Average family

[Carl Remick]

>From: Gordon Fitch <gcf at panix.com>
>
>kelley wrote:
> > > correct me if i'm wrong, but that IS what 1900 house is about yes?  a
> > > middle class family's lifestyle.
>
>Carrol Cox:
> > And since the meaning of "middle class" is entirely subjective -- that 
>is,
> > since it does not hold the same connotation (Mill's use) for almost
> > any two writers or readers, what the book is essentially about is 
>nothing
> > at all.
>
>When I first heard of this, I thought it was a mere entertainment,
>like televised bungee-jumping, but given some of the uses of
>it I've seen here, I'm beginning to wonder if it isn't either
>an artifact of propaganda in favor of unrestrained, continuous
>industrialism for its own sake ("progress") or the mass-media
>equivalent of a troll.

Well, predictably Jim Heartfield tried to hijack this series the other day 
as a vehicle for his own fatuous technophilia, but I think _1900 House_ is 
not so silly and one-dimensional.  It's as much a meditation on the 
inconstancy of human desires as it is a celebration of technological 
advance.  BTW, I just ran across summaries of each program in the series at 
a UK site, http://www.channel4.com/1900house/tvseries/tvseries.htm#28dec.  
Also BTW, I wonder if there are copies of _Cassell's Household Guide_ 
available anywhere; the series makes repeated references to this work, which 
apparently was the late-Victorian middle classes' definitive source of 
advice on "servants, technology and etiquette" as the series producers put 
it.

Carl
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