
It also fits in with a lot of local, national, and global politics, market differentiation, etc.
Re: Fashion, art cycles are driven by counter-dominance signals of elite competition
#4Worth a read:
Re: Fashion, art cycles are driven by counter-dominance signals of elite competition
#5I'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…
[deleted]
Re: Fashion, art cycles are driven by counter-dominance signals of elite competition
#6I'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.
Re: Fashion, art cycles are driven by counter-dominance signals of elite competition
#7I'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 (“make agents identify a position and adopt the opposite stance”) that seems to yield interesting early results.
(sorry, nothing concrete to share and likely won’t for a long time)
Re: Fashion, art cycles are driven by counter-dominance signals of elite competition
#8This was a surprisingly good read, even if a bit long.
Their observations align with my own - it's all about standing out. Me different because me better. Or vice versa. Same thing
Re: Fashion, art cycles are driven by counter-dominance signals of elite competition
#9I'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.
Out of curiosity, what did you not like about Bullshit Jobs?
Re: Fashion, art cycles are driven by counter-dominance signals of elite competition
#10Ugh they got j and k mixed up on page 3