My grandfather wasn't nagged. Once he turned 21, he was a man, and a grown-up, and nobody battered him round the clock with opportunities he was missing, miseries he didn't know he had, aspirations ditto, inadequacies doubly so.
Nobody told him about being good in bed, grooming tips, what his car said about him, what he should have to eat, how much he should drink, what his house said about him, how Benares brassware was so over, where he should go on holiday, what this season's must-have product would be, how his suits should look.
He knew some of these things, and didn't care about the others because nobody was drawing them to his attention. He knew what his suits should look like: trousers, waistcoat, jacket, all made out of the same material.
He knew about grooming: you shaved. He knew what he should eat: breakfast, lunch, dinner. He probably had no idea that good-in-bed even existed, or that furniture did anything except furnish, or that where he went on holiday was of any significance, or that his car said anything about him at all, except 'Oh, here comes Dr Bywater, I recognise his car.'
But the Big Babies have no such autonomy, and are harangued to death; nor have they learned the adult trick of simply ignoring the fishwife-and-huckster voices. Instead, Baby tries to comply.
Believing it when he is told that he is unhappy, he then believes the cure the same fishwives and hucksters proceed to offer.
The house, the furniture, the car, the exotic holidays, the new wines to try, the squid and worms and foreign muck cooked in jam with the gravy underneath the meat, the peculiar vegetables like weeds or tumours, best thrown away; the uncomfortable places to go, the uncomfortable ways to get to them ('Travel the Amazon on anaconda-back'), the uncomfortable and dismaying sex ('Do we have to do buggery?'), the uncomfortable and dismaying life, funded on credit, built on debt, Carol Vorderman smiling as the bailiffs home in and the Official Receiver prepares for another day's official receiving.
And it is all a world of make-believe, a set of status symbols notable only for symbolising someone else's status.
In my experience, if you are a person who emphasizes utility over "Platonic form-esque status-ery," you are considered an eccentric oddity.
"What? Your furniture doesn't match? You didn't orchestrate your furniture lanscape with the help of a feng shui engineer at Trendy McExpensiveAndArtsy?"
I had an acquaintance who took a job peddling medical equipment to doctors (or something like that), and her employer offered to subsidize the purchase of a new car for her just so she would be driving a BMW or equally status-y automobile because apparently her employer assumed the medical clientele would be more apt to take a liking to persons who drove nicer, flashier cars. My friends all nodded in normalcy and offered advice to her on what car to buy.
This is what has become normal?
Comments
Halfway there and yet so far away...
Utility is contingent. Yes, you should always try to understand why you want what you want, it is better to be self-aware than to allow others to lead you by the nose; this does not mean that trendy is bad, nor that "foreign muck" is awful, or that anyone can truly tell you what "utility" is; it bespeaks your own priorities.
Only someone with a keen sense of irony or no intellectual depth whatsoever would write such a paean to rational autonomy, only to decend into reflexive rejection of (whatever they dislike). In that the targets were expensive objects solely suggests some sort of financial insecurity. Grown-ups ignore those sorts of people.
Choose what you will, for your own reasons. If others are shallow, and impressing them provides you utility (career advancement, money, fun, amusement, attractive members of your chosen target gender who are... pneumatic..., etc) then go with the impressive choice. If your style selects something that happens to be the flavour of the month, surely only a twit would eschew their own choice out of a need to conform to non-conformity.
Frankly, if "Platonic form-esque status-ery" amuses you, regard with humorous condescention anyone who purports their priorities and aesthetic preferences to be the universal definition of "utility" and derides those who don't share it.
After all, they are children.