{"id":2137,"date":"2023-09-16T18:07:59","date_gmt":"2023-09-16T18:07:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/illuminated-text.com\/cb\/?p=2137"},"modified":"2024-02-13T14:45:36","modified_gmt":"2024-02-13T14:45:36","slug":"self-symbolic-consumption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/illuminated-text.com\/cb\/self-symbolic-consumption\/","title":{"rendered":"Self-Symbolic consumption"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(image credit<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An opening note<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Broadly speaking there are two types of theories that try to explain why people get so attached to brands\/possessions\/things. This page describes one of these. Of the two, it is the older, more traditional view, with deep roots running through nearly a century of social scientific thought (i.e., through psychology, sociology, and anthropology).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other type of theory, described on our next page, is much younger, stemming from a psychological understanding of human attachment and social cognition, but it barely has a toehold in the CB literature. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These two types of theories are not in conflict with each other – neither says that the other must be wrong – they just see things from slightly different perspectives, and so tend to notice different things. Which one you might prefer to use in a given situation would probably depend partly on personal preference, and partly on whether the quirks of that situation lend themselves more to one theory or the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you were to read only one, it should probably be this page. Skipping the next one is something you can do if you (and\/or your instructor) want; It would save you a lot of reading and still give you most of the basic insights that you will need. Of course, we invite you to join us on that part of the journey too, as we think the other theory offers fascinating layers of further understanding, and it may well be a more natural frame of understanding for some of you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So… Self-Symbolic consumption?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For such an old and venerable idea, the basic underlying logic is so straightforward that you can break it into 4 simple steps:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Things can be symbols…<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. We can see these symbols as matching (or clashing) with pictures of ourselves that we have in our heads…<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Which makes those pictures feel more (or less) real…<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Which can give us strong feelings (about ourselves and those symbolic things)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Some of you are probably nodding along, as this makes perfect sense to you. If that is you, then this page is going to be a breeze, you lucky duck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Others of you got as far as step 1 and nearly threw your reading device out the window. If that is you, then you were probably having flashbacks to a high school English class in which some poor teacher tried gamely to insist to you that Sherlock Holmes was not, in fact, a detective with a funny hat, but rather was a symbol for something such as the invention of the printing press#up. Having escaped the horrors of being forced to play these silly word games, here you are, many years older and wiser, but still being asked to pretend that your beloved t-shirt is actually a symbol for something. And to make it worse, this time you are being made to play these word games by a supposedly hard-headed business school book! When will these lousy academics ever let you just be a normal person, right?<\/p>\n\n\n

    \n
    #down. Because Holmes and the printing press both overturned proclamations of truth from society's elites (respectively police and religious authorities) by producing flawless reproductions of information from the past (i.e., what the murder had done, vs. having your own copy of previously scarce texts). Plus they both had a shamelessly seedy underbelly (i.e., Holmes using cocaine to keep from being bored, and the press printing all kinds of lurid nonsense). Right??<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
    “Symbols,” you fume, “an ankh is a symbol. Those pictures on bathroom doors, with a cross or an arrow coming out of a circle, those are symbols. My shirt is not a symbol! It is just a sensible but flattering cotton V-neck. Symbolism shmimbolism!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    If this is you then: a) breathe slowly into a paper bag until the flashbacks have passed, and b) buckle in because we’re going to try to win you over to the symbolic side. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
    An impossible task, you say? Of course it is. But trying to convince people that things are symbolic is just what academics do. We can’t help it. But hang in there anyway, because it should be a fun ride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    But really, products as symbols? Just no.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
    Imagine that your friend shows you a present that they have just received. And imagine that the present is this dress:<\/p>\n\n\n
    \n
    \"Flowing
    Beautiful, isn’t it<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
    Now also imagine that this friend is a man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    How are they reacting to this gift?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    There’s a chance that they like it, and would happily wear it in a free and sincere way. If so, then more power to them! They just got something glamorous to wear. What a lucky friend!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    There is a statistically bigger chance, though, that your friend is confused by this gift; perhaps even bewildered or upset by it. So here is our question to you: Why would they feel this way?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Don’t try to dodge the question, now. Don’t just skim ahead and hope someone serves up a ready-made answer for you. You can do this! You can answer it all by yourself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Why might your friend be upset?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Is it because the dress wouldn’t be comfortable? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Don’t be silly. Look at that lovely soft fabric. It’s silk! It’s light, smooth, soft, comfortable, and slightly stretchy (if cut the right way). What is not to like?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Is it because they worry about tripping on the hem? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
    It’s okay, they are allowed to wear it where they won’t be very active. So they should be happy with it then, surely? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
