Amanda, I'm curious as to whether Julia is accurately restating your idea as "the movement may just be a repackaged brand of conspicuous consumption." If not, I apologize for getting this Veblen skepticism off my chest on your paper page and I definitely look forward to reading your take.

"Green" is definitely fashionable lately, but that's a broad brush with which to tar the environmental movement. There are certainly still (less commercially-successful) parts of the movement which don't emit clouds of smug.

More broadly: Veblen is bombastic and exciting to read, but once he's brought out the shiny hammers of conspicuous leisure and consumption everything starts to look like a nail. This isn't exactly an original thought.

Maybe the environmental movement, in general, if there is such a thing, is just an environmental movement. Maybe there's self-interest or at least self-congratulation at work, on some level, but we already buried that discussion.

Maybe (at least some) higher learning is for the sake of learning, for the sake of gaining a qualification, or for some other less exciting purpose than showing off.

As I read your possible topic, though, the environmental movement itself isn't necessarily a conspicuous anything, but it might thrive only because of its attachment to conspicuous new offices and Priuses and fair-trade venti soy lattes.

-- DanielHarris - 27 Mar 2008