Finer shades of advertising

This is genius. It is hard to understand the real meaning of these advertisings if you are not familiar with the concept. You change after watching them, associating finer shades of basic values with the brand. It is all very ambiguous, very delicate. Never direct or overbearing. Leaving things, not finishing, giving space for interpretation. Yet it all brings you back to some core values shared by an idea.
It is as close to luxury as one can get. Yet the bags lose their meaning for social diversification in Japan and instead become a symbol of counter-downward mobility, meaning the loss of an alternative style that allows you to downscale. Changed recently, in 2008. Aspects still remaining.

The nature of social order and luxury consumption

Some quotes from texts (in the semiotic sense, if you wish to include Derrida) that I am working with that seem to have a high relevance to the research of the concept of luxury. Please excuse the somewhat random quotations. It is brainstorming.

"At its broadest, my investigation and analysis of luxury is undertaken because the topic provides an illuminating entrée into a basic political issue, namely, the nature of social order. That issue is itself clearly very general and what makes luxury so potentionally illuminating is that it, as a topic, straddles various academic disciplines, bringing together issues of philosophy, history, anthropology, theology and economics as well as politics. [... in its own way, luxury] acts as a barometer of the movement from classical and medieval world-view to that of modernity." [Berry, Christopher J. (1994): The idea of luxury: a conceptual and historical investigation, Melbourne, Cambridge University Press]

It is the social structure of Japan that undergoes changes that affect the luxury world market like no other country. Let's start with Kant's critique of judgement and the French response to it by [...] "seeking in the structure if the social classes the basis of the systems of classification which structure perception of the social world and designate the objects of aesthetic enjoyment." [in Bourdieu, Pierre (1984): Distinction. A social critique of the judgement of taste, Cambridge, Harvard University Press] Bourdieu goes on ... "as I try to show, the mode of expression characteristic of a cultural production always depends on the laws of the market in which it is offered. [... it is therefore necessary, what Boudeiu does, to ...] transgress on of the fundamental taboos of the intellectual world, in relating intellectual products and producers to their social conditions of existence [...] [p.xiii]"

I like his style, especially his "Likewise, the style of the book, whose long, complex sentences may offend--constructed as they are with a view to reconstituting the complexity of the social world in a language capable of holding together the most diverse things while setting them in rigorous perspective-- [...] to prevent the reading from slipping back into the simplicities of the smart essay or the political polemic." [p. xiii]

If you want to go deeper, check Merton's theory of dysfunctions. Merton emphasizes the existence of dysfunctions. He thinks that some things may have consequences that are generally dysfunctional or which are dysfunctional for some and functional for others. On this point he approaches conflict theory, although he does believe that institutions and values can be functional for society as a whole. Merton states that only by recognizing the dysfunctional aspects of institutions, can we explain the development and persistence of alternatives. Merton’s concept of dysfunctions is also central to his argument that functionalism is not essentially conservative.

What about trying to take this concept of dysfunctions into consumer behavior analysis by emphasizing the dysfunctions of social gratification systems (in themselves prone to lean towards complex theories) and consumption as a way to elude those complex dysfunctions, a so to speak, market-based correction of the delay of the adaptation of social gratification systems. No society can reform its education system in one day, and even so, the effects could only be seen in ten or more years. Consumption shows immediate effects. The connection to Merton might not seem obvious, but maybe might lead to some substantial thought experiments. Try to go for Beaudrillard with "The intelligence of evil" or back to "Simulations". I am not sure whether these connections will hold, but its worth trying. I definitely think that Foucaults power relations offer a somewhat limited point of view, and that Beaudrillard might be more important than I thought. Any comments?

Again, apologies for the random thoughts. Criticism is welcome.