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The Acquisitive Self, Minus the Self

The Acquisitive Self, Minus the Self Fu t u r o i d s The Acquisitive Self, Minus the Self 3 Natasha Vargas-Cooper os Angeles isn’t exactly the place that comes to mind when you think of deco   rous restraint in the display of wealth, even in the dregs of the Great Recession. Here in my hometown, possibly more than in any other outpost of faux-meritocratic privilege in our republic of getting and spending, untrammeled acquisition is understood as an expression of individual will—and more than that, a matter of taste. Yet for all the studio money sloshing around our bright, stucco world, most of us have never encountered the miniscule stratum of humans that hovers above the rich: the pure, giltedged, entrenched, multigenerational wealthy. Movie star money is food stamps compared to oil money, hedge fund money, and even some of that dank old money that still floats around the haciendas of Pasadena. We might have stood kegside next to Kirsten Dunst once, but we don’t know the kinds of rich people that F. Scott Fitzgerald had in mind when he wrote that the rich “are different from you and me”: the Vanderbilts, Rothschilds, and Astors. Hell, our L.A. doesn’t even boast a new-money http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The Baffler MIT Press

The Acquisitive Self, Minus the Self

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Publisher
MIT Press
Copyright
© 2014 Natasha Vargas-Cooper
ISSN
1059-9789
eISSN
2164-926X
DOI
10.1162/BFLR_a_00293
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Fu t u r o i d s The Acquisitive Self, Minus the Self 3 Natasha Vargas-Cooper os Angeles isn’t exactly the place that comes to mind when you think of deco   rous restraint in the display of wealth, even in the dregs of the Great Recession. Here in my hometown, possibly more than in any other outpost of faux-meritocratic privilege in our republic of getting and spending, untrammeled acquisition is understood as an expression of individual will—and more than that, a matter of taste. Yet for all the studio money sloshing around our bright, stucco world, most of us have never encountered the miniscule stratum of humans that hovers above the rich: the pure, giltedged, entrenched, multigenerational wealthy. Movie star money is food stamps compared to oil money, hedge fund money, and even some of that dank old money that still floats around the haciendas of Pasadena. We might have stood kegside next to Kirsten Dunst once, but we don’t know the kinds of rich people that F. Scott Fitzgerald had in mind when he wrote that the rich “are different from you and me”: the Vanderbilts, Rothschilds, and Astors. Hell, our L.A. doesn’t even boast a new-money

Journal

The Baffler – MIT Press

Published: Jul 1, 2014

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