Horological Meandering

mkvc
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Cynicism about one thing can be a way of protecting another value.

Example: if you really love fine finishing, you may have a particularly strong visceral reaction to the proposition that a poorly-finished watch can be worth large amounts of money based on other characteristics (for example style or limited-edition status). Similarly, if you think watches should be accurate you will object to a watch's being considered a fine watch if it doesn't keep very accurate time, no matter how beautiful it is otherwise. Your disdain may extend to tourbillons that do not improve timekeeping, etc. To look at another aspect of the phenomenon, if you just paid a large amount of money for a Lange in part because the correspondence between movement size and watch size appeals to you, you are much more likely to scoff at the proposition that a small movement in a large watch can be worthy of respect.

The point is that if one really cares about a particular aspect of watchmaking one becomes protective of it. That translates to being hyper-critical of anything that tends to undermine one's perception that his preference is valid. That is not cynicism; it is insecurity. You don't object to the watch; you object to the fact that its existence implicitly calls into question your horological values.

One of the strongest sources of insecurity is the financial. Very few of us can afford to make extensive purchases at the prices watch companies are now charging. That the case even for those of us who may have succeeded in assembling very respectable collections before prices went through the roof. Insecurity creates a huge motivation to criticize watches that are perceived as being unreasonably priced. It's a tough thing to say "I like that watch more than anything I currently own, but I just can't afford it."

On reviewing the above, I feel that I may be being too charitable. There really is a lot of marketing garbage out there in the world, and we are right to disrespect it. However, because of insecurity sometimes we disrespect things that are worthy or respect or at least neutrality.

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