    No?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    So come on then, you give us a better reason!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    When we put this example to live classes, it is usually at about this point that someone says that the friend might be upset “because dresses are what girls wear”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    But why should they be “what girls wear”? Is it because we are afraid that male body parts will fall off without a bit of fabric between one’s legs, holding it all in place?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    a) That’s not how it works (as generations of Scottsmen and their kilts can reassure us). And, b) even if it did, underwear remains legal in all known countries#up.<\/p>\n\n\n
    \n
    #down. Thank goodnes, as it is a critcial staple for the children's jokebook industry. Five year-olds worldwide continue to find underpants inherently hillarious<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
    Let’s be honest with ourselves here: If you stop lots of people on the street, and ask them “who wears dresses?” most of them will say “women”, but there is no logical <\/strong>reason for this. Men are perfectly capable of wearing dresses, and women are perfectly capable of not wearing them. This belief about who wears what is not a statement about the physical laws of the universe, it is just an association that we are taught as part of Western culture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
    The reason this male friend might feel weird about being given a dress is because – let’s say it slowly together – in Western culture, dresses are symbolic<\/strong> of femininity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Let’s go back to the 4 steps we listed above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      \n
    1. Dresses symbolize feminity (in Western culture)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    2. If your friend sees themself as masculine then this symbol will clash with the image he has of himself in his head<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    3. Wearing the dress would make that image of himself as masculine feel less real<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    4. He wouldn’t like feeling that way, so he sees the dress as a no-good, bad, terrible gift<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
      So… Maybe symbolism? Just a little bit?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Here’s another observation for you:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      When archaeologists travel the world finding ancient graves, it’s not uncommon for them to discover grave goods <\/span>. Like these ones from the tomb of a King of Han State in China (375-230 BCE):<\/p>\n\n\n
      \n
      \"4
      (credit<\/a>)
      The       gallery<\/a> of photos from that excavation is also fascinating (trigger warning: images of skeletons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
      Now you might see this as a strange thing to do (why bury a perfectly good pot with your dead king?)… But is it really?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Think about it. Some day somebody important to you is going to die (death being an inevitable part of life). When that sad day comes, the logical thing for you to do would be to dump their body into its grave naked. Or, if you have to put something on them, you would put on their old raggy shirt with holes in it that nobody would want any more. Why waste good clothes? But the symbolic thing to do would be to bury (or cremate, or compost<\/a>) them in their best clothes. After all, you love and respect this person, you want them to be dignified in death, and their best clothes represent their dignity better than their worst clothes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      So what is it going to be? The heartless logical cheap option, or the human, loving one? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
      You know the answer, you shameless symboliser!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Is there an example that isn’t clothes?<\/h5>
      \n
      Sure.<\/p>\n\n\n
      \n
      \"Someone's
      A brand new Apple tattoo (credit<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
      To really get the full impact of this one, you have to think about what a tattoo is. You can’t just draw one on your skin with a permanent marker, because the outer layer of your skin is dead and is flaking off continually (strange but true!). The skin cells that your marker stained will be gone in a week or two, and your image will fade to nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      If you want the image to be permanent, you need to get the ink underneath your skin. The way we do that is to jab a little needle through it, to deposit a little drop of ink. If you do that once you have a tattoo that is just one tiny do. To get a proper tattoo, you have to stick the needle through your skin over and over, many times, through every square millimetre of your tattoo. And yes, that hurts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
      If you click on the credit link for the tattoo picture above, you can see a gallery with a whole sequence of the tattoo being inked with a needle gun, and the bandage they put on to keep it clean while it healed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      So the person in this picture went to a lot of painful trouble and expense to get a brand symbol, literally injected through their skin and into their body. Now that is attachment!<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
      What does “symbolism” even mean?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
      We tend to imagine symbols as weird occult things, that are possibly carved into something that used to be alive. They can be that, but they are also ordinary things that we use all the time. Symbols are just how we use a specific thing to point towards an abstract category. That probably sounds confusing, but think of it this way: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
      If it rains on your cat, then it either finds a place that it has learned is dry (like your living room), or it turns into a soggy kitty. When you are the one who gets rained on, though, you can be a lot more flexible in the way you solve the don’t-want-to-get-soggy problem: You can search around for any number of things that fit your abstract concept of ‘shelter’ – maybe a tree, maybe an umbrella, maybe a house. Your concept of shelter isn’t limited to the specific rain-blocking-thing that you first discovered, but abstracts outwards to cover any type of object that blocks rain. That flexibility is what makes abstraction so useful and explains why humans bothered to get so good at it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Symbolism is basically this same process except going backwards. Instead of starting with the abstract thing and looking for an instance (i.e., “We need shelter… wait, there’s a tent in my bag”), it starts with a specific instance and uses it to represent the abstraction (e.g., “look there’s an umbrella logo on that sign. I bet it’s pointing at shelter” or “look he’s wearing a biker jacket and has a tattoo of a skull on his neck, maybe let’s not debate umbrella etiquette with him”). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Or, if you want it in slightly different words the dictionary says<\/a> that a symbol is “1. something that is used to represent a quality or idea… 3. An object can be described as a symbol of something else if it seems to represent it because it is connected with it in a lot of people’s minds”. So, per their first definition, an umbrella logo represents the idea of shelter, and per their second definition, biker jackets are connected in many people’s minds with low thresholds for the use of violence (just as a limousine is connected in people’s minds with the idea of wealth).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      As we say, symbolism is something we use all the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Remember our drill example?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
