Conceptual Inflation

Recently (more than 6 months ago), my dad emailed the family an article as is customary. This article continued an old series of dinner table conversations about the value of buying things vs. experiences. If you weren’t there, I’ll catch you up. Because of innate human stupidity, you think having stuff will make you happy. Let’s just randomly use the example of the board game Gobblet. You think that having it will make you really happy, and maybe it does for the first few days, but then eventually you get tired of it. Then you feel doubly bad. You didn’t like it as much as you thought you would, and you feel guilty for begging your mom to get it at the yard sale.

Better to invest in experiences, so the story goes. Experiences lead to long-lasting happiness. (Incidentally, we also had experiences at home. Experiences like getting crushed at Monopoly.) Good experiences fade into fond memories; bad experiences turn into good stories, and neither taunt you from the bottom of the game shelf.

This story and its many variants have found themselves on the other side of the sausage machine packaged up into the neat little saying (axiom, advice, phrase, truism?): “Buy experiences, not things”. It’s a bit odd as far as advice goes because it doesn’t tell you why–what the consequences of buying experiences or things would be. Buy experiences and you stop being the same sade you? Buy experiences and feel superior to all those thing-owning losers?

So when Harold Lee says, “Buy things, not experiences” it’s hard to tell what he’s disagreeing with. His arguments are that, (a) there’s no clear boundary between things and experiences, (b) people use the phrase to justify living in expensive cities and consuming expensive, conspicuous experiences, and (c) real estate, education, and healthcare costs are way out of control.

At first, it was hard for me to articulate my objection to the piece (although I knew I must have one because my dad sent it). I don’t dispute any of the author’s central claims. In fact, I don’t think he takes (a) far enough. He gives examples of “experience-like things” and “thing-like experiences”–carpentry tools and an “Instagrammable” vacation. When I think about it, it’s hard to come up with any things that aren’t intrinsically linked with experience. Even things like decor or status symbols are their own experiences. (Experiences like “I love looking at my tasteful vase” or “I respect you so much for wearing that brand”.) The other direction is more tenuous. I don’t buy that any experience is secretly a thing, although I must admit that certain experiences are more materialistic than others. Going to see the Mona Lisa comes to mind. Or ticking books off your Goodreads list.

(b) seems more a matter of taste. I like my expensive city, and Lee likes his workshop. (I’m not exactly sure what to make of the minimalism as conspicuous consumption point. I agree that a certain form of minimalism is a luxury. Buying less stuff or higher quality is not possible for everyone. At the same time, richer people have better access to both things and experiences almost by definition. If the middle class is trying to differentiate itself from anyone, it’s the super-wealthy. They might not have money, but at least they have taste, know what really matters in life, etc. They eschew material possessions in a sort of reverse barbershop pole of fashion.

(c) may be true, but it’s kind of a stretch to attribute it to this old saw.

What bothers me about the essay has little to do with the quality of the arguments but rather that it positions itself as a sort of “turns out” It promises enlightment above what the average, educated person believes. It does with intellectual materialism exactly what it accuses minimalists of doing to materials: Now that everyone knows about “buying experiences; not things”, let’s denigrate it. I hear Sylvester McMonkey McBean is serving up a hot new adage: “Buy things; not experiences”!

The weird part about worshipping your own intellect is that while it can get you closer to the truth, it doesn’t have to. If the dull masses already believe something simple and true, no matter how uncomfortable it makes you to agree with them, you won’t get more correct by believing the opposite no matter how well argued.