20 grams of chicken and a piece of lettuce

Vietnamese Special Chicken Filet Salad for 200 rupies at a restaurant in Delhi. I felt very exited untill my dish of 20 grams of chicken and a piece of lettuce were set before me by a smiling and slightly condecending vaitor. Is this it, I asked? A nod shattered my hopes that this was some kind of appetizer. I wondered how on earth they could charge 200 rupies for something I had to wear my glasses to be able to see and reached the conclusion that yet another restaurant had become "Sophisticated". Many people have suggested that in the future, the time we now live in will be called the Data Age, but I think the Age of Sophistication would be a better term. After people reach a certain point of satisfying basic needs, the need for something more, something luxurious, something "sophisticated" takes over - a way to stand out of the crowd. It is a constant battle both on a materialistic and an intellectual level to show off your "sophistication" by wearing brand clothes, driving fancy cars or spending hours reading Nietszche, Marx and Tolstoj to be able to talk about at the next dinner party. This phenomena, one would think, could only appear in upper class society but as things are, the strive for "sophistication" is present in almost all parts of society where the basic needs are already covered. A lower middle class woman might not be able to afford a Prada handbag so she buys a fake one to appear "sophisticated".

The actual meaning of sophisticated is "one who pursues wisdom", but today I would say it represents quite the opposite. It is quite funny how after having the priviledge of satisfying our basic needs like for example eating we have gone back to starving for the cause of "sophistication".If to be sophisticated I have to pay per fancy word in the name of the dish rather than the actual food, I prefer being a barbarian having a proper meal at McDonalds.