hifiman5,
You bring up a good distinction - one that is much more in the public air these days having been raised by studies of people’s happiness .
I’ve briefly pondered it’s applicability to high end audio and can’t say I’ve come to a conclusion yet:
Does our hobby exemplify the desire for "owning things/possessions?"
On one hand, it IS about owning material objects that make us happy, and it does seem pretty materialism based - we lust after "things we want to own" e.g. the latest speaker, amplifier etc.
On the other hand, we use these objects as "experience machines" - to generate different experiences for us each day. The experiences of listening to different music and musicians, the home equivalent of going to a concert.
So it seems hard to pigeon hole which, if either, category - object or experience - our hobby falls in to.
(I think my inclination, probably shared by others, is to spin it more towards the "experience" side of things, which may be true but may also be our wanting to ennoble our efforts. On the other hand, people rushing in to Best Buy to get the latest TV on sale could say the same thing - it brings them experiences of the different things they’ll watch - sports, movies etc. But then, things like Big Screen TVs and the like are typically held up as examples of the "shiny materialistic objects" of materialism. So if one is defending high end audio on the same ground as defending TVs or other material goods, it seems a bit more suspect).
You bring up a good distinction - one that is much more in the public air these days having been raised by studies of people’s happiness .
I’ve briefly pondered it’s applicability to high end audio and can’t say I’ve come to a conclusion yet:
Does our hobby exemplify the desire for "owning things/possessions?"
On one hand, it IS about owning material objects that make us happy, and it does seem pretty materialism based - we lust after "things we want to own" e.g. the latest speaker, amplifier etc.
On the other hand, we use these objects as "experience machines" - to generate different experiences for us each day. The experiences of listening to different music and musicians, the home equivalent of going to a concert.
So it seems hard to pigeon hole which, if either, category - object or experience - our hobby falls in to.
(I think my inclination, probably shared by others, is to spin it more towards the "experience" side of things, which may be true but may also be our wanting to ennoble our efforts. On the other hand, people rushing in to Best Buy to get the latest TV on sale could say the same thing - it brings them experiences of the different things they’ll watch - sports, movies etc. But then, things like Big Screen TVs and the like are typically held up as examples of the "shiny materialistic objects" of materialism. So if one is defending high end audio on the same ground as defending TVs or other material goods, it seems a bit more suspect).
