Conspicuous consumption, conspicuous knowledge?

Question

the former - consuming to induce envy in others or climb the social ladder. But is there a term for people who gain knowledge specifically to "up their status"?

I know a lot of people that read/educate themselves so they can [clearly] display what they know in social situations, and seemingly for that reason only.

Answer 1

i read/educate myself a lot and i gotta tell you, nothing gives me thumbs down on here faster than stating actual FACTS that people don't know!

such as the fact that european women make 1.1 kids, us 2.1, and muslim women 5.1, meaning what will the majority be in 50 to 100 years if nothing changes? no one likes that fact. they wanna pretend it doesn't exist.

no, anyone who attempts "conspicuous knowledge" will only make themselves less liked. people only like what they agree with (so says 'how to make friends and influnce people') so a new fact -- especially a challenging one --  is by defnintion something they don't already agree with, so they dislike it.

when i have kids, if i have girls that wanna spend all their days putting on makeup and talking about boys, i will say "good!". cuz hair and makeup are actually useful in a girl.

knowledge is a turn-off.

maybe it's different for men, such as bosses who read up on busnessweek and stuff to raise higher among their peers. but i have not found "conspicuous knowledge" to even be possible!

all knowledge is disliked.

that's why villains always use big vocabulary words while heroes are "folksy" -- it's to make you dis-like the villains even more!

now i don't practice "conspicuous consumption", and i hate waste so it just makes me think people are stupid when they pay too much money for something they can get for less, but i see a lot of people who practice it and others who are very impressed by it. conspicuous consumption actually works.

Answer 2

Conspicuous consumption was part of the early 20th century theorist Thorstein Veblen's most popular analysis of American social class. He also talked about conspicuous leisure and conspicuous waste.

He definitely did not discuss conspicuous education, but it's a great idea! You're exactly right, I've observed that a lot, too.  Contrary to what someone else was saying, Veblen's ideas are about emulating the higher class, and they're the ones that value knowledge. And you're talking about abusing knowledge to show off one's elitism, which is exactly what people participating in conspicuous consumption do, too. So it fits right in!

Social scientists are always building upon eachother's work. For example, I know someone working on her PhD and she is adding a tier to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs as part of her dissertation. So if you ever want to use that idea as part of a class analysis, I think it would impress a lot of people!

Are you planning on going to grad school? If not, can I use that someday? :D ...seriously, can I?