“What IT IS does not mean a lot to me, but what IT REPRESENTS means much more.” – some might find it hard to admit but it is increasingly becoming part of our social norm.
We own a lot of things that have very little use value, but instead have more representational value.
Buying a cellphone and buying the latest cellphone – the first one enables us to communicate our thoughts to others in order to be connected with them, and this is extremely useful, while the second one enables us to communicate our status, taste, wealth, etc.
We buy a house for shelter, but we buy a house in a posh area with more rooms than we need and a garden with pool in order to show our status, taste, wealth, etc…
We buy a car to get from point A to be B but we buy a luxury car with options we barely use just to show our status, taste, wealth, etc…
How useful is representation becoming in today’s society? The more I study it, the more I conclude that it is not becoming more or less useful. Instead, it is gradually sinking into the norm. It is becoming part of human evolution.
I still adhere to the theory – ‘What we do has not changed. Its only how we do that has changed.’ But I think ‘representation’ is one of the core elements that makes up humanity, alongside the need to procreate, eat, survive, find shelter and communicate.
The need to represent establishes one’s difference. It helps someone form their identity. It helps people make sense of who they are in the social context. It enables people to develop a greater aim in life, over and above the basic human aim. It enables people to aspire.
So I do agree that the need to represent can lead people to do ‘extravagant’ things. But I believe that within the human context, representation has enabled us to evolve. It has prevented us from staying in one position, with one way of thinking, and one way of doing things. Representation has generated diversity, plurality, individualism, collectivity, and most importantly, it has created desires to see beyond what is already there.
Representation fuels progress.
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