Why guys with Cultural Capital can be extremely dangerous

I was going about my business when drama finally arrived in the Singapore Literature space. For folks in the Financial Wu Lin who may not understand what has been going on, the literati in Singapore are almost fully dependant on just a few venues to come together to conduct events. One of these venues was a bookstore called BooksActually. 

The best way to catch up on the latest happenings is to read this expose by Rice Media.  

I'm one of those dads who have a very artistically-inclined daughter. My daughter just passed Grade 3 ABRSM piano and her drawings are often feted by her school. One of my favourite places to bring my daughter was Basheer Graphics which I also visit very often these days on my own. One of my biggest fears is that after she grows up she begins to dally around boys who are also "artistic". If the guy can shake off his artistic inclination and end up being a lawyer, that's fine by me. But not all guys do. 

What happened to BooksActually elves is a nightmare for dad's with artistic daughters. 

In my last article, I wrote about the kind of woman to avoid and I used the example of Whitney Duan as the kind of ENTJ Queen Bee to avoid unless you really enjoy being emasculated in a relationship. 

It looks Rice Media has answered the question for men.

Ok, let's talk about the operating system (OS) that runs on most of us straight men. 

When we men meet, after short pleasantries, the first thing we do is to setup hierarchies. This often arrives after the we execute the API function call "So, what do you do?" and receive the reply. Once all replies are received, we men begin to silently rank each other to the totem pole. The wealthier guys become senpai and may be saddles with responsibility to pay for drinks. They also get more leeway to spread worldly wisdom, like being the Jack Ma of the Kopitiam. The less wealthy have to settle with being more deferrent but hey, at least there is male company. If you are a guy amongst women, regardless of your position, you may end up playing Sebastian the Black Butler. 

But there is a complication. Capital comes in multiple forms. That hierarchy I described is about financial capital. It's a simple matter of who got the biggest dick will win.There is also social capital. Social capital in China can trump financial capital because you've seen how obsequious business can be when facing civil servants.

If you are an Ah Beng and do not come from privilege, the only way to play the game is through the cultivation of cultural capital. 

Who has loads of cultural capital ? Poets and Writers.

Now, what if you do not have the talent to create literary works?

Simple. 

Learn a thing or two from landlords, become a gatekeeper. Become a rentier in the creative economy.

Once you are the only source of income from Poets and Writers, folks will begin to surrender their cultural capital to you.

The power of having a monopoly at play means that if you commit an atrocity against your own staff. The poets and writers who benefitted from you financially have a dilemma. If they keep an eye closed, then they are hypocrites because they are part of a culture of progressive value of the left. If they cancel you, you can stop ordering their books and substantially hurt their bottom line. 

The financial blogosphere will never have such a problem because there is no monopoly and FIRE folks are hard to cancel unless you can convince CDP not to pay out their dividends. 

So I'm going to summarise the lessons for female readers on how to avoid becoming someone's else's Elf. 

When meeting a potential date with a male, assess what is his strongest capital.

Tech workers these days have very strong financial capital but very little of everything else. These guys are safe and reliable and will benefit from the contacts and fun you bring into the relationship. 

Hippies or the Bohemian Bourgeois are the opposite. They go no cash to back themselves up, but they can make your life living hell because he knows a lot of people and have a lot of access to cultural events. You may mistake him as an easy catch and can even control his wallet, but he can make your life living hell. 

No prizes for guessing which guy I prefer for my daughter.