Let us suppose for a moment that someone has created synthetic oil. It’s the same thing, molecularly, as the oil that is drilled from the earth. It can be used for all things we use oil for now. It looks the same and smells the same. It is basically indecipherable unless you send it to a specialized lab. And it’s significantly cheaper, too.
Now suppose that OPEC launched a campaign to convince people that drilled oil was better than the synthetic kind. That drilled oil ran your cars better. That you were a better person because you used “real” oil instead of the manufactured kind. Do you think you would fall for such a campaign, or would you pocket the savings and never give it another thought?
It’s meant to be a rhetorical question, yet i have an example that is precisely the SAME THING, yet we want the drilled oil anyway: diamonds.
The reason we are so emotionally invested in our diamonds is primarily due to a superbly-run ad campaign launched by De Beers in the 1940s. “Diamonds are Forever” is something we still spout today. Somewhere along the line, De Beers convinced people to pass their diamonds on as family heirlooms, which reduced the market for used diamonds. They even created new traditions among us; John Stossel writes, “Russia increased the mining of small diamonds. Since De Beers had to fulfill a purchase contract with Russia, it suddenly had more small diamonds than it could sell. So De Beers started promoting the idea that, after years of marriage, if a man really loved his wife, he would show his devotion by giving her an ‘eternity ring’ – a ring with lots of small diamonds on it. It worked. Today thousands of American women wear eternity rings because of a South African company’s need to accommodate Russia.”
It’s just propaganda. Diamonds are special because De Beers tells us they are – there isn’t anything inherent about them that makes them so.
When diamonds were first grown in labs, De Beers created the “Gem Defensive Program” to raise awareness and convince people that they really want the real thing. To convince people they really want to pay more for drilled oil rather than purchasing the synthetic oil which is basically indistinguishable. And it worked! John Stossel again – “Women told us, even if they had preferred the look of the imitation, they’d still rather be given the diamond. ‘It just makes you feel like you’re special’, said one woman. ‘I know what I want on my finger, and it has to be the real thing.’ We’ll spend more for a rock because a South African cartel has run a great ad campaign? Apparently we will.”
It’s a hell of an ad campaign, that’s all i can say.
Now, if your loved one gave you a diamond, i’m not trying to minimize the significance of the promise that the diamond represents. That is meaningful, priceless even, and your ring may always symbolize that for you. But it is the promise and the commitment that makes it special, not the diamond itself.