Gilles Lipovetsky (Millau, 79 years old) has little interest in luxury. He says it immediately, in the spacious living room of his apartment in Grenoble, with a view of the city and the Alps. But at the same time he is passionate about it. “In all my youth I had neither a room nor a bathroom,” says the French thinker. “That’s probably why the lack of luxury doesn’t bother me. “I can live without him.” Yes, you can live without him. But not without thinking about him. Not without doing what he’s done all his life. Focus your finely tuned radar not on the past, but on the world in which you lived. Observe. Capture the flair of the time. And luxury does not explain our times, as we will discover in conversation; It also explains humanity.
The author lives physically and intellectually in a place that at first glance seems unlikely: an eccentric neighborhood and city, far removed from the elite of Parisian intellectuality. At the same time, it is a suitable environment for a man – he is portrayed as a sociologist and philosopher; In reality he is a humanist or a cartographer of his time – thinking at his own pace and against his own pace. In his work he analyzes the profound changes in our societies since “The Age of the Void” defined a whole era and up to his last essay “Le nouvel âge du kitsch” (The New Age of Kitsch), which he wrote together with Jean Serroy wrote and most recently published Spring in France. On March 20, 2024, Anagrama will release “The Consecration of Authenticity,” which went on sale in France in 2021.
Lipovetsky, co-author of Eternal Luxury, grew up in a humble immigrant family. Eastern European Jews on his father’s side. For the mother, Italian. But he is the son and a perfect incarnation of the secular and republican, inclusive France, the enlightened France that did not even think about whether it belonged to a community, nor lost sleep over its identity, nor cared too much about it. They were different times. He was never interested in exploring the origins or claiming them for himself. And he says it bluntly: “I am interested in the present and the future. The past, no. Absolutely.” There is no better cover letter.
A few years ago you wrote: “I have no particular preference for luxury.” Should we believe him?
Yes, really. None.
Really?
My view of luxury is external.
You certainly have luxury.
No no. I am, to put it modestly, an intellectual. What interests me most is making books and thinking. The Greeks, and especially Aristotle, believed that thinking was the pinnacle of happiness and that the contemplative life enabled man to reach his highest point because he was a thinking being. In modern and materialistic societies, we view material wealth as a gateway to well-being. But I, for one, find infinitely more happiness and personal satisfaction when I understand the curiosities, contradictions and excesses of the world. It has never ceased to fascinate me. It’s infinite. Thought knows no boundaries, but the relationship to material things does. I could buy suits from, what do I know, Armani, but after a few suits, what? I won’t have a hundred either. Understanding is difficult, sometimes depressing because we cannot find the key, but at the same time it brings many satisfactions and fulfills life. It makes for a rich life, not in the sense of luxury, but rich within. It’s not that I have an ascetic will, but I’m not interested in luxury, I don’t care.
And yet he is passionate about this subject.
It’s almost a paradox. But I think it’s good not to be totally attached to what we study. In this case, I’m looking at it more from the outside, more compassionately, because as you know, and I’ve been criticized for this, I’m not an apocalyptic thinker. I am a Spinozist and Hegelian. I want to understand. For me, intellectual life does not consist of judging or denouncing, but above all in understanding. Intellectuals denounce neoliberalism, capitalism, consumerism, globalization and artificial intelligence. It seems that criticism is a sign of good thinking. I have doubts about that. I believe that the task of a philosopher is cartography and radiography. Fix the anatomy of our world, how it works. Criticism can be expressed for the second time, and it must be expressed, but on the condition that things have been expressed well beforehand. What happens is that when it is described well, there is usually no Manichaeism.
With luxury, for example?
Yes. There are times when it is difficult to accept it because there is immorality in it. But if we distance ourselves, should we throw everything into the sea? Shouldn’t it exist?
It’s not your position.
No. But not for moral reasons. Luxury is not justified on moral grounds. But morals are not everything in life.
