Status Symbols By Region and Time
What is considered a status symbol will differ among countries and cultural regions, based on their economic and technological development. Highly-valued status symbols may change over time. For example, before the invention of the printing press, possession of a large collection of books was considered a status symbol. After the advent of the printing press, books (and literacy) gradually became more common among average citizens, so the possession of books became less-rarefied as a status symbol. Another common status symbol of the European medieval past was heraldry, a display of one's family name and history. In some past cultures of East Asia, pearls and jade were major status symbols, reserved exclusively for royalty.
Read more about this topic: Status Symbol
Famous quotes containing the words status, symbols, region and/or time:
“The influx of women into paid work and her increased power raise a woman’s aspirations and hopes for equal treatment at home. Her lower wage and status at work and the threat of divorce reduce what she presses for and actually expects.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)
“I do not deny that there may be other well-founded causes for the hatred which various classes feel toward politicians, but the main one seems to me that politicians are symbols of the fact that every class must take every other class into account.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)
“This moment exhibits infinite space, but there is a space also wherein all moments are infinitely exhibited, and the everlasting duration of infinite space is another region and room of joys.”
—Thomas Traherne (1636–1674)
“Man made one grave mistake: in answer to vaguely reformist and humanitarian agitation he admitted women to politics and the professions. The conservatives who saw this as the undermining of our civilization and the end of the state and marriage were right after all; it is time for the demolition to begin.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)