Lifestyles of the Rich and Tasteless
April 24, 2017 6:16 AM   Subscribe

 
I've often thought this would be the ideal profession for me. Not much socializing, getting paid to be aloof and enigmatic and melancholy... of course, I would have to grow a beard. But yeah, dream job.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 6:30 AM on April 24, 2017 [10 favorites]


I immediately thought of the stereotype of some 21st century estates having somewhat similar types (if not quite hermits) living in their pool houses.
posted by Kabanos at 6:34 AM on April 24, 2017 [11 favorites]


Interestingly enough, most people would think of just the one world-famous Hermitage.
posted by Dr Dracator at 6:41 AM on April 24, 2017 [1 favorite]


Would hermits in the modern age be allowed to use the internet? Or would that be too much interaction with others to qualify for "hermit"?
posted by hippybear at 6:42 AM on April 24, 2017 [2 favorites]


This becomes part of the plot in Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, as it happens.
posted by thomas j wise at 6:46 AM on April 24, 2017 [6 favorites]


Two years ago, my wife/then-girlfriend, took me to see a production of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, which is a clever and witty play about physics, history, and feminism; but has forevermore left me with melancholy thoughts re: hermits on large English manor houses.

(eta: jinx, thomas j wise)
posted by bl1nk at 6:48 AM on April 24, 2017 [6 favorites]


LeRoienJaune, you're a bit late, Saalfelden, Austria already hired their new hermit. (And no, there's no Internet.)
posted by reynaert at 6:48 AM on April 24, 2017 [3 favorites]


The richpeopleamirite tag deserves to be used more often.
posted by Cash4Lead at 7:09 AM on April 24, 2017 [7 favorites]


Serious question, from somebody with only a shallow history education: were the owners of 18th century estates really as busy as the comic implies? Rich, sure; important (or self-important), definitely. But busy?
posted by penduluum at 7:17 AM on April 24, 2017 [2 favorites]


My memory is failing me, but what 80s sitcom was it that had the ritzy family who adopts the homeless drunk (I'd swear it was Busey before Busey) that falls into their pool ?
posted by k5.user at 7:29 AM on April 24, 2017 [1 favorite]


I've been re-reading a lot of Jane Austen lately and what strikes me is how hard they all work to find things to do. Like, they get excited about picnics, and looking at other people's houses, and playing what sound like incredibly dull card games every.single.night. Which is what happens when you live on inherited wealth and must avoid any appearance of having to earn your bread.

So I can see visiting the house of some other wealthy person and being excited that they have a hermit to say creepy things to you, absolutely.
posted by emjaybee at 7:36 AM on April 24, 2017 [20 favorites]


My memory is failing me, but what 80s sitcom was it that had the ritzy family who adopts the homeless drunk (I'd swear it was Busey before Busey) that falls into their pool ?

Down and Out in Beverly Hills, a sitcom version of the movie. The movie had Nick Nolte, not Gary Busey; the TV show had Tim Thomerson. It was the first show ever cancelled by the Fox Network.
posted by Etrigan at 7:37 AM on April 24, 2017 [6 favorites]


Like, they get excited about picnics, and looking at other people's houses, and playing what sound like incredibly dull card games every.single.night. Which is what happens when you live on inherited wealth

It's what happens when you haven't got the Internet.
posted by Segundus at 7:44 AM on April 24, 2017 [6 favorites]


A Tom Stoppard Comic™
posted by beerperson at 7:55 AM on April 24, 2017


Also they might not have been _busy_ as such, but I bet getting all your ridiculous 18th century clothing put on and taken off by your manservant - including appropriate time-of-day costume changes - getting your wig powdered and going everywhere by coach eats up a lot of your day, not to mention fighting the occasional duel and losing your family fortune at whist.
posted by Dr Dracator at 7:57 AM on April 24, 2017 [8 favorites]


There were also lots of meetings with all of those artists and philosophers that you patronized.
posted by oddman at 8:03 AM on April 24, 2017


last panel is disappointingly weak, too bad...."oooh how existential" , which means pretty much nothing
posted by thelonius at 8:05 AM on April 24, 2017


I've often thought this would be the ideal profession for me.

"If we do decide to bring you on as our hermit, where do you see yourself in five years?"

"Muttering to myself in a drab stone cottage, or possibly a cave."

"Good, good. And I see you majored in Vague Unsettling Prophecy."
posted by Sangermaine at 8:17 AM on April 24, 2017 [21 favorites]


I've often thought this would be the ideal profession for me. Not much socializing, getting paid to be aloof and enigmatic and melancholy... of course, I would have to grow a beard. But yeah, dream job.

Plenty of monasteries looking for folks. Here's a Top 30 List for the USA.

