What Is Luxury
What does Luxury mean for our psyche?
A question that has been a subject of analysis for many philosophers in the past centuries, but never a systematic field for research. Much more theoretical and scientific effort is invested in other social, aesthetic and cultural phenomena over time, but we hope that is about to change in the upcoming years.
It seems the question is not considered a serious topic? That assessment applies as long as we ignore one small, but noteworthy, exception. The reference is to Albert Görland, a philosopher who was active in Hamburg and published the essay “Über den Begriff des Luxus” [On the Concept of Luxury] in 1926 in the journal Kant-Studien [Kant Studies], in which he aims to provide a systematic and scientific view on the matter.
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Historically, for ancient Egyptians the aesthetic objects, classified as luxurious, were reserved for the Gods, Pharaohs, priests and their families. For ancient Romans their word 'luxuria' was used to describe rebellious living and sinful excess.
But does that matter in our world today?
Implicitly, the idea of Luxury is continuously present in our lives and we attach a personal meaning to it, based on our perceptions and preconditioning.
Some of us still think and consider Luxury as an excessive and unneeded consumption and possession of items, bad taste and ostentatious behaviour. It cannot be denied the luxury lifestyle is often deeply connected with ostentation, still that is a consequence of separate social and psychological factors.
One suggestion for a definition has become famous: It comes from Werner Sombart. The sociologist opens his section “Begriff und Wesen des Luxus” [The Concept and Character of Luxury] from his noted work Luxus und Kapitalismus [Luxury and Capitalism] of 1913, with a perfectly normal definition: “Luxury is any expenditure that exceeds necessity.”
Obviously it pinpoints the “standard” understanding of the idea—and we have to agree with Sombart that this is the sense in which the concept is ordinarily used in everyday speech as well as in scholarly texts. Luxury goods or services are the objects and lifestyles that exceed the usual notions of what is necessary, what is meaningful, what is normal and appropriate—depending on the situation.
“Contexts, cultures and situations may change; what was once a luxury need not always be one. But the following applies in any case: If something is a Luxury in a particular situation, it is because this something is bound up with an exaggerated, extravagant and superfluous effort. In Luxury, notions of what a person actually needs and must have to live are deliberately transgressed. Luxury is consciously extravagant, unrestrained and irrational, and, as such, very definitely always the opposite[…]”
Excerpt From
A Philosophy of Luxury; First Edition
Lambert Wiesing
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Another part of today societies think of a luxurious item as one obliged to satisfy the requirements for beauty for all of its spectators. Consequently, to must receive admiration for its external qualities and match most of the beauty standards.
And of course, some of us today embrace the Luxury in our lives, admire it for its external and/or implicit qualities and seek for realisations of Luxury to some or greater extent.
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We will not dive into the details for judgemental, ostentatious or obsessed behaviour towards Luxury, for these are subjects to deeper social and psychological analysis we intend to describe separately.
For the question “What is Luxury?” seeks for a profound meaning of the concept first and then explore its connections with the expressed behaviour.
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The answer could be given neither scientifically nor in any other way that refers to objective, material facts about luxury possessions and experiences.
If you ask a jeweller to examine a necklace they most certainly would be able to say if it is made of genuine gold - but not to conclude whether it is genuine Luxury.
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Is Luxury something that is necessarily externally perceived as beautiful?
Beauty necessarily touches the subject of self-experience (researched by Friedrich Schiller 1759-1805, Immanuel Kant 1724 - 1804) and realisation and the entire spectrum of behaviours towards the concept of Luxury is indeed contained in the self-expression, as a consequence of self experience and definition of mindset.
According to Immanuel Kant beauty does not depend on its receiver. It is a deep personal and unique experience and multiple levels of admiration in the pleasure of the beautiful object exist.
Beautiful objects deliver experiences of beauty for all contexts in our lives, but are they all luxury?
It would be safe to say that most of the beauty aspects we encounter in life are not necessarily luxurious and beauty admiration has no connection with the experience of something luxurious or ordinary.
