Elites flaunt status by absorbing the cost of norm-breaking disapproval.
Evidence
The final cost is norm breaking. As we learned in the last chapter, breaking a convention leads to social disapproval. Using their leeway to be different, elites can more easily pay the costs of social disapproval. Arthur Capel, Coco Chanel’s wealthy lover, dined in elegant restaurants wearing a casual sports jacket rather than a formal dinner jacket “because it pleased him to give an impression of strength and rudeness.” — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 217
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the complaint-about-immodesty moral panics: both show norm violations functioning as elite class markers and signaling. — connects to: Status signals require costly barriers that elites can pay with ease — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 213; Elites gain status through effortless inherited cues while others must craft personas — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 286; Aspirants to higher status distinguish themselves via group-approved performance to avoid sanctions for norm-breaking — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 170 (+5 more)
Broader Connections
- Quiet luxury signals elite status through banal expensive clothing
#exemplifies(0.78) — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 651 - Elites gain status through effortless inherited cues while others must craft personas
#complicates(0.75) — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 286 - Elites resist cooperating with outcast parties because reputation costs weigh on them, not voters
#exemplifies(0.74) — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 1434 - Aspirants to higher status distinguish themselves via group-approved performance to avoid sanctions for norm-breaking
#contradicts(0.72) — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 170 - Costly norm enforcement by unaffected bystanders reveals strong reciprocity.
#qualifies(0.72) — Ernst Fehr, Third-Party Punishment and Social Norms, 2