From today’s NY Times.]
Hallowed be the Name on the Label
By John Tierney
If you're tired of sermons denouncing the commercialization of Christmas, you might enjoy a stroll down Fifth Avenue with James B. Twitchell. You will not hear him condemning the crass materialism of the throngs buying $600 purses at Gucci, Fendi and Louis Vuitton. He would rather point out the similarities between those emporiums and St. Patrick's Cathedral.
"You don't have to approve of the stuff in these stores to appreciate the power of this culture," he said, pausing at the Fendi store to admire the marble facade, the high ceilings, and the empty expanses around the display cases. "Look at all the highly ornate wasted space, just like in the churches on Fifth Avenue."
He did not say it disparagingly, because to him the space was not really wasted. Dr. Twitchell, an English professor at the University of Florida, is the author of "Lead Us Into Temptation: The Triumph of American Materialism" (Columbia University Press, 1999), an appreciation of shopping by a man who hates to shop. As a thrifty Yankee born in Vermont, he was satisfied to wear a $40 watch bought at Sam's Club, but he could see the appeal of the $4,000 alternatives on Fifth Avenue.
"Critics talk about people being too materialistic," he said, "but in fact we're not materialistic enough. If we were rationally materialistic, we would simply identify our needs, read Consumer Reports, and buy the best product. But we want spiritual meaning. We want products that tell others who we are and ourselves who we are. We demand things with stories behind them created by advertisers. That's why Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue stores have such distinct points of view. Fendi is not Louis Vuitton. Calvin is not Ralph. Different store, different story."
But $600 for the right initials on a canvas purse? Thousands of dollars for a watch?
"It seems ridiculous to me, but I'm not the right age for it." Dr. Twitchell, who is 57, pointed out that virtually all the customers in the store were under 40. "That is no country for old men," he said, quoting "Sailing to Byzantium," Yeats's poem contrasting youthful passions with mature pleasures.
"There's a correlation," Dr. Twitchell explained, "between levels of anxiety and interest in consuming. You're more interested when you're young. And it's all a matter of taste. If I spent $4,000 on a watch, I would be excoriated by my academic colleagues. But they would approve if I spent it for a rare edition of Wordsworth with no scholarly value."
But aren't Wordsworth's stories more satisfying than Rolex advertisements? Dr. Twitchell answered the question at the next stop, Gucci, where a salesman spent five minutes differentiating between the Jackie purse ("a classic") and the Bardot purse ("this season's classic").
"I wish people could make these kinds of distinctions between Wordsworth and Shelley," he said. "That's how I make my livelihood. But today's audience prefers these Jackie and Bardot stories to the ones they hear in my class or in church."
During the Renaissance, Dr. Twitchell noted, churches displayed religious paintings of a heaven brimming with luxury goods that peasants could not dream of affording in this life. "You could think of it as an advertising campaign with the motto, ‘You deserve a break tomorrow.' " Today the masses no longer have to wait.
Anyone can have the stuff today," Dr. Twitchell said. "Maybe you can't afford the Gucci dress, but you can buy the dark glasses. Nobody in the store asks who your parents are or where you went to school. You see dark skin on both sides of the counter."
Under the pre-brand-name status system, someone of the wrong birth or religion was out of luck, as Dr. Twitchell explains in his book by making what is probably the first scholarly comparison between "The Way We Live Now" and "The Jerk." The Jewish financier in Trollope's 19th-century novel cannot buy the essential upper-class status symbols of his day, like the proper estate, but the nouveau riche played by Steve Martin buys it all and revels in knowing that his identity depends on his stuff.
"There's something wonderfully egalitarian about this new commercial world," Dr. Twitchell said. "Materialism is doing the work that spiritualism promised: bringing us together. People around the world share a common yearning for the same irrational objects. The world is shrinking because we're all hearing the same stories, and it seems to be safer, too. We may be better off all wearing the same Nikes than trying to save each other's souls."
[end]
Carl
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