Price =/= Quality - Page 2

As I've gotten more and more into fragrances, I've tended to buy more and more fragrances with natural ingredients which tend to be more expensive and to me, so much higher quality that it justifies the price.

Yeas, I agree... to some extent. I am having in mind other conditions that can be qualified as "objective": take cow milk. Forensic anthropologists say that it was included in diets due to poor exposure to sunlight. That actually means individuals descending from people that used to live in areas with short sunlight spans have a bigger probability of liking milk than say, descendants or natives from the Andes - which, as a matter of fact, just don't drink it nor they eat cow milk-related products, like cheese. That is why the consumption of milk and milk - related products is typical of rich Peruvians, which most of them happen to be white, educated and rich.


Well, you just made a point that is ground for some serious academic discussions in Marketing: is Marketing able to change attitudes? One opf tha ways to do it might be through concepts - "you may think this products does X, but it also does Y". The point is that the way these concepts are perceived are key - if I had a bad day due to factor Y, I will pay attention to the concept, but I won't buy it, and the resulting perception will be negative.


Yes, it may have a bad effect on the fun, but still, technical judgment might as well have a good impact in it. Well, I am sort of freaky in that sense. Guess it would work on me, don't know on you. That is why I mentioned that, ideally, one should enjoy this hobby without much ado, but a critical attitude does not harm anybody.

A final word on taste formation and its relation with social background of individuals: Pierre Bourdieu studied extensively the way taste is shaped in a book called Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. It has been quite criticised because of its deterministic approach. More on Bourdieu: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Bourdieu

For a criticism on Bourdieu's approach, Bernard Lahire confronted the arguments in Distinction in a book called La Culture des Individues. There is a short article on him in the French Wikipaedia.

A very interesting thread...amidst the discussion of price-quality by SculptureofSoul theres the surreality-pollux show hidden within. The 'itchy and scratchy' (Simpsons) or 'Tales of the black freighter' (Watchmen) subshows so to speak

Complexity = quality, according to most Basenoters, no?

While it may be a fact that rich Peruvians eat more dairy than poorer indigenous peoples or that there is a correlation between length of daylight and dairy consumption, these facts have nothing to do with value judgments of quality which is the essence of the thread. We may prefer x over y and those preferences may be due to environmental, sociological, cultural influences and factors, but like I have been saying, preferences tell us about the subject and not the object that the subject prefers.


We are speaking two different languages here. For me a concept is a mental construct and not anything that can be perceived.


A technical knowledge of perfume may enhance one's intellectual appreciation of the craft but I think it could very well negatively impact one's aesthetic appreciation, and for me, perfume is all about the aesthetic experience it provides.


Social rank may influence one's taste, and those with power may very well set the bar as far as what is tasteful in a specific cultural paradigm. It may also be the case that if one were to find themselves in a foreign culture that asking those in power about that cultures standards of taste may very well be the best way of learning about a culture's preferences. But you wouldn't be discovering any objective truth just a set of cultural defined preferences that have wide inter-subjective agreement.

Let's put it this way in order to see if I understand your point: an individual unfamiliar with cheese is able to express a judgment on it as well as an expert. These judgements tells us things about the subjects expressing their opinion, not the object being judged.

I take it across cultures - mapuches in Southern Chile and caucasians in Sao Paulo, Brazil. But within the same culture I don't thinkl it would be so: product development would be impossible for conclusions on product's attributes would be impossible - even though I accept there are social constructs around product perception.


Your are right, different operational definitions is not a good bases for a discussion.


I wonder if perfume designers ("Nez", or however the word is spelled) ever use perfumes. But, on the other hand, I don't think technical know-how invalidates aesthetics experiences. That would mean that a panel conformed by experts are not suited for granting prices, which are based on technical as well as aesthetic criteria.


Indeed, but at least, you get an idea where things are like: Brazilian Sprite is extremely sweet while German Sprite is very acid. Coca Cola (as well as many other food an drink corporationss) know this and develop products accordingly. Isn't this an objective truth?

I feel like reading Hacking's The Social Construction of What?

(BTW; enjoying this discussion a lot!)

:toppie: damn right .

If one is unfamiliar with a product then it follows that one cannot make any value judgment about that product. However, to use your earlier analogy, if a person is familiar with both Brie and Velvetta and says that the Brie is of higher quality than the Velvetta based solely on one's preference then one is making a purely subjective analysis based on one's own tastes. That is exactly what SoS was doing in the opening post when he wrote "Old Spice is dead cheap and still smells higher quality than a lot of stuff out there, imo." That is why I asked what criteria for assessing "quality" was being used, as it seemed that SoS was using a subjective idea of quality to make his argument that price doe not equal quality.


I think I read somewhere that Serge Lutens very rarely wears fragrance.

Technical knowledge may not invalidate aesthetic experience of a fragrance but it changes the way we approach a fragrance. Using the film-maker analogy again; a film-maker may very well go see a movie and enjoy for its aesthetic content but will watch the movie in a very different way than a regular movie-goer.

As for your suggestion that fragrances are priced based on technical details and aesthetic criteria I must disagree. For most perfumes the price point is set before the perfumer even gets the brief, not after the perfume is finished.


That one group like Sprite sweet while another group likes it more acidic is an objective fact; but if the Brazilian were to say that the sweet Sprite was of better quality than the acidic Sprite or vise versa then that value judgment is purely subjective.


Me too.