Here is the
beginning of a weekend magazine article on consumerism though I wasn’t sure if it
was more appropriate for the Virginia Postrel post today. It’s worth reading through this to get
to the capuchin monkeys. Also note references
to the cult of workaholism, competitive
consumerism and perceptions of fairness.
Lots of good sociological observation here, enough to make some of us very ill
and hope not everyone in the Third World thinks we are all this way. Just this
weekend I heard taped political commentary by Paul Krugman (here in Portland
for a book tour) deploring that despite the wealth of America our poor are not
better off than other [KWC] comparable nation’s poor, if only because of the cost
of and lack of health care - and housing. References to
other writings included. Please go to the link and check out the photo of the
first consumer profiled. At 14 pages and 77KB the word formatted document won’t
go through the FW filter. - KWC Quote: “Consumerism was the
triumphant winner of the ideological wars of the 20th century, beating out both
religion and politics as the path millions of Americans follow to find purpose,
meaning, order and transcendent exaltation in their lives. Liberty in this market democracy has,
for many, come to mean freedom to buy as much as you can of whatever you wish,
endlessly reinventing and telegraphing your sense of self with each new
purchase…."This society of goods is not merely the inevitable consequence
of mass production or the manipulation of merchandisers. It is a choice, never consciously made, to define self
and community through the ownership of goods." Quote: “I have a very dark view of human
nature," Small says. "I think the reason the monkey study has gotten
so much publicity is that it touches something in all of us . . . There is a
contingent that says the
reason humans have such big brains is to keep track of social information, and we keep track of it all day long,
including who got what." In recent years, who
has gotten what in the United States might leave the capuchins screeching. In
the decades following World War II, Americans in almost every income bracket
saw their earnings increase at about the same rate. Since the early 1970s,
however, the very wealthiest Americans have enjoyed virtually all the income
growth, creating what Cornell economist Robert H. Frank calls a winner-take-all society. The lucky few have largely spent what
they've earned, he says. In the process they've shaped everyone else's
perceptions of what constitutes the good life.” Acquiring Minds By
April Witt, WP Staff Writer, Sunday, December 14, 2003; Page W14 @ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53732-2003Dec10.html A blonde with a
perfect blow-dry flips through the pages of Us magazine on the morning shuttle
to New York. She's not interested in reading about celebrities; she just wants
to check out what they're wearing. "I have this dress," she says,
pointing to a photograph of actress Jada Pinkett Smith wearing a $2,300
bronze-toned satin Gucci cocktail dress with a wide belt shaped like a corset. The fall shopping
season is almost over, and Jamie Gavigan, a colorist at a Georgetown hair
salon, is heading to New York City on one last fashion mission. She wants to
find a killer cocktail dress and satisfy her special footwear urges at the
Manolo Blahnik shoe salon. Jamie shops in
Washington, too, at Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue and some pricey
boutiques. But two or three times a year, the 36-year-old single mother flies
to New York to more fully indulge her fashion passions. It's her reward for
standing on her feet nine hours a day, mixing chemicals and working straight
through lunch to earn the six-figure income that makes these shopping
expeditions possible. When the shuttle lands
at La Guardia, Jamie hops into a cab and heads to her favorite department
store, Barneys, at 61st and Madison, one of the culture's new cathedrals, where
the affluent bring their soaring aspirations for better living through luxury
shopping. "It's all good here," she says. "It's disturbing,
isn't it? I like everything they have." On her feet, she's
wearing $750 Manolo Blahnik black suede boots with four-inch-high stiletto
heels. On her arm, she's carrying a blue Birkin tote bag by Hermes de Paris. If
you could buy one, which now you can't, prices for the Birkin would start at
$5,000 for plain leather and climb to more than $70,000 for crocodile
renditions with diamond-encrusted hardware. Swamped in recent years by demand
for the bag, Hermes had been asking would-be customers to put their names on a
waiting list. Jamie waited two years for her Birkin to arrive. Last year,
Hermes stopped adding names to the list. …Deny it, outraged, if
you will. Rail against unchecked materialism like some puritanical scold. Pray
for the soul of a nation wandering lost in the malls, more likely to shop than
to vote, volunteer, join a civic organization or place a weekly donation in the
collection plate of a local house of worship. Consumerism
was the triumphant winner of the ideological wars of the 20th century, beating
out both religion and politics as the path millions of Americans follow to find
purpose, meaning, order and transcendent exaltation in their lives. Liberty in this market democracy has,
for many, come to mean freedom to buy as much as you can of whatever you wish,
endlessly reinventing and telegraphing your sense of self with each new
purchase. Over the course of the century the culture of consumption and
American life became "so closely intertwined that it is difficult for
Americans to see consumerism as an ideology or to consider any serious
alternatives or modifications to it," historian Gary Cross writes in An All- Consuming Century: Why Commercialism Won in
Modern America. "This society of goods is not merely the
inevitable consequence of mass production or the manipulation of merchandisers.
