The Virtue of Pretentiousness

In a world that often celebrates humility and modesty, the virtues of pretentiousness are frequently overlooked and misunderstood. Far from being merely an exercise in vanity or superficiality, pretentiousness can be a powerful tool for self-improvement and cultural enrichment. It pushes individuals to aspire towards higher standards, to immerse themselves in the richness of art, literature, and intellectual pursuits—and to cultivate a more refined and discerning taste. By striving to embody qualities they admire, people can transform their aspirations into reality, fostering personal growth and a deeper appreciation for the finer things in life. Embracing a certain level of pretentiousness can lead to a more enriched, ambitious, and fulfilling existence.

Who knew a dash of pretentiousness could be just what your cannabis brand needs to blaze a trail to the top?

Imagine this: your cannabis isn't just grown—it's cultivated with the same care and precision as a sommelier picks a vintage wine. Your packaging isn't just sleek—it's a work of art that could make Michelangelo weep.

By donning the cloak of highbrow sophistication, you can attract the kind of customers who wouldn’t dream of rolling anything less than the finest. These aficionados are willing to pay a premium for a product that promises not just a high, but a journey. So, puff up your chest (and your product) with a bit of elegant swagger. After all, if your cannabis is going to give people the giggles, why not start with your marketing?

Some guy called David Bowie prancing around as a character called “Ziggy Stardust.”

Excerpt from “Five Bad Motivations With Good Outcomes” by Ian Leslie:

I once heard David Bowie, in an interview, recall that as a young man he would carry around paperback books by French existentialists because he wanted to look like an intellectual. He would keep them in his coat pocket, making sure that the title or author was visible to passers-by. It was, in retrospect, laughably pretentious. But at some point, he said, he started to read them, and actually found them interesting. He absorbed the ideas of Sartre and Camus into what became a rich Weltanschauung.

Pretension might be seen as a failed attempt at seriousness (those who insist, rather stridently, on being unpretentious and “down to earth” are scared either by failure or seriousness or both). But it can also be seen as a bridge to seriousness, or a downpayment on it. Somehow you have to get from where you are, to where you want to be. You can’t worry too much about whether people think you’re getting ahead of yourself.

The vastly erudite critic George Steiner, often dismissed as pretentious by Anglo-Saxon empiricists, hated the phrase Come off it, which he thought of as distinctively English. Beethoven wouldn’t have composed his Ninth Symphony, Michelangelo wouldn’t have painted the Sistine Chapel, if they had listened to someone saying Oh come off it, he said. And I do think they might have listened. Even great artists can be vulnerable to the charge of pretentiousness, since most of them feel like fakes at some point; at some point, most of them are.

Brian Eno, Bowie’s sometime collaborator, suggested that “pretentious” should be a compliment: “The common assumption is that there are ‘real’ people and there are others who are pretending to be something they’re not. There is also an assumption that there’s something morally wrong with pretending.” To the contrary, he says: “Pretending is the most important thing we do. It’s the way we make our thought experiments, find out what it would be like to be otherwise.”

Bowie spent the 1960s doing poor imitations of the pop stars he wanted to emulate, spinning through a dizzying array of failed incarnations. The problem, as we now know, was not a lack of talent. It’s that he wasn’t being pretentious enough. He wasn’t daring to become something or someone completely new. It was only when he risked ridicule and leaned into art pop that he created Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust. From then on, he never stopped pretending to be something he wasn’t.

Read the full essay here.