Why is luxury not morally justified?
You go to a luxury hotel and pay 4,000 euros per night. There are now homeless people. Some have too much and others not enough. Some don’t know what to do with their money, others don’t have the essentials. If I were a wise man observing the planet, I would say that it is strange how it works. Some have private planes, they pollute the planet, they live in incredible residences, they have 20,000 euro wallets. And the others go to the supermarket and see if they can save 20 cents to buy a cheese or an apple. There is something wasteful about luxury, something that poses a problem from the perspective of ethics and social justice.
Is all luxury like this?
It’s an old debate. The Greeks and Romans had an interesting position. They said private luxury was bad because it showed hubris: excess and vanity. Back then, private luxury was cosmetics: women used creams and colors to deceive. She is old and wants to look young. Luxury is a lie and vanity. In the Christian tradition, the Church Fathers will take up this charge. At the same time, the Greeks and Romans celebrated public luxury. The rich donated to the city to build stadiums and monuments. That’s a legitimate luxury, and I’m not far from thinking the same thing. Because if we had to eliminate all forms of luxury, would the planet be more beautiful and desirable? I do not think so. What will tourists see? Wonders of the world. Pyramids, Angkor Temples, Granada. In their time they were great luxury goods, the palaces of kings. And our museums? They are incredible luxury. Should we give up on them? Does the Prado help the homeless in Madrid? Should it be destroyed? No. There is a legitimate human desire for beauty and greatness, for the charm of things. We are not just ethical beings.
“You can take a moral point of view, but from an anthropological point of view there is no humanity without luxury,” says Gilles Lipovetsky, pictured at his home in Grenoble.Ed Alcock
Not all luxury is amoral.
It’s paradoxical. There is an acceptable, desirable, even necessary part.
“Even the last beggar carries a superfluous item with him. When reduced to his natural needs, man is a beast,” you write, quoting Shakespeare. Is luxury what makes us human?
Yes. Do you know a lot of people who get married and eat at McDonald’s? No. On the day of the wedding, even the most humble people throw a party. And the party is, as Georges Bataille said, the primitive form of luxury. As long as humans have existed, since the Paleolithic, there have been manifestations of luxury. No civilization has ignored it. Of course we’re not talking about brands. But why is the party a luxury? Because it goes beyond needs. It is issued without counting. It is the waste that we find in the ethics of the gentlemen of the Middle Ages. The nobleman does not count money, counting is something for the commoner, it is detestable. Men have always built models of life that were not limited to survival: eating, drinking, defending themselves. There has always been another dimension and luxury is part of it. You can take a moral point of view, but from an anthropological point of view there is no humanity without luxury.
Is there no humanity without luxury?
No. You may think it’s obscene, but that’s Homo sapiens. Spinoza said that we must accept people as they are. We could reconstitute the world and say, “They should be different.” In the meantime… There has never been so much luxury! And it was democratized. The passion for luxury is not just for the rich. It is everywhere.
An oxymoron, democratic luxury.
But it is a contemporary oxymoron. That was not the case before. For a long time, luxury was only reserved for the social elite: the aristocracy and the court, and later the upper bourgeoisie, which copied the example of the great lords. But people didn’t even have the taste or desire for luxury. I give you confidence. I come from the generation of the sixties. At the time, I barely knew what luxury was, and it would have been difficult for me to name a single luxury brand. I wasn’t interested and thought luxury was for older women.
What has changed in our societies since then?
Nowadays young people love luxury. Even in the favelas. You know the brands. What has changed is that luxury is also for the modest. A cultural revolution has taken place. It used to be said: “Luxury is not for us.” Now it says: “Why not?” The big symbols of luxury were leisure, travel, tourism and beautiful brands. Today everyone strives for it. Who wouldn’t want to take a trip to a hotel? Or spend two days at the spa or buy a Hermès or Loewe bag? In the past, in a modest social environment, it was viewed negatively because it was assumed that whoever did it wanted to show off. Today it is no longer unworthy. It’s been democratized, not so much the luxury, but the preference for luxury.