It is a choice, never consciously made, to
define self and community through the ownership of goods." Luxury goods in
particular -- from SUVs with heated leather seats to wide-screen TVs and
stainless steel ranges the size of tanks -- have become such accepted symbols
of the good life that they are considered must-haves, even by those who can't
really afford them. The
pursuit of them has become so intertwined with the pursuit of happiness that professor and author James B.
Twitchell talks about the shopper's epiphany: "It's that feeling of, phew,
I found it, I am saved." Call it shallow,
Twitchell says, but a belief system that
allows people to reinvent themselves through shopping is a heck of a lot fairer
than the old systems where rank was a birthright and largely immutable.
And competitive consumerism is a lot less bloody than epic battles over whose
God is greater. Consumers like Jamie
live and shop at the nexus of two of the most powerful forces shaping luxury
consumerism: the concentration of wealth among top American wage earners and
mass media that bombard consumers at every income level with images of the lush
lifestyles that money can buy. Celebrities in
particular have become pied pipers of consumption. Salma Hayek wearing a
corset-like Versace on the cover of InStyle magazine can trigger a nationwide
run on the dress. Teenage boys watching "MTV Cribs" dream about
owning the Mercedes S600 and G500 parked in the driveway of football star
Terrell Owens's home. Viewers desire so much of what they see on "Sex and
the City" that the HBO Web site offers virtual tours of the main
characters' apartments and lists where to buy some of their possessions. "The assumption
is that celebrities have access to everything," explains Hal Rubenstein,
fashion director of InStyle magazine. "Consequently, if a celebrity
chooses to carry a Birkin bag out of all the things in the world they could
possibly carry, then she in some odd way starts acting like an editor or
personal shopper. If Sarah Jessica Parker can have all those things, and a
Birkin bag is good enough for her, then it's good enough for me. It's that
simple." Nineteenth-century philosophers and
economists
who viewed goods as utilitarian envisioned a not-so-distant day when American
technical and manufacturing prowess would easily provide for everyone's basic
material needs, freeing all workers to enjoy more family time and leisure. In
the 1930s, economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that within a few
generations everyone would be working two-hour days. "Their assumption was that our needs would be satisfied,"
Cross says. "That was the assumption through most of human history. What
happened, of course, is that they were wrong. We never have maxed out on goods.
Now, we realize that goods are not essentially about satiating material needs,
physical needs, but rather psychological and social ones. And those needs, it
would appear, are absolutely endless." |
- [Futurework] Status and Honours Keith Hudson
- Re: [Futurework] Status and Honours Ed Weick
- RE: [Futurework] Status and Honours Cordell . Arthur
- Re: [Futurework] Status and Honours Ray Evans Harrell
- Re: [Futurework] Status and Honours Karen Watters Cole
- Re: [Futurework] Status and Honours Ray Evans Harrell
- RE: [Futurework] Status and Honours Keith Hudson
- RE: [Futurework] Status and Honours Cordell . Arthur
- RE: [Futurework] Status and Honours Cordell . Arthur
- Re: [Futurework] Status and Honours Ray Evans Harrell