5 July

Travel is a classic example of status in action, that again we mostly don’t see because our own culture is invisible to us, as water is invisible to fish. Why do millions now travel? They will to a man or woman tell you the usual things, to ‘see the sights’, to have ‘experiences’ etc. But the origin of mass travel isn’t that. You can see sights and have experiences sitting at home. It became a thing because it was something the highest status people in society did, the aristocracy. The ‘Grand Tour’. Nearly every part of our lives is the copying of ‘early adopters’, and early adopters are high status people, who others then want to be like. Whether it’s travel or what we wear, or how we speak, or what we eat or drink, or how we build and decorate homes - trace every single part of the culture backwards in time, and you will find a high status person or small group started something. Which millions of others then copied, to try to be a part of that status.