Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Why We Hate Cheap Things
    Why We Hate Cheap Things
    Why We Hate Cheap Things
    Ebook65 pages41 minutes

    Why We Hate Cheap Things

    By Campus London LTD (The School of Life)

    4/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    • A COMMON SENSE APPROACH TO ECONOMICS
    • EXPLORES IDEAS ABOUT MONEY, WORTH, AND WEALTH through a philosophical lens.
    • A REFRESHING REMINDER TO APPRECIATING WHAT WE HAVE rather than coveting what we don't.
    • ILLUSTRATED with full color images throughout.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThe School of Life
    Release dateJul 29, 2020
    ISBN9781999917913
    Why We Hate Cheap Things
    Author

    Campus London LTD (The School of Life)

    The School of Life is a groundbreaking enterprise which offers good ideas for everyday living. Founded in 2008, The School of Life runs a diverse range of programmes and services which address questions of personal fulfilment and how to lead a better life. Drawing insights from philosophy, psychology, literature, the visual arts and sciences, The School of Life offers evening classes, weekends, conversation meals and other events that explore issues relating to big themes such as Love,Work, Play, Self, Family and Community.

    Read more from Campus London Ltd (The School Of Life)

    Related to Why We Hate Cheap Things

    Related ebooks

    Self-Improvement For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Historical Status Symbols

      Jan 19, 2023

      Historical Status Symbols
      8 min read

    • Article

      A World of Small Wonder

      Sep 12, 2023

      A World of Small Wonder
      3 min read

    • Article

      Reminiscence And Observation

      Feb 9, 2021

      Reminiscence And Observation
      5 min read

    • Article

      Letters To The Editor

      Jan 2, 2020

      IT’S nearly a year since Athena referred to the planned closure of the Art Fund volunteers’ network (January 16, 2019), but there is good news. Encouraged by disappointed Warwickshire members, we have set up a new organisation, Art Friends Warwickshi

      2 min read

    • Article

      Town & Country Notebook

      Sep 20, 2023

      1) Which celebrated Turner painting captures the last journey of a gunship that had fought at Trafalgar? 2) The three chalk stacks called The Needles rise from the sea about 100ft off the coast of which island? 3) In which Shakespeare play do Rosencr

      4 min read

    • Article

      My Fair Ladies

      May 18, 2018

      My Fair Ladies
      5 min read

    • Article

      Going Dutch

      Dec 8, 2021

      THIS work covers a period neatly book-ended by two sea journeys: those of Matilda, William the Conqueror’s Flemish-speaking wife, and the Dutch William of Orange in 1688. Between the two dates, the fortunes of Anglo-Dutch literary relations, like tho

      5 min read

    • Article

      Medieval Life

      Dec 21, 2023

      Medieval Life
      5 min read

    • Article

      My 3 Greatest Revelations

      Nov 10, 2021

      1 We Are Smothering the Planet with Our Poop The next time you go grocery shopping, look at where your food comes from. Most of it isn’t local. Strawberries come from California or Florida, asparagus from Mexico or Chile, bananas from Brazil or Ecuad

      4 min read

    • Article

      1900s Notebook

      Jan 5, 2022

      1900s Notebook
      3 min read

    • Article

      Behind The Scenes At The Museums

      Sep 1, 2021

      WHEN I learned our local museum had landed an £11 million lottery grant, my thoughts returned to a Sussex garden, where we first encountered the extraordinary John Letts. Our friend called him a campaigning polymath. He set up societies the way a Fre

      2 min read

    • Article

      CHANGING SPACES Bathrooms

      Jun 2, 2022

      CHANGING SPACES Bathrooms
      5 min read

    • Article

      Guardians History

      Nov 28, 2019

      Guardians History
      6 min read

    • Article

      London Life Need To Know

      Jun 7, 2023

      London Life Need To Know
      6 min read

    • Article

      Liverpool

      Nov 4, 2021

      Liverpool
      8 min read

    • Article

      When Irish Eyes Weren’t Smiling

      Nov 17, 2021

      When Gyles Brandreth honoured the splendid Leslie Caron for her Oldie of the Year Award at the Savoy, he remarked that the song Maurice Chevalier sang in the 1958 movie of Gigi might nowadays be cancelled. It begins, ‘Thank heaven for little girls/Fo

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Why We Hate Cheap Things

    4/5

    6 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      A good read to understand why we chase after money

    Book preview

    Why We Hate Cheap Things - Campus London LTD (The School of Life)

    I

    Why We Hate Cheap Things

    We don’t think we hate cheap things, but we frequently behave as if we do. Consider the pineapple. Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) was the first European to be delighted by the physical grandeur and vibrant sweetness of the pineapple, which is native to South America but had reached the Caribbean by the time he arrived there. The first time Europeans encountered pineapples was in November 1493, in a Carib village on the island of Guadeloupe. Columbus’s crew spotted the fruit next to a pot of stewing human limbs. The outside reminded them of a pine cone; the interior pulp of an apple.

    However, pineapples proved difficult to transport and costly to cultivate. For a long time only royalty could afford to eat them. Russia’s Catherine the Great was a huge fan, as was England’s Charles II. A single fruit in the seventeenth century sold for today’s equivalent of £5,000. The pineapple was such a status symbol that, if they could obtain one, people would keep it for display until it rotted and fell apart. In the mid-eighteenth century, at the height of the pineapple craze, whole aristocratic evenings were structured around the ritual display of these fruits. Poems were written in their honour. Savouring a tiny sliver could be the high point of a year.

    Illustration

    The South Towers of St Paul’s Cathedral, built 1711.

    Illustration

    The Dunmore Pineapple, built 1761.

    Christopher Wren had no hesitation in topping the South Towers of St Paul’s with this evidently divine fruit. The pineapple was so exciting and so loved that John Murray, the 4th Earl of Dunmore, built a temple on his Scottish estate in its honour.

    Then, at the end of the nineteenth century, two things changed. Large-scale commercial pineapple plantations were established in Hawaii, and there were huge advances in steamship technology. Consequently, production and transport costs plummeted and, unwittingly, transformed the psychology of pineapple eating. Today, you can buy a pineapple for around £1.50. The fruit still tastes the same. But now the pineapple is one of the world’s least glamorous fruits. It is rarely served at smart dinner parties and it would never be carved on the top of a major civic building.

    The pineapple itself has not changed; only our attitude to it has. Contemplation of the history of the pineapple suggests a curious overlap between love and economics: when we have to pay a lot for something nice, we appreciate it to the full. Yet

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1