The theme of this reading is that of society and how it affects the social status and wealth of the different social classes. Thorstein Veblen feels that people find importance in looking like they have some amount of money in order to have an “acceptable” reputation and feel like by doing so they are put up to a higher social status amongst others. Thorstein expresses that it is only when you have practically nothing left (including food and money) that people will stop focusing on materialistic things and social status know they have to fight to survive another day or week where other things are at stake. Things like family, enough food, or their house, or job. Although because some families have to deal with that poverty, there are still standards that they tend to live by like as Thorstein said, “Conspicuous Consumption”. They try to make the best they can so that for example, a wife who is in charge of house decor may try and make the house look really nice to try to cover up poverty and make themselves have a better reputation.
Several things that came to mind when I read this. Well, first of all, this reading was kinda long so it took me a little while to really grasp it but I realized that Thorstein really focuses on a disturbingly realistic principle that you're reputation and status in the community is decided by how much time you waste on materialistic items and “free time”. I guess I never really thought about how much people rely on reputation and advancement of technology to where they are almost obsessive and miss out on so much in life. I also found out that “Conspicuous Consumption” is that of spending on goods and services for the purpose of public expressing or showing your wealth. Which is all done to maintain an expected or desired social status. This whole concept came during the time of the Industrial Revolution and how it enabled the middle class to have good jobs which led to a decent, consistent income and people felt it was necessary to show off their wealth due to this occurrence.
After reading this I noticed how he mentioned that even the lower middle class families still find it necessary to gain acceptance of others and almost trick the people around them into seeing that they are of wealthy standards. This is very interesting because no matter what social class you are in, there will always be that “need” to maintain a good reputation and high wealth standards.
Reading this story makes me think about how much time we as a society really waste on nonsense things. It’s also crazy how people have it in their minds that you have to look like or show that you have some sort of wealth and are so consumed by “things” in this world rather than just life. This leads to so much more too, like this is part of the reason why there is so much judgement in our world today, people judge others based on society’s standards which isn’t fair or right. People judge others and make assumptions because of what job they may have, clothes they wear, where they live, the kind of car you have; and a lot of this is for self esteem so that you feel almost “better” than others. I see this all of the time, and after reading this I realized i have done some of those things before, but as a Christian its so difficult to see that people are doing the opposite of what Christ calls us to do. We are supposed to set aside worldly desires and yearn for eternity and put others before ourselves and not get wrapped up in materialistic items but instead turn to God and follow HIS will for our lives. People who are well off and have much wealth see there to be no reason to because they think they have it all together, and then people who are not doing well financially feel like there is no use because they feel that they can’t believe in God when all they have is nothing, so it’s like where can and how can we get people to a point were they realize that all the need is God and that whats most important in this world is what God thinks and how their heart is, not what objects they possess or the money they have. Most of what i just said was more of how i felt and my analysis of what was going through my head when i read this. It is easier said than done, but a great thing to think about for sure.
This reading relates to the text because the book talks about many different societies during different time periods, especially that of the early 20th century.
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