The theory about designer brands as sexual display does not, if I understood codemonkey_uk correctly, attempt to explain the specific car-purchasing strategy of each individual slashdotter, so it's not really _that_ interesting how fast your car can do zero to sixty(unless for some reason you would like us to know). Instead it introduces the possibility that there might be some relatedness between the peacock male strategy; "look at my fancy tail, I can afford it, ain't I somebody?", and the human strategy "look at my fancy shirt, I can afford it, ain't I somebody?". The theory is a simplyfied one, and is of course not meant to provide a nice and easy 'the whole truth and nothing but the truth' explanation to this phenomenon. It can thus easily be used in addition to other explanations like psychological mechanisms prompting people to do so and so (purchasing identity/self esteem etc). Also, it is not all about sex, it's about achieving some sort of rank with the people you encounter and the people you associate with.
When it comes to the depth of this explanation, I wonder at why you say that a psycological explanation is deeper than a biological explanation. Wouldn't you say that behavior imposed on us by our instincts and hormones is deeper rooted in our brains than behavior imposed on us by society?
Slashdot Mirror
The theory about designer brands as sexual display does not, if I understood codemonkey_uk correctly, attempt to explain the specific car-purchasing strategy of each individual slashdotter, so it's not really _that_ interesting how fast your car can do zero to sixty(unless for some reason you would like us to know). Instead it introduces the possibility that there might be some relatedness between the peacock male strategy; "look at my fancy tail, I can afford it, ain't I somebody?", and the human strategy "look at my fancy shirt, I can afford it, ain't I somebody?". The theory is a simplyfied one, and is of course not meant to provide a nice and easy 'the whole truth and nothing but the truth' explanation to this phenomenon. It can thus easily be used in addition to other explanations like psychological mechanisms prompting people to do so and so (purchasing identity/self esteem etc). Also, it is not all about sex, it's about achieving some sort of rank with the people you encounter and the people you associate with.
When it comes to the depth of this explanation, I wonder at why you say that a psycological explanation is deeper than a biological explanation. Wouldn't you say that behavior imposed on us by our instincts and hormones is deeper rooted in our brains than behavior imposed on us by society?
-thomax