I have an opinion!

Here's a very interesting article, courtesy of me lil' brother:

http://adbusters.org/the_magazine/71/Generation_Fcked_How_Britain_is_Eating_Its_Young.html

The writing is superb, as are many of the insights (and the comments are maybe even more illuminating) but the perspective of the author bugs me. In short, the origin of her thought is: materialism is bad. Most people will agree with this statement immediately, but since Oberlin has soured me toward easy liberal attitudes, I now want to explore this a little more.

Things, in themselves, are not evil. One of things that makes us human is the fact that we create tools in order to make our lives easier. Even the most dyed-in-the-wool treehugger has to get those Birkenstocks from somewhere. The fact is, there's really nothing wrong with making our lives easier and making ourselves more comfortable. I'm sitting on a very comfortable couch at the moment, which I bought at a cultural consumer wasteland (Ikea) because it's what I could afford. If I could have afforded it, I would have bought something much shiner, more comfortable, and maybe even in a color I liked instead of this light grey which means I have to freaking paint the walls one of these weekends...

The important point here is this: I want, like many people want, to surround myself with beautiful, convenience-making things. *GASP* I know, I sound like a suburban housewife, but it's true. So I have a lovely wood bookshelf that holds nearly all of our books, an ipod, a nice gas stove. Here's the thing--we place different values on our objects depending on what they do. A hippie would look at my bookshelf and say, 'well, I don't approve of the fact that it's made of wood, but I like how many literary classics you have. Well done there, surrounding yourself with culturally appropriate things." But the ipod--now that is a perfect example of our mass consumer culture. But is it still an example of our mass consumer culture if I walk around listening to Beethoven? Or Thomas Tallis, like I've been doing a lot lately? What about Cake or The Decemberists or Gorillaz?

The problem isn't materialism, it's cultural snobbery. The 'Chavs' in the Adbusters article are villified because they're loud, rude, like expensive gadgets, and dress in a way that seems to embody all aspects of their soulless, material-driven culture. Or, is the problem is that their idea of culture is utterly different from more traditional notions of culture, which stress classical music, Earl Grey tea, and plain suits as ideals? Those are all 'things', and they all need to be bought

Materialism, meaning the frenzied acquisition of goods in order to fit in with accepted subcultures, is bad if only for these reasons--fitting in with accepted subcultures requires the self-denial of individuality, the homogenization of opinions, and the forgetting of beauty. Any time that you buy anything or say you like something because you think it will help you fit into a group, then you're not being genuine. If you listen to Beethoven because you want other people to think you're the kind of person that listens to Beethoven, then you're one of Holden Caulfield's phoneys. The only reason to listen to Beethoven is if you like him.

(This means all of us are phoneys sometimes, definitely including me, and inculding Holden Caulfield himself, as he admits.)

"The forgetting of beauty" is, I think, the greatest evil. I think it explains a lot of what we find 'wrong' in our culture, like unrealistic standards of physical attractiveness, skimpy clothing, etc. I was at work the other day when I saw a couple out the window--an older man, 60s-ish, and what looked like a twenty-year old girl. It's not the first time I've seen couples like that in this fantasy world* (though I'm pretty sure that one I saw a few weeks ago was call-girl and client.) Anyway, this couple entered the store and I immediately realized that the twenty-year-old was at least 45. I almost laughed out loud. This woman had a very fine-boned face, and she'd decided to stretch the her skin painfully tight over her little bones and then paint it with fake-tan cream. She was also very thin and wearing clothes that she was a good 20 years too old for.

No one in the world would find this woman attractive. You'll never find her face on the cover of a magazine (except the 'Coney Island Freak Show Newsletter.) But in her haste to conform to an ideal of beauty, she spent tons of money on excessive surgeries.

The women you do see on covers of magazines are generally our most beautiful people--models and actresses. Many of them get the same type of procedures performed as that poor fashion victim. But there's an important difference--most of them are still beautiful. Angelina Jolie may have had some collagen injections in her lips, but she hasn't forced her skin over her bones. Certainly some models and actresses are painfully thin and surgically altered to the point of absurdity, but not all. The most famous actresses, while still looking good, don't look 30 years younger than they are. Maybe ten years, but that's a little better.

The point is this: fashion magazines and the like don't create people like the woman I saw in the store--those people are self-created in their frenzied quest to conform to a standard. What makes people attractive is not how much they look like some ideal, but how well they figure out their individual style according to their body type and personality. It gets harder if the clothes you need aren't being sold in stores, but it's still doable with a sewing machine--yet another thing which, once acquired, makes life easier.

*The Upper East Side is a freaking fantasy world. See that Seinfeld episode.

