tagged with consumerism
Where politics meets identity design:
In a paradigmatic encounter with Reagan in January 1982, Dan Rather sounded more like a publicist than an interviewer, talking about “perceptions” and “signals,” at one point making this assessment: “This is going to be a continuing problem for you, getting people to believe that you really do know what’s going on in the interior of your Administration” (emphasis added). Reagan’s not knowing what’s going on would seem to be our “continuing problem,” not his, and one of disastrous proportions; but Rather, with the assumptions typical of his profession, could see the danger only as a problem of packaging. Miller, Boxed In (87)
Set aside for the moment how depressingly familiar this all sounds, and consider the implications: television, as the principle means by which a commodity culture is upheld, supports a shallow and consumerist approach to citizenship. No surprise there (though it’s worth repeating it to yourself from time to time, as the medium is remarkably effective at making you forget its purpose). Subsequently, the vote is reduced to a consumerist choice between brands, on par with the choice between Wendy’s and Burger King. The medium of television (and, increasingly, that of the mainstream media on the web) is never going to look any deeper than that; but we have an obligation to investigate those brands, and not merely to understand the assumptions and emotions they are playing on (a revealing effort in and of itself) but to establish whether or not there’s any substance beneath the brand: whether the brand goes all the way down, or if it’s just skating on the surface:
The derision that began in 1986, while mildly gratifying, was – like the adulation that preceded it – too heavily concentrated on the man himself to constitute a real critical perception: TV…is given automatically to such extreme and trivial depictions. It is not Reagan’s so-called “management style” that now requires consideration, nor his near senility (aka “the age issue”), nor his many entertaining “gaffes,” but the true murderousness of his regime. Miller, Boxed In (92)
In other words, instead of focusing on the truth, television focuses on the branding; it does not matter what the candidate actually believes or does; it only matters how they package and distribute it.
And – perhaps more importantly – television intentionally diverts our eyes from anything that could lessen the consumer impulse – like, say, war, death, famine, etc. Terrorism has become the meme of the decade only inasmuch as we place shopping in diametrical opposition to it. The more they terrorize us, the more we buy expensive t-shirts with the word “red” in parentheses. (The parentheses are important; it makes the word look weak, coddled, especially quiet. In other words, not particularly demanding or threatening, and certainly not suggestive of the idea that, say, uncontrolled consumption and reducing world poverty are possibly not the best of friends.)
Boxed In was published in 1988, and it occasionally shows its age with respect to the current state of mass culture, but much of it is still relevant:
The impending culture of the world by TV entails not just the homogenization of the spectacle, and the capitulation of the whole public, young and old, and the incorporation of all once wayward elements, and the renovation of our country into one transcontinental shopping mall. More damaging than these elements, perhaps, has been the subtle and coincident trivialization of criticism – the one action that could still counteract TV. Miller, Boxed In (20)
I particularly like the use of the word “renovation” here, as it suggests the unstoppable optimism that so pervades American consumerism, where any change – any new thing – must be good.
Miller goes on to bemoan the “thumbs up / thumbs down” aspect of criticism that TV encourages, and which (since the book’s publication) has morphed into the ratings game we all play on Netflix and Amazon. Actual criticism requires more patience than that.
