[TheOtherHobbes]

You're getting downvoted, but this is barely a caricature.

Here's the man himself holding forth on interior design. Apparently people who like minimalism are compensating for their inner emotional chaos, and people who like rustic country stylings want a break from being overwhelmed by technology. People who have ornate gold everywhere are terrified of being poor.

It's silly pseudo-psychological nonsense - all opinion, with no empirical basis.

Worse, it ignores the existence of competitive status display and class identification.

Worse than that, he's clearly writing about himself and generalising to other people.

There's an entire book of this. If you want to learn nothing about taste or architecture - but more than you want to know about Alain de Botton - you can read it.

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=646338...