...though a Top 30 List kind of misses the point in a "I am the serenest!!" kind of way.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:22 AM on April 24, 2017 [5 favorites]


I've been re-reading a lot of Jane Austen lately and what strikes me is how hard they all work to find things to do. Like, they get excited about picnics, and looking at other people's houses, and playing what sound like incredibly dull card games every.single.night. Which is what happens when you live on inherited wealth and must avoid any appearance of having to earn your bread.

Weren't the women on Victorian House bored out of their skulls most of the time? There's only so many games of cards to play.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:23 AM on April 24, 2017 [1 favorite]


I have a relative who would have been a fantastic hermit!
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 8:23 AM on April 24, 2017


I immediately thought of the stereotype of some 21st century estates having somewhat similar types (if not quite hermits) living in their pool houses.

We've gone from Cato to Kato.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:24 AM on April 24, 2017 [11 favorites]


were the owners of 18th century estates really as busy as the comic implies

I think it's hard for people in this day and age to appreciate viscerally how long it took to get every damn thing done prior to the twentieth century.
posted by praemunire at 8:25 AM on April 24, 2017 [18 favorites]


I am available for Hermiting. Please supply Hermitage.
posted by esto-again at 8:27 AM on April 24, 2017


Weren't the women on Victorian House bored out of their skulls most of the time? There's only so many games of cards to play.

Hey, it's not like our generation invented masturbation.

Or gamekeepers.
posted by maxwelton at 8:29 AM on April 24, 2017 [6 favorites]


Lack of Internet and motorized travel meant that you had to work a lot harder to get the same amount accomplished. They couldn't keep Slack on in the background while they worked on spreadsheets, they had to host dinner parties and have their associates, political enemies, and close underlings attend in order to catch up on gossip and day-to-day business.

In olden times, the gentleman scholar had to stay practiced in Latin and Greek to stay on top of the latest trends in science and carry the latest couple journals in the carriage while they travel from the country estate to the city house, and had to be patrons of polymaths to be first-hand witnesses of progress in action. These days their counterparts stream TED talks on their tablets for the red-eye from San Francisco to Beijing.

> We've gone from Cato to Kato.

Oh great point. That era is an excellent example of just how hard people had work just to maintain their status within the ruling class (where "maintaining status" frequently meant "avoiding being killed"). Cato Jr. and Cicero were relentless motherfuckers and even that wasn't sufficient to stay ahead because Julius Caesar could multitask in his sleep.
posted by ardgedee at 8:43 AM on April 24, 2017 [9 favorites]


I think it's interesting that in aristocracies even from cultures and countries that were in little to no contact with one another, appreciation of melancholic set-pieces or artworks was de rigeur to be considered sufficiently cultured and sensitive. (Tale of Genji, looking at you.)

Is it the human psyche subconsciously reacting to the guilt of knowing that you are suffering so much less than the vast majority of humanity around you? And that you may, in fact, be the source of the suffering?
posted by soren_lorensen at 9:02 AM on April 24, 2017 [8 favorites]


I think it's hard for people in this day and age to appreciate viscerally how long it took to get every damn thing done prior to the twentieth century.

Samuel Pepys seems to have spent entire days chasing down people get get purchase orders signed, and when he needed a copy of a document it was longhand all the way.
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:35 AM on April 24, 2017 [8 favorites]


> Is it the human psyche subconsciously reacting to the guilt of knowing that you are suffering so much less than the vast majority of humanity around you? And that you may, in fact, be the source of the suffering?

Hell is other people. (J-P Sartre, "No Exit", 1944)
Hell is eternal. (God, "The Bible", 5,500 BC)
Therefore, humanity has always been afflicted by existential horror.
posted by ardgedee at 9:49 AM on April 24, 2017


There was a British reality show in the early 2000s called Regency House Party, and as I recall they had a hermit living on the grounds.

I like how Jane Austen gives you a sense of the boredom most middle/upper class women must have felt. Running the household of a large estate is a big job, but what if you have a smaller household or are a daughter? You can't work, and there are only so many walks a person can take. Of course they were all up in each others business. There was nothing else to do!
posted by apricot at 10:18 AM on April 24, 2017 [3 favorites]


Hell is other people. (J-P Sartre, "No Exit", 1944)
Hell is eternal. (God, "The Bible", 5,500 BC)
Therefore, humanity has always been afflicted by existential horror.


