Veblen was inspired by these anthropologies of what was called the ‘potlatch’: nineteenth-century Pacific Northwest tribal societies in which there would be elaborate feasts, and nobles of tribes would compete with each other to see who could hold a bigger feast, who could waste more food, who could burn more blankets or other kinds of rare goods. And by going through that potlatch ritual a noble could assert his rank. It had lasting consequences: in humiliating a rival, claiming one’s title and gaining respect in the community.

what they say is how they want to be perceived (and perhaps how they want to perceive themselves), but what they do – in the moment – can be very different. So if I’d just done observations, I could have just said that these were clueless rich jerks. And if I’d just done interviews, I would have concluded they were actually very thoughtful, very reflective people who want to be good people.

a liberating, nonjudgmental permissiveness

We’ll settle for electability, for hand sanitizer, for something less than violence in the streets.

He often reminded readers that they were more than individuals; they were, in fact, pieces of a society.

Lavery, who was raised evangelical, is morally firm and comically decisive, chiding and scolding like a fresh-faced Judge Judy. A husband who refuses to use enough soap on the dishes is committing “an insult to your dignity and your personhood,” and a crazed DVD reviewer is “behaving like the majordomo of a small European country on the precipice of World War I.”

Sugar suggested, in the mold of Montaigne—or perhaps psychotherapy—that the solution to your problems lay within you, provided you confront them with honest introspection and brutal clarity, if not the force of revelation. The goal wasn’t proper napkin etiquette or resolving a dispute with your mother-in-law. It was saving your soul.

questionably cute animal videos

Dorset, England