And is there also a democratization of access to luxury?
Yes, the opportunities to gain access to a certain luxury. Because it has become plural. Not until. There were the carriages, the footmen, the castles. Everything was only for the very privileged. Now you can buy a Vuitton keychain. Or occasionally a perfume from Dior or Chanel. Or lipstick. At the same time, an inaccessible luxury, an ultra-luxury, a hyper-luxury has been restored for billionaires. There are always more in the world. And luxury has become global. Before, the big brands were European and the market was Europe and North America. Now there is China and India. The real criticism is not so much of luxury, but of the distribution of wealth. If there were no rich people, there would be no luxury. It is easy to denounce luxury, but if it exists, it is because wealth exists.
You have just published a book in France about kitsch, in which you analyze bad taste in luxury. But luxury has historically been associated with elegance, refinement and good taste. It’s not like that?
Luxury was the most beautiful, expensive and rare thing. And therefore the most desirable. And today, some renowned brands are flirting with kitsch, bad taste, the ugly, even the vulgar and obscene. I think it started in the 1990s with pornographic chic in the communication of luxury brands, with advertising with pornographic references and zoophilia. That was a start. Then he continued. Look what John Galliano did. He simultaneously did catwalk shows with beggars and top models to sell haute couture dresses that cost tens of thousands of euros. There is something vulgar, a spectacle that wants to be artistic but can have to do with bad taste. It’s not a moral failure, it doesn’t harm anyone. Now Balenciaga and others are showcasing Crocs shoes that were the opposite of chic and are now selling for hundreds of euros. It’s a turnaround: kitsch becomes chic. We see it in art too. The most expensive are the artists who are accused of kitsch.
Are you thinking of Jeff Koons?
Yes. Or Damien Hirst. Kitsch has been cheap since the 19th century. The artists associated with kitsch are now the most expensive in the world.
Some luxury has become democratic. And the popular has conquered luxury in the form of Kitsch. Is it the revenge of the popular?
A little yes. The revenge of democracy. For a long time people were despised because they love the bright. But look at Trump. He likes to sing. Paradoxically, the rich conform to popular taste.
How do you explain it?
The rise of consumer capitalism and individualization have destroyed class cultures. For centuries and millennia, the behavior of elites had nothing individual, it was an obligation. If they had castles or golden clothes, they didn’t like it, it was a caste obligation.
Were they codes?
Yes. If not, they were rejected. Later, in modern times, the world of luxury was small and intimate. Mothers advised their daughters to use this or that perfume. With mass society, everything has exploded into a thousand pieces. The ultra-rich are no longer, as Veblen said, the leisure class. They are now self-made men. They work. In banking, finance, real estate, trading, raw materials like oil and gas: the new rich Russians. Or drug dealers. The football players. The stars of show business. Can you tell me what unit this is?
It’s no longer a class.
It is not. They are all very rich, but there is no class culture.
“The ultra-rich are no longer, as Veblen said, the leisure class. They are now self-made men. They work,” says Lipovetsky.Ed Alcock
Isn’t it true luxury to be able to do without luxury? The one who doesn’t need objects or phones, or the one who can hike in the mountains for 15 days.
I doubt there is any real luxury, because there are several. What you say would be mine. For some there is a new luxury: time, space and distance from things. Being less dependent on things gives us autonomy: that was the wisdom of the ancients. But others love the visible, beautiful things, beautiful materials. Which is the real one? Doesn’t exist.
Is a world without luxury imaginable?
I do not believe it. Firstly, because there are more and more rich people on the planet. Secondly, for the democratization of luxury: people like it. And thirdly, because luxury is part of the dream.
And people need dreams.
Today, you know, there aren’t so many dreams anymore. It’s human to have them.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_