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Twitchell
teaches English and advertising at the University of Florida. His book titles are irresistible and he is
a wizard with words. The first
chapter provides a materialist’s philosophy of consumerism. Further chapters cover Advertising,
Packaging, Branding, Fashion, Shopping and Consumption. One reviewer called it "A feisty defense of American materialism.” Although it all looked intriguing,
I believe several parts of it are repeated in later books, including Branded
Nation.
“No
other culture spends so much time declaring things don’t matter while saying
‘just charge it.” “We are gagging on
goods.” (2)
“Shame
is what humans feel when the disparity between do and ought occurs. We know what we should do, we don’t do it,
we feel shame and shame makes us meek about ourselves, and often harsh on
others.” (3-4)
“I’m
not being tricked. I’m consuming
sensibly. But they are so profligate,
so wasteful, so careless. Someone
should talk to them.” (6)
“We
currently live in a culture in which almost everyone can have almost
everything. What used to be ‘Use It
Up, Wear It Out, Make It Do’ or ‘Do Without’ has become ‘Use It or Lose It.’” (12)
“If
you just play by a few rules you’ll have more things—if that’s what you
want—than any generation before. What
are these rules? Simple. Finish high school, get a job, don’t get
pregnant or get someone pregnant before you finish high school, don’t become
addicted to drugs, and you can make it in America.” (12-13)
“But
watch out! Deviate from these rules
by just a hair and you can fall over the edge. Drop out of school, do some jail time, stay unemployed in the
inner city, take a drug stronger than marijuana for longer than a week, or
attempt to raise a child by yourself, and you will have the life of a
peasant.” (14)
“The
main focus of this project is the argument that such matters as branding,
packaging, fashion, and even the act of shopping itself are now the central
meaning-making acts in our postmodern world.” (14) [This
is a powerful statement! dlm]
“Temptation
is, after all, the patron saint of the marketplace.” (15)
Ch. 1. Attention Kmart
Shoppers A Brief Consumer Guide to
Consumption, Commercialism, and the Meaning of Stuff
“Most
of the world most of the time spends most of its energy producing and
consuming more and more stuff.” [I believe he means the Western world. dlm] It is the central characteristic of modern
life. (17) “To the rest of the world we do indeed seem not just born to
shop, but alive to shop.” (18)
“The
bust of mallcondo commercialism...is moving outward around the world at the
speed of television.” (18) “Did
anyone before the 1950s—except the rich—ever shop just for fun? Now the whole world wants to do it.” (9)
Human
beings love things. “We live
through things. We create ourselves
through things. And we change
ourselves by changing our things. We
often depend on such material for meaning.” (19) [This
is one of his key points. dlm]
“Not
only are we willing to consume, and not only does consuming make us happy,
‘getting and spending’ is what gives our lives order and purpose.” (20) [This is a
scary thought. It appears that
Twitchell sees no meaning beyond the material stuff of this world, a true
materialist. Contrast what the Scripture says: “Do not love the world, nor the
things in the world. If anyone loves
the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the
lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the father but
is from the world. And the world is
passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God abides
forever.” I John 2:15-17
dlm]
“Ask
any group of teenagers what democracy means to them and you will hear an
extraordinary response. Democracy is
the right to buy anything you want.
Freedom’s just another word for lots of things to buy.” (23)
“The
freedom to buy what you want (even if you can’t pay for it) is what most
foreigners immediately spot as what they like about our culture, even though
in the next breath they will understandably criticize it. Paradoxically, buying stuff is not just
our current popular culture, it is how we understand the world.” (23)
“We
used to go into the dark cathedral looking for life’s meaning and then do a
little shopping on the side. Now we
just go straight to the mall.” (27)
“We
are healthier, we work at less exhausting jobs, and we live longer than
ever. Most of this has been made
possible by consuming things, ironically spending more and more time at the
carnival, less and less in church.” (27) [I suggest
we are still benefiting from our ‘church’ heritage of self discipline and
only beginning to see the consequences of unrestrained consumerism in broken
homes, addictions, dysfunctions, white-collar crime, and all the other
natural results of lust and greed turned loose. dlm]
“Where
we were once ashamed of consuming too much (religious shame), we are now
often ashamed of consuming the wrong brands (shoppers’ shame).” (27)
“The
fact is that the carnival is a world of brazen excess, full of sound and
excitement but signifying little in the way of philosophical depth.” (28)
“Once
you have passed through ‘prime-branding time’ you are almost impossible to
sell to. The mall carnival is not for
you. You become in our culture, ‘a
paltry thing,/ A tattered coat upon a stick’...forgotten. Very little entertainment, let alone
information, flows your way because no one is willing to pay the freight to
send it.” “Although you have the
money, your kids spend it. No wonder
you become a critic of a culture that has made you a pariah.” “But the money in materialism is to be
made from tapping those with excess disposable time and money—the young.”
(29)
“Marketing
should not be a nasty word. Religions
have been doing it for generations.
If you like it, it is called saving souls; if you don’t it is called
proselytizing. But whatever it is
called, marketing depends on branding, packaging, and distribution and it
evolved from organized religion.”
(30)
“We
have grown not weaker but stronger by accepting these self-evidently
ridiculous myths that sacralize mass-produced objects; we have not wasted
away but have proved inordinately powerful; have not devolved and been
rebarbarized, but seem to have marginally improved. Dreaded affluenza notwithstanding, commercialism has lessened
pain. Most of us have more pleasure
and less discomfort in our lives than most of the people most of the time in
all of history.” (31) [But have we yet experienced all the results? dlm]
“...possessions
are definitions—superficial meanings perhaps, but meanings nonetheless. Without soldiers he is no king. Without a BMW there can be no yuppie,
without tattoos no adolescent rebel....” (38) “We are not too materialistic; if anything we are not
materialistic enough. Meaning is
added to objects by advertising, branding, packaging, and fashion because that
meaning—derisively called status—is what we are after, what we need, especially
when we are young.” (38)
“The
purpose of many professors who grew up in the 1960s has become creating and
then exploiting cultural politics.
Nine times out of ten, if you take a course in anything described as
Cultural Studies, you will find that individuals are invariably seen as
victims, while your instructor is the sage protector.” (41)
“Commercialism
is driving popular culture, and popular culture is driving almost everything
else.” (46)
“What
is being packaged is not the good as much as the buyer of the goods.” “The process of consumption, therefore, is
creative and even emancipating. In an
open market we consume the real and the imaginary meanings, fusing objects,
symbols, and images together....” “Lifestyles are secular religions, coherent
patterns of valued things.” (47)
“Consumption
is...part of a lifelong attempt at creating meaning....” (47)
“Dr.
Johnson said you could tell a man by his library; now just a peek at his
running shoes will do.” (48) [You can probably tell if his meaning comes from
fashion. dlm]
“In
becoming the central register of selfhood, commercial culture is now playing
out what was the historic role of organized religion. The brands you once applied on Saturday or
Sunday at the church of your choice are now being applied daily down at the
mallcondo. That the House of Worship
has become the Marketplace of Commerce is a melancholy transformation, to be
sure. Much has been lost. A sense of missionary purpose, for
example. But in many ways it is also
a far more equitable and democratic process to trust pocketbooks over prayer
books.” (49)
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