Around 2014, in Bangladesh, a special type of dress worn by an actress became very popular and there were three suicide cases reported saying young girls committing suicide because they could not afford to or at least manage to buy that dress that year.1 A woman divorced her husband because of the fight over this dress. This is not a rare scenario nowadays all over the world. A young girl cries when she cannot buy the dresses of the latest fashion, many teenagers fall into depression for not being able to ‘catch up’ with the latest gadgets. Human keeps losing freedom and control over their wants. Suicide rates among teenagers are higher now than before. They feel like it is the end of the earth when they cannot buy tickets for their favourite concert. Apparently, the ticket is worth more than the actual valuables he actually has.
Veblen Good is an example of how money can work as a social symbol. Veblen goods refer to luxurious products whose value is determined by the symbol they carry and not their utility. For instance, the purpose of a car is to travel. Nobody needs a Ferrari or Ford car in particular for travelling. However, a person will buy a Ford car just to show the class and status he belongs to. Even though he does not truly need it, he will do it because he needs the symbol. A mere commodity is now a need. Georg Simmel explained it with much more extensive details. A person loses his freedom in choosing things. He becomes dependent on commodities that he may or may not need. Gadgets, any type of products, modes of communication- everything becomes an inevitable need.
Simmel’s explanation of the changes in people’s mindset explains the breakage of values and norms in postmodern society. This explanation can also help to expand the study of Durkheim’s suicide as a social fact. Humans are losing autonomy over their will. Simmel calls it a tragedy of culture. Like Max Webber argued how human-created their own iron cages, Simmel’s arguments on the tragedy of culture also conclude that humans’ own inventions and produced goods have trapped them under a cloak- like self imprisonment.
samha's table 