As for our consideration, Luxury is something that is experienced.
As a similar psychological process to the enjoyment of beauty and aesthetics, Luxury is experienced on a deep psychological level, entirely depending on existing personal and social beliefs and paradigms in the mind and does not depend on its receiver.
For this is where the concept of Luxury of its provider meets the ability to internally experience it from the standpoint of the receiver.
The above statement automatically unbinds the Luxury from the beauty concept.
No, Luxury does not necessarily equal beauty, for the dependance of the personal view on beauty do not merge with the judgement of Luxury.
We are very likely to consider an item as extreme luxurious, but do not necessarily find it beautiful on the same level, same applying for the opposite views of the two spectrums.
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Is Luxury something that necessarily delivers comfort in the external and practical sense?
Aesthetic views and comfort are interdependently connected in a similar manner as seeing something as comfortable depends on the personal requirements for self and quality of life.
Luxurious items realised with a lesser degree of comfort are more often being judged as extravagant and excessive throughout the years.
A luxurious item is required to bring experience of greater external and internal comfort for the ones who have high appreciation for it. But of course, comfort and practical items can be anything else but luxurious.
In our view, the Luxury true side always brings the highest possible comfort to the receiver.
For delivering the ultimate combination of style, beauty and comfort is the care that the receiver seeks to find.
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Is Luxury something that must be of high quality?
In our view, the quality high standard in a Luxury experience is a non-negotiable. We appreciate that is not always the case for there are high quality items not even considered to be luxurious by the masses, but they are still considered at least more luxurious by the ones who hardly afford quality items and praises quality more than other characteristics.
Quality, unlike beauty and Luxury, can be defined objectively to a much higher level. Quality of item and of a service is easily recognised as a concept, even separately in a psychological manner from Luxury.
One can always say that something is of high quality and be fully conscious of its beauty or luxurious qualities present or absent in their personal viewpoint.
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Is Luxury something that must be expensive?
The question sounds as the most important of all, but is it really?
When we touch the subject of money, we go into the deeper human psychological perception of value, attention to price and self value, all of those connected with social status and beliefs of social proving.
For an item to be of high value, when on the market place - it usually has a higher or the highest price tag. This does not mean it is socially recognisable, for if an object is highly socially recognisable it does not need to be valuable to have the highest price tag at a certain moment.
Social recognition is deeply connected with the subject of money, and it has been such for millenniums. Even though we sometimes consider social status as lacking much objectiveness and meaning today, it is a natural instinctive behaviour in a social group and is expressed on multiple levels and follows certain laws.
Status symbols are the items that are usually considered a Luxury, but form the position of gaining the status which does not always has to do with quality and comfort and are the fastest changing their price.
Still, the most luxurious items today always go beyond the usual story of status symbol and strongly focus on heritage, ultimate quality and long lifetime.
Recognition of that fact clears out the picture we aim to draw, by answering another key question so we can implicitly come to a less relative statement.
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Opinions diverge on the question of whether luxury is to be judged good or bad.
But with respect to the question of the criteria that make it possible for something to be a Luxury in the first place ,there has been no discussion, to say nothing of any articulation of differing philosophical positions that would understand the concept and with it the relevant criteria in entirely different ways.
Something is a Luxury when experienced by someone in a particular way.
This particular way is always personal in terms of the person internal emotional and psychological world but when it comes to intrinsically felt and valued Luxury - we can safely say that this experience is connected with a deep honest appreciation of the qualities brought by it by the individual.
This excludes the matters of ostentation, social acceptance, beauty and quality from the picture and tries to come to a cleaner (even though narrower initial view) of the Luxury - as the experience which brings an honest transformation and positively affects life.
The Ultimate Luxury in that context would be the entire personalised experience according to unique requirements that brings no compromises. This implied the idea of exclusivity. For the most personal and satisfying experience of an item or a service, would be the rarest.
Without people and without views there will be no Luxury.