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Monday, March 16, 2009
Signals and Fun: Two Economists Discuss Fiction
Posted by Bill Benzon on 03/16/09 at 09:24 AM
Tyler Cowen and Robin Hanson agree that fiction is valuable and try to figure out why. Here’s their 7 minute discussion at bloggingheads.tv (don’t be thrown off by their initial talk of distortion):
Their answer: It’s about signaling (a term of art in economics). Your preferences in fiction, and the way you articulate those preferences, signal your attitudes, values, and ideas to others. Fiction is a way of “getting people in touch with each other.” Cowen also holds out for some absolute cognitive value: “there must be something real in there for the signal to hold up.”
Hmmm. No wonder the first thing I do when I visit someone is go check out their bookshelves....
When checking out a book by someone you’re not familiar with, do you look through the bibliography?
Sure. I do that even if I am familiar with the author. Who in the hell doesn’t?
So taste in fiction is a social marker. Who’d’ve thunk?
Not sure about any of this. The value of fiction is not in signaling. The value of valuing is in signaling. Those are two different things. Fiction does all sorts of things, one of which is provide people with a chance to “be the sort of person who likes X.”
But “being the sort of person who likes X” is not restricted to fiction. The value of publicly valuing Teddy Pendergrass is to say something about yourself. The value of publicly using reusable shopping bags is to say something else about yourself. This is conspicuous consumption. It has nothing to do with fiction in particular.
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