      This one:<\/p>\n\n\n
      \n
      \"A
      Our old friend, the drill<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
      If you recall, we asked why people buy it, and decided that it was because they wanted holes. Then, a chapter later we decided that this was lies-to-children, and changed our minds. People really buy it because they have goals. And that’s a fine answer. But maybe… it, too, is just another layer of lies-to-children?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Look. We all know someone who is not a professional builder, and yet who has a garage full of tools, all hung neatly on little hooks. Some of these tools have been used quite a bit, and some of them have barely been touched, but this person is fiercely (if quietly) proud of the lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Why might this be?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      It is possible that they have accumulated these tools because every time they run into some small household task they find some new perfect tool that they just need to fix it. It is possible indeed, but a) you can fix an awful lot of stuff with a surprisingly small set of tools (given a little ingenuity), and b) the description above says that they are proud of these tools. Pride implies something a little emotionally deeper than just a pile of stuff left over from old goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      So, really, what is going on?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Here’s our answer – but see if you can’t work it out for yourself first<\/h5>
      \n
      Maybe this person has an image in his head (it doesn’t have to be a ‘he’, but, let’s face it: in this particular situation it usually is), and that image is of someone who can hammer an entire house into existence: <\/p>\n\n\n
      \n
      \"A
      “This nail gun is great for framing where everything will be hidden inside walls, but I’ve got a smaller one for bradding nails in the cabinetry” (credit<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
      He sees himself as someone who can figure out why your lights aren’t turning on, and then pull as many wires out the wall as are necessary to get them back on again:<\/p>\n\n\n
      \n
      \"Man
      “It just needs patching into the mains loop” (credit<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
      He enjoys the idea of smashing out that old concrete patio, and then patching holes in walls so that nobody would ever know they used to be there:<\/p>\n\n\n
      \n
      \"Serious
      “This’ll go through 2 inches of rebar like it’s nothing” (iStock)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
      Why? If you ask him he’ll tell you that it’s because this tool will cut X, and that tool will make a hole in Y, but there’s a bigger pattern here than just someone who happened to need to cut an X and perforate a Y. That cutting and drilling is in service of an image that exists at a higher (and very flexible) level of abstraction: It’s the image of someone who is a hands-on, tough, can-do fella#up.<\/p>\n\n\n
      \n
      #down. As we say, it's usually a guy, BUT humanity is a wonderfully diverse species. While there is some statistical truth to a lot of generalizations about different groups, people sometimes forget that these are only statistical trends and make the mistake of pinning them onto any one given person. So while men (as a group) may indeed tend to have more interested in tools than women (as a group), any one man or woman can have any relationship with tools that they like. And they do, dear reader, they do<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
      For the sake of completeness, let’s connect this observation to what we learned in Chapter 1: This handy-person self-image lends these people’s tool collections an extra added core benefit beyond their ability to cut timbers straight. It helps them feel like they really are the practical can-do fixer, whom they imagine themselves to be. Their tools help make this vision feel real, and they love them for that.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
      So, symbolism does seem to be a thing that we do, after all. Who knew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Your old high school English teacher did, that's who. You owe them a mental apology for not being the cogito ergo minus#up that you had assumed.<\/pre>\n\n\n
      \n
      #down.  One who knows less every time they think. \nThat's a nerd joke<\/a> \n(this is the problem with us dusty old academics: We make one good point then get so carrired away we ruin it all)<\/pre>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n
      Symbolic products: An FAQ<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
      Is everything symbolic?<\/h5>
      \n
      No, not everything. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
      What does your computer mouse mean? How about the loaf of white bread in your cupboard? Or that drawer of random stuff in your kitchen (everyone has one)? They don’t mean much, right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Some kinds of products do seem to draw symbolic value more often than others. We tend to be quicker to see meaning in things that are used close to our bodies (e.g., clothing, accessories, foods and drinks), and also things that we are seen using in public (e.g., vehicles, houses). But even within those categories, there is much variance. For instance, people seem generally quite receptive to reading meaning into alcoholic drinks – what is your image of someone who drinks craft-brew beer vs. white wine vs. tumblers of whisky on the rocks? You probably have notions about who those people would be demographically and what they would be like to talk to. But people seem far less prone to reading meaning into which kind of sweets\/candy you like – do you have an image of a Skittles person vs. a Mars bar person? Probably not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Why do those things, in particular, attract meaning more easily than others? We are honestly mystified by the alcohol vs. sweets one, but some of the other differences do start to make some sense when you learn a little more about how symbolism and identity work. So how about you finish reading this page (and maybe the next one too) and then come back to this accordion box to see if you have any new ideas about what these patterns might mean? <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
      Isn’t symbolism very subjective?<\/h5>
      \n
      It absolutely is!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Consider this picture:<\/p>\n\n\n
      \n
      \"Tiny
      (credit<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
      Different people might see this dog-in-a-cup as symbolic of:<\/p>\n\n\n\n