A response to the crisis: luxury
The crisis our societies are going through is typically reduced to its economic or financial dimension, as the term used in English to refer to it (« recession ») suggests. Whether out of intellectual laziness or moral conformism, what is only an effect thus comes to be considered as the primary and final cause.
Interestingly, luxury, non-essentials, and surplus are showing unexpected strength in these times of « So-called Economic Crisis » (SEC). Ethnologists have pointed this out before: there are moments when « loss, » « expense, » « extravagance » keep societies together. To which popular wisdom answers back, « Losers will be winners! »
Let us remember that luxury does not simply amount to « lust. » The etymology of the word also relates it to « luxation, » i.e., what is not functional. A « luxated » limb is idle. It has no more use.
This « price of priceless things, » the foundation of post-modernity, will be the topic of the next « Call to Imagination » hosted by Michel Maffesoli, with philosopher Rosi Braidotti (University of Utrecht) and researcher Vincenzo Susca (CEAQ – Centre d’études de l’actuel et du quotidien, Université La Sorbonne – Paris V).