I have an opinion. Actually, I have many. But I'm only going to inflict a little bit of my speculative ranting on you right now.

Here's a very interesting article, courtesy of me lil' brother: http://adbusters.org/the_magazine/71/Generation_Fcked_How_Britain_is_Eating_Its_Young.html

The writing is superb, as are many of the insights (and the comments are maybe even more illuminating) but the perspective of the author bugs me. In short, the origin of her thought is: materialism is bad. Most people will agree with this statement immediately, but since Oberlin has soured me toward easy liberal attitudes, I now want to explore this a little more.

Things, in themselves, are not evil. One of things that makes us human is the fact that we create tools in order to make our lives easier. Even the most dyed-in-the-wool treehugger has to get those Birkenstocks from somewhere. The fact is, there's really nothing wrong with making our lives easier and making ourselves more comfortable. I'm sitting on a very comfortable couch at the moment, which I bought at a cultural consumer wasteland (Ikea) because it's what I could afford. If I could have afforded it, I would have bought something much shiner, more comfortable, and maybe even in a color I liked instead of this light grey which means I have to freaking paint the walls one of these weekends...

The important point here is this: I want, like many people want, to surround myself with beautiful, convenience-making things. *GASP* I know, I sound like a suburban housewife, but it's true. So I have a lovely wood bookshelf that holds nearly all of our books, an ipod, a nice gas stove. Here's the thing--we place different values on our objects depending on what they do. A hippie would look at my bookshelf and say, 'well, I don't approve of the fact that it's made of wood, but I like how many literary classics you have. Well done there, surrounding yourself with culturally appropriate things." But the ipod--now that is a perfect example of our mass consumer culture. But is it still an example of our mass consumer culture if I walk around listening to Beethoven? Or Thomas Tallis, like I've been doing a lot lately? What about Cake or The Decemberists or Gorillaz?

The problem isn't materialism, it's cultural snobbery. The 'Chavs' in the Adbusters article are villified because they're loud, rude, like expensive gadgets, and dress in a way that seems to embody all aspects of their soulless, material-driven culture. Or, is the problem is that their idea of culture is utterly different from more traditional notions of culture, which stress classical music, Earl Grey tea, and plain suits as ideals? Those are all 'things', and they all need to be bought

Materialism, meaning the frenzied acquisition of goods in order to fit in with accepted subcultures, is bad if only for these reasons--fitting in with accepted subcultures requires the self-denial of individuality, the homogenization of opinions, and the forgetting of beauty. Any time that you buy anything or say you like something because you think it will help you fit into a group, then you're not being genuine. If you listen to Beethoven because you want other people to think you're the kind of person that listens to Beethoven, then you're one of Holden Caulfield's phoneys. The only reason to listen to Beethoven is if you like him.

(This means all of us are phoneys sometimes, definitely including me, and inculding Holden Caulfield himself, as he admits.)

"The forgetting of beauty" is, I think, the greatest evil. I think it explains a lot of what we find 'wrong' in our culture, like unrealistic standards of physical attractiveness, skimpy clothing, etc. I was at work the other day when I saw a couple out the window--an older man, 60s-ish, and what looked like a twenty-year old girl. It's not the first time I've seen couples like that in this fantasy world* (though I'm pretty sure that one I saw a few weeks ago was call-girl and client.) Anyway, this couple entered the store and I immediately realized that the twenty-year-old was at least 45. I almost laughed out loud. This woman had a very fine-boned face, and she'd decided to stretch the her skin painfully tight over her little bones and then paint it with fake-tan cream. She was also very thin and wearing clothes that she was a good 20 years too old for.

No one in the world would find this woman attractive. You'll never find her face on the cover of a magazine (except the Coney Island Freak Show Newsletter.) But in her haste to conform to an ideal of beauty, she spent tons of money on excessive surgeries.

The women you do see on covers of magazines are generally our most beautiful people--models and actresses. Many of them get the same type of procedures performed as that poor fashion victim. But there's an important difference--most of them are still beautiful. Angelina Jolie may have had some collagen injections in her lips, but she hasn't forced her skin over her bones. Certainly some models and actresses are painfully thin and surgically altered to the point of absurdity, but not all. The most famous actresses, while still looking good, don't look 30 years younger than they are. Maybe ten years, but that's a little better.

The point is this: fashion magazines and the like don't create people like the woman I saw in the store--those people are self-created in their frenzied quest to conform to a standard. What makes people attractive is not how much they look like some ideal, but how well they figure out their individual style according to their body type and personality. It gets harder if the clothes you need aren't being sold in stores, but it's still doable with a sewing machine--yet another thing which, once acquired, makes life easier.

*The Upper East Side is a freaking fantasy world. See that Seinfeld episode.