“Civilization exists to answer the question of who can mate.”
A while ago, I read this line in The Almanack of Naval Ravikant, and it kept me thinking. I could roughly grasp what the author meant, but it felt too condensed and abstract, as if a complex social phenomenon had been compressed into a single sentence.
It wasn’t until I read Status and Culture: How Our Desire for Social Rank Creates Taste, Identity, Art, Fashion, and Constant Change that the concept suddenly became much more concrete. The book’s discussion of “status” made me start to truly understand how civilization responds to the same question: how humans decide who deserves resources, who deserves respect, and who is considered “more valuable.”
And these seemingly boundless cultural phenomena—taste, trends, aesthetics, fashion—all operate around one core: people want to be seen, recognized, and chosen.
「文明是為了回答誰能夠交配這個問題而存在的。」
前陣子在《納瓦爾寶典》中讀到的這句話讓我反覆琢磨。其實能大概抓到作者想表達的意思，但總覺得這句話有點太濃縮、太抽象，像是把一個複雜的社會現象壓縮在一個簡單的句子裡面。
但最近讀了 W‧大衛‧馬克思的《階級與品味：隱藏在文化審美與流行趨勢背後的地位渴望》，這個概念突然變得具體很多。作者在這本書裡談「地位」的方式，讓我對文明怎麼回應同一個問題：人類怎麼決定誰值得資源、誰值得被尊重、誰被視為「更有價值」？ 有更多理解
而這些看似漫無邊界的文化現象——審美、流行、品味、潮流，全都繞著一個核心在運轉：人們想被看見、被承認、被選擇。
Status Is Competition in a Different Form
地位就是一種換了包裝的競爭
Status is not something that appeared only after humans developed civilization; it has been a fundamental drive throughout human evolution.
In the hunter-gatherer era, status could come from skills, courage, the amount of meat brought back to the camp, or the ability to unite the tribe. People with high status naturally gained more resources and more mating opportunities—a practical outcome in biology.
Today, although there are no mammoths, the equivalents are just different in form. Income and professional ability, social networks, influence, social capital, visibility on platforms, and whether others consider us “reliable and valuable”—these are the modern equivalents.
Civilization has made these competitions more complex and elegant, but the logic has not changed.
地位並不是人類有了文明以後才有的東西，而是在演化史中的基本動力。在狩獵採集時代，地位可能來自技能、勇氣、帶回營地的肉量，或凝聚族人的能力。而高地位的人，理所當然會獲得更多資源與更多交配機會，這是生物學中很務實的結果。
今天雖然沒有長毛象了，但等價物只是換了一種樣子。例如收入與專業能力 / 人脈、影響力、社會資本 / 在平台上能不能被看到 / 他人是否認為我們「可靠、有價值」。
文明讓這些競爭變得更複雜、更優雅，但邏輯沒有變。
Culture Is the Tool We Use to Draw Boundaries
文化是我們拿來劃界線的工具
If status is the driving force, culture is the mechanism humans use to sort themselves.
Culture does not exist because humans are naturally drawn to beauty; it exists because society needs shared conventions to distinguish who is high, who is low. Throughout history, this mechanism has left very clear traces.
In medieval Europe, sumptuary laws dictated who could wear what fabrics, colors, and decorations. Clothing was not a personal choice, but part of the system. Purple became associated with royalty not because it was inherently beautiful, but because the dye was expensive, making it an untouchable symbol of hierarchy.
In Edo Japan, this boundary-setting took a completely different form. Samurai emphasized restraint and wabi-sabi, valuing simplicity as an aesthetic. Wealthy merchants, limited by their social position, could only hide luxurious embroidery inside their clothing, subtly resisting the class structure. Culture became a battlefield between suppression and rebellion.
Modern society is no different. When materials are abundant and luxury is easily copied, subtlety becomes the new scarcity. Minimalist outfits, tech leaders’ black turtlenecks, and designs that are understated yet expensive have become contemporary signals of high status. They appear plain, but their meaning is the opposite: only those standing high enough need not show off.
Cultural rules keep changing, but they really adjust only one thing: what can become the new scarcity, and who is recognized through it.
如果說地位是動力，那麼文化就是人類用來進行排序的機制。文化之所以存在，並不是因為人類天生熱愛美，而是社會需要一套共同的語言來劃界線，用以辨識誰在高位、誰又被放在底層。這套語言也在時間裡面留下了非常清楚的軌跡。
在中古歐洲，奢侈法明確規定哪些階層能穿哪些材質、顏色與裝飾，衣著並不是個人選擇，而是制度的一部分。紫色之所以代表皇室也不是因為美感特別高，主因還是因為染料昂貴使它成為階級不可逾越的象徵。到了江戶時代，這種劃界線的方式又以完全不同的形式出現。武士階級強調節制與侘寂，將樸素當成美學；而財力雄厚的商人卻因地位受限，只能把奢華藏在衣服內側，以隱性的方式抗拒階級結構。文化在這裡成了壓制與反抗彼此角力的戰場。
現代社會也不例外。當物質過剩、奢華容易模仿，低調反而成為新的稀缺。極簡穿搭、科技領袖的黑色高領衫、看似毫不張揚卻非常昂貴的設計品，都成了當代的高階訊號。它們看起來「無裝飾」，但意義正好相反，只有站在足夠高的位置，才不需要透過任何外顯符號證明自己。
文化規則不斷變動，但它真正調整的只有一件事：什麼能夠成為新的稀缺、誰能透過這些稀缺被認出來。這就是文化長期以來在文明裡扮演的角色。
Taste Is a Personal Signal of Status
品味是個人的地位訊號
Culture provides the framework, and taste is the declaration of the individual within it.