For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Paul, "Romans 3:23", 56 CE)
All sins are forgiven once you start making a lot of money. (RuPaul, "Drag Race", 2009 CE)
Therefore, you better work.
posted by leotrotsky at 10:21 AM on April 24, 2017 [1 favorite]


The last panel is priceless. Even if you don't have the time or the inclination to read the whole comic, give yourself a treat and look at the last panel.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:39 AM on April 24, 2017


Which is the more baleful sigil of our times, the fact that the rich once hired cosplayers to make themselves seem more spiritual and interesting, or that so many of us modern folk would gladly play the role?
posted by Western Infidels at 11:57 AM on April 24, 2017 [1 favorite]


I don't know about the owners of the estates mentioned in the cartoon, but when I was a student, I did a project on a landscape garden with a hermit, and the original owner and creator of that park was a true self-made man and an immigrant. I'm pretty sure he only had time to visit the hermit when he was showing business contacts around the grounds. I don't remember if it was his children or grandchildren who wasted it all away.

Landscape gardens are part of early modernity — I'm too tired to remember it all now, but they are expressions of a new understanding of "nature" (whatever that is), that grew out of early urbanization in England, with hundreds of thousands of peasants moving into cities to work at factories while former farmland and villages were converted into parks and pastures. The big landowners became immensely rich not only from trading wool and cloth made in new factories internationally, but also from owning land in the growing cities and building speculative housing for workers.
The gardens were inspired by classical and renaissance literature and Italian, French and Chinese gardens — walking or riding through a garden, you would meet impressions or allegories intended to inspire conversations where both guests and hosts could demonstrate their international and classical education and knowledge. Apart from hermits, there would often be classical and gothic ruins, Chinese tea rooms and interesting sculpture and maybe even inscriptions.
All of this taste and education was not just for distraction — a large part of these people's business was in consumer goods, either production or trade. Taste was a core competence for someone who traded in tea, china, cloth, wine and spices.
One estate I looked at while working on my project was built by a slave trader, and apart from the usual references mentioned above, there were also images of the Caribbean in one of the many follies. I'm not saying they were good guys.
posted by mumimor at 12:08 PM on April 24, 2017 [5 favorites]


Gary Busey and Nick Nolte are both played (masterfully) by Robert Redford, hence the confusion.
posted by Bob Regular at 1:17 PM on April 24, 2017 [4 favorites]


> Plenty of monasteries looking for folks.

do they take nihilists
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 2:04 PM on April 24, 2017


Of course they were all up in each others business. There was nothing else to do!

It really explains everyone's investment in everyone else's character being good. You were stuck with those people for months on end.
posted by praemunire at 3:12 PM on April 24, 2017 [1 favorite]


And why they were so immensely excited every time someone moved into the neighborhood. Someone new to talk about, and someone who might have new things to talk about.
posted by tavella at 3:33 PM on April 24, 2017 [1 favorite]


I think it's hard for people in this day and age to appreciate viscerally how long it took to get every damn thing done prior to the twentieth century.

Right, which is sensible. But I guess I assumed that if you were rich enough to pay a person to pretend to be a hermit on your property, you were probably rich enough to support enough household staff to take care of ... well, every damn thing that needs taking care of.

I figured we were talking about the kind of people who spent all day reading or writing letters, or playing cards, or gossiping. I'm not doubting the people of this class had stuff to fill the hours of their lives with; I'm doubting that they were too busy to contemplate their own lives, which the comic implies.
posted by penduluum at 5:24 PM on April 24, 2017


you were probably rich enough to support enough household staff to take care of ... well, every damn thing that needs taking care of

There was plenty of men's work that was not delegable. Mostly not manual labor, but still a pain. That reading and writing letters? That wasn't just enjoying the C18 equivalent of cat memes. You had to do all your business and legal transactions that way, and much of your political work (and keep in mind that, unlike now, a wealthy member of the gentry would be expected to participate in the excessively tedious political life of his county, including possibly serving as a JP eventually).

We're not talking the life of a modern i-banker or lawyer, mind you, but there was still quite a lot to do.
posted by praemunire at 7:10 PM on April 24, 2017 [3 favorites]


I was ready to sign up until the 'Barefoot or Sandals' thing.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 7:21 PM on April 24, 2017


Having the time to live a life of the mind is not the same thing as having the inclination to live that way. If 18th-century-landed-gentry-you wanted to keep up with the intellectual Joneses without the irritating moments of contemplative stillness, you hired somebody else to do it, and learned how to talk the talk. Even today there are vendors who will sell businesses and wealthy individuals the trappings they need to front as learned.
posted by ardgedee at 4:54 AM on April 25, 2017


Having the time to live a life of the mind is not the same thing as having the inclination to live that way.

Agreed completely, ardgedee. Which is why I find the "too busy" framing to be so weird. But I'm going to go quiet now as I don't want to suffocate conversation on the topic any further. Thanks everybody, and thanks for the thought-provoking post, Etrigan.
posted by penduluum at 6:21 AM on April 25, 2017


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