The sociological and economic concept of "prestige".

College Search & Lists
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<p>From an article about Jean Baudrillard:
<a href=“http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/essays/baudrillard.pdf[/url]”>http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/essays/baudrillard.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>“Sign Value” as opposed to “use value” and “exchange value”</p>

<p>Helps explain why Ivies are sought-after but doesn’t completely explain their appeal because Ivies also have “use value”.</p>

<p>“The result was the now familiar consumer society which provided the main focus of
Baudrillard’s early work. In this society, advertising, packaging, display, fashion, “emancipated”
sexuality, mass media and culture, and the proliferation of commodities multiplied the quantity of
signs and spectacles, and produced a proliferation of “sign-value.” Henceforth, Baudrillard claims,
commodities are not merely to be characterized by use-value and exchange value, as in Marx’s
theory of the commodity, but sign-value – the expression and mark of style, prestige, luxury,
power, and so on – becomes an increasingly important part of the commodity and consumption.
From this perspective, Baudrillard claims that commodities are bought and displayed as
much for their sign-value as their use-value, and that the phenomenon of sign-value has become
an essential constituent of the commodity and consumption in the consumer society. This
position was influenced by Veblen’s notion of “conspicuous consumption” and display of
commodities analyzed in his Theory of the Leisure Class which Baudrillard argued has become
extended to everyone in the consumer society. For Baudrillard, the entire society is organized
around consumption and display of commodities through which individuals gain prestige,
identity, and standing. In this system, the more prestigious one’s commodities (houses, cars,
clothes, and so on), the higher one’s standing in the realm of sign value. Thus, just as words take
on meaning according to their position in a differential system of language, so sign values take on
meaning according to their place in a differential system of prestige and status.”</p>

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<p>You’ve forgotten that the uber-prestigious / the uber-elite don’t particularly need to display those signs, nor do they care about what the masses think, and in fact there is an elitism in the sense of the secret handshake or the only-those-in-the-know-know-about-this. Being an obvious striver for social acceptance is the opposite of elite.</p>

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<p>^ That must be why the uber-elite live in modest ranch houses and drive Yugos.</p>

<p>Personally, I am not impressed by conspicuous consumption of cars, homes, clothes, boats, and so on. But, I am impressed by prestigious colleges because I think they actually signify something admirable about the people who attend them.</p>

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<p>I prefer to be impressed by actual people, not the names on their diplomas.
I know a Harvard MBA who, sadly, molested his adopted daughter. Big whoops that he went to Harvard.</p>