It is always changing and always tied to class.
This connection is very clear in the history of music. Classical music was once a privilege of courts and elites; understanding it was itself a cultural barrier. Later, jazz grew from marginalized communities, originally considered peripheral, but soon absorbed by the elite as part of urban taste. Rock shifted from rebellion to commercial vocabulary, while hip-hop moved from the streets into the core of global luxury branding, even redefining who could control cultural discourse. Every rise and fall of a style is essentially a rearrangement of class.
Fashion works similarly. Elites adopt a style first, the middle class imitates, and once the symbols lose their scarcity, elites turn to a new direction. Trends move forward, the seasons change, brands update, but the mechanism of maintaining distance repeats itself.
The evolution of aesthetics reflects this fluidity as well. In an age of abundance, conspicuous luxury looks old-fashioned. People increasingly place value on “understanding”: clean lines, the recognition of niche brands, understated yet exquisite design. Taste is measured no longer by spending, but by the depth of understanding, which becomes a new form of cultural capital.
Among these constantly shifting symbols and choices, taste acts like a personal positioning signal in the grand framework of civilization, telling others: Where I stand, what I understand, what culture I identify with. It is dynamic, always pushed forward by the times.
文化提供框架，品味就是個體在框架裡做的宣告。
它永遠在變化，也始終和階級糾纏在一起。
這種連動在音樂的歷史裡非常明顯：古典樂曾是宮廷與上層階級的特權，理解它本身就是一道文化門檻；後來爵士從底層社群生長，原本被視為邊緣聲音，卻在不久後被上層吸收，成為都市品味的一部分。搖滾從反叛轉變成商業語彙，嘻哈則從街頭一路走進全球奢侈品牌的主視覺，甚至重新定義誰能掌握文化話語權。每一種風格的興起與退場，其實都是階層在重新排列。
時尚的邏輯也相似。上層採用某種風格，中產階級開始模仿，那些符號一旦失去稀缺性，上層又會轉向下一個方向。於是潮流被推著往前走，季節換了、品牌更新了，但重播的始終是同一套保持距離的機制。審美的演變同樣映照著這些流動。在物質過剩的年代，顯眼的奢華反而顯得老派，人們逐漸把價值寄放在「看得懂」的細節：乾淨的線條、小眾品牌的識別力、低調卻講究的設計。衡量品味不再是花費本身，而是理解的深度，而這份深度也成為新的文化資本。
在這些持續變動的符號與選擇之間，品味就像一個人在文明大框架裡發出的定位訊號，告訴他人「我在哪個位置」、「我理解什麼」、「我認同的是什麼樣的文化」。也正因為如此，它始終是動態的，是被時代推著走的。
The Flow of Civilization and Social Paradigms
文明的流轉與社會典範
Returning to the title, what answer does civilization give us?
From this book, my understanding is that civilization exists, to some extent, to answer a fundamental question: who receives resources, who gets recognized, and who is considered most attractive. Culture, taste, aesthetics, and trends are just the external forms of this answer.
In this process, civilization keeps flowing and changing. Each era forms new social paradigms: from medieval sumptuary laws to Edo aesthetics, to modern low-key luxury or minimalism. These are all evolutions of status signals and cultural capital. This also means that some rules or values may seem “mainstream,” but they are just the judgment standards of the time, not universal truths.
Therefore, even if we feel we don’t fit the social mainstream, it doesn’t mean we are unworthy of being chosen or unattractive. It is only a gap between ourselves and the contemporary norms. The flow of civilization itself creates diversity, possibilities, and different social positions. By understanding this, we can see the rules while also finding our own freedom and space.
再回到標題，關於那句話，文明到底給了我們什麼答案?
我從這本書得到的理解是：文明之所以存在，某種程度上是在回答一個基本問題——誰能獲得資源、誰能被認可、誰最具吸引力。文化、品味、審美、潮流，只是這個答案被外化的形式。
在這個過程中，文明不斷流轉、變化。每個時代都會形成新的社會典範：從中古歐洲的奢侈法到江戶的侘寂美學，再到現代的低調奢華或極簡風格，都是地位訊號和文化資本的演化。這也意味著，某些規則或價值看似「主流」，但它們只是當代社會的判斷標準，而非普世真理。
因此，即使我們覺得自己不符合某個社會主流的價值，並不代表我們不值得被選擇或不具吸引力。那僅僅是自我與當代典範之間的落差，文明的流轉本身就創造了多元的可能性和不同的社會位置。如果這樣理解這一點，我們看清文化規則的同時也能在其中找到自己的自由與空間。
