Harry Winston

Jack Forster
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You make some excellent points unquestionably. . .

. . . I assumed, I admit, that Bernard was being rhetorical rather than literal when he said 8 out of nine surveyed disliked the watch (and my experience too has been that it is far from universally admired in some quarters, I have heard some disappointed remarks from people whom I think we would all reasonably feel comfortable calling experts that the watch is a disappointment.)  I also understand that the, shall we say rather spectacular price point brings its own expectations along with it.

This is an interesting phenomenon though.  In a general sense I think you will agree that as the price starts to climb into six figures, horology price to value ratios start to become even more deranged than usual (and they were pretty deranged to start with ;-) . )  I think the issue here is perhaps (and bear with me while I draw what may seem at first an almost meaninglessly fine distinction) not so much whether or not the watch is worth the asking price in any absolute sense (and I don't know any serious Purist who takes the idea of absolute value seriously anyway.)  I think rather it is perhaps -and I'm speaking not from a finish standpoint, which I'm not in a position to evaluate having not seen the watch) perhaps, the watch does not conform to our expectation of what a watch costing in the low six figures should look or feel like.  And they're not quite the same thing.

In the first case there would not even be any need for taste, as there would be an absolute standard of taste (which can never be) which allows us to say, and always agree, whether or not anything is worth the asking price.  In the latter case however, if we introspect enough to admit that what upsets us is the overturning of the apple cart of our expectations, then perhaps we need to ask ourselves if the problem is the object we are contemplating (Opus 8 in this case) or our expectations. . . or some combination of both, it's always a good idea in philosophy to remember that the two horns of a dilemma are less often irreconcilable differences than they are merely endpoints, and moving ones at that, on a continuum of subjectivity.  Ha ;-) .

Expert opinion merely reflects the consensus of an ad hoc community brought together by accidents of geography, economy, and preferred mode of discourse and being members of a learned majority certainly does not guarantee a reliable data set, if I may say so.  Look how often learned scientific bodies have been dead wrong in matters of fact of science, or how often (to reference your own professional realm) conventional wisdom expert opinion has been dead wrong.  From 'noble pus' to mammary artery ligation the history of medicine is replete with an overwhelming expert consensus as impressive in its ubiquity as it was total in its wrongheadedness.  The means by which we argue the veracity of our claims frequently play us false as we commit inadvertent category errors -witness your automatic equating of the developed taste of a group of watch enthusiasts with the scientific consensus of a group of scientists on a point of science.  Rhetorically they seem close enough to be interchangeable, but they are in fact almost totally unrelated methods of arriving at consensus -in fact, that they arrive at consensus is the only thing they have in common.

And I won't bore you with examples from the art world of expert consensus which have ended up upon the dustpile of history ;-) .

So if expert consensus is no guide to absolute value, then what is it a guide to?  It's a guide to the social context in which one deploys such watches, which, since these are primarily minimally functional or even counterfunction objects, exercise primarily the function of social signalling. 

In that context Bernard's reaction becomes interesting, and is completely justifiable on its own terms.  Exclusivity is Bernard's nectar and to be exclusive, one must exclude.  Given that we establish identiy as consumers in a group by often making counterfunctional choices, it actually might have been predicted with a near certainty that Bernard would seek to maintain the perception of the keeness -and yes, the exclusivity, of his taste and collection -once the derision had risen to a high enough level to provoke an anti-consensus reaction.  Thus, he re-establishes his essential position, at which his activity as a collector seeks to locate him: an expert, an iconoclast, and one with a unique vision others do not share.

And in participating in such discourses as these, I get to re-establish my position as an insufferable, superciliious smart-arse ;-)

Cheers,

Jack