Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
When I came to the US I was struck by the anti-wabi-sabi temporal aesthetics here, revealed especially by car insurance principles, where the goal is to restore a car to brand-new looks regardless of severity of accidents. So well-insured things don’t “age” naturally. They merely start to look unfashionable.
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
In the US, you rarely see vehicles that have been roughly patched up to functional levels. You either see underinsured vehicles that look entirely neglected including barely street-legal dangerous damage OR things that are over-maintained by insurance and/or owners paying out of pocket with an eye on resale
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
The funny thing is that Americans unconsciously bring this ethos to self-presentation as well. Not just affect and deportment (which reveals a youthfulness fetish) but more worryingly, ethical postures. So you get 45-50 year-old people with “mint condition” virtue postures I’d expect to see in an 18-year-old
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
It’s like after every messy life event they go their “ideological insurance provider” and patch themselves up to mint condition. Instead of aging with a visible history of cracks and dents that would signal a mellowing and learning, you get virtue postures that look new but unfashionable
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
I think I prefer things to show their age, with a proof-of-scars auditable history of fundamental structure being tested by experience. I do not like old things in mint condition. Even in museums I prefer to look at somewhat worn things that reveal how the thing aged in its time. Mint condition = stupid condition.
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Brad Lee
@bradlee
This does rhyme similar to the "smooth brain" meme but with car exteriors. Then again brain "wrinkles" aren't physical scars, and learning by experience often are not that "scarring". Uncanny.
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