174 notes to pages 50–57
were often executed at the end of a battle, reflecting a sense of moral outrage at
their “barbaric” trade (Strickland 1996 , 181 ).
- For Jervis ( 1989 ) the difference between indexes and signals rests in actors’
ability to manipulate them in order to project a desired image. An index is sup-
posed to be directly related to actors’ capabilities and be difficult or very expen-
sive to manipulate. Hence, indexes tend to be less malleable and more reliable. In
Jervis’s terminology, status symbols that are poor tests of status are signals rather
than indexes. - “The possessors of distinctive properties threatened with popularization
[are forced] to engage in an endless pursuit of new properties through which to
assert their rarity. The demand that is generated by this dialectic is by definition
inexhaustible since the dominated needs which constitute it must endlessly rede-
fine themselves in terms of distinction which always defines itself negatively in re-
lation to them” (Bourdieu 1984 , 251 – 52 ). - These processes are familiar to us from the worlds of fashion and culture.
Following Bourdieu, Trigg ( 2001 ) provides an illustrative example of this dynamic:
“Opera, once the exclusive preserve of the upper classes, has entered into the
realm of popular music. In Europe the three tenors — Domingo, Carreras, and
Pavarotti — sang to sell- out open air shows in the early 1990 s. By the mid- 1990 s,
however, the Sunday Times (April 21 , 1996 ) reported that ‘classical music has be-
come the latest victim of middle- class “culture fatigue” ’ and the ‘loss of inter-
est by those who regard opera as a ladder for social advancement... resulted in
lower classical record sales and declining concert audiences’ ” (Trigg 2001 , 105 ).
In similar fashion, lace ceased to adorn the clothes of the wealthy when industrial
mass production of lace made it affordable to all consumers (Zahavi and Zahavi
1997 , 60 ). - For an economic modeling of these dynamics, see Basu 1989.
- A perception of scarcity is essential for luxury goods. For a review of the
ways in which luxury brands maintain and manufacture a sense of scarcity, see
Catry 2003. - White elephants continue to attract attention in Southeast Asia. Four white
elephants were captured in Burma in 2010 , signaling the beginning of a political
change for many locals. Currently, Thailand has ten white elephants, more than
any time in its history. The reward for the capture of a white elephant cub in the
wild stands at six million baht (Otis 2013 ).
Chapter Three
- Quoted in Padfield 1974 , 159.
- Especially when compared with other alternative modern weaponry that
could support power- projection missions. Some of the current alternatives are