Devouring Theory looks at the beginnings and steady rise of consumerism in the West. At what point did we start buying things just for the hell of it, rather than out of necessity? According to Jane Kenway and Elizabeth Bullen, this new consumerer ideology was facilitated by the industrial revolution, the printing press,and the opening of Paris's Bon Marché in 1869 (pictured left). Bon Marché was seen as both "a reflection of an encroaching bourgeois culture and a vehicle for the construction of a modern culture of mass consumption which would increasingly affect all social classes" Department Stores and shopping malls helped to usher in era, which gives life meaning through consumable "things"
Kenway and Bullen further their discussion in elaborating over the contentious concept of high culture. While I'm unsure as to whether or not they see the concept of "high culture"as problematic, there are others, such as bell hooks who have taken issue with the term. I'd like to expand upon an earlier post I wrote on second-hand style in response to their understanding of high culture. Kenway and Bullen argue that high class is a matter of good taste. To have good taste they contend, is to move away from the body, away from things of necessity. Cultivating the fine distinctions of taste however, "is a disciplined and difficult educational process. So too is learning the unemotional and detached bodily department, which accompanies the performance of good taste."
Devouring Theory looks at the beginnings and steady rise of consumerism in the West. At what point did we start buying things just for the hell of it, rather than out of necessity? According to Jane Kenway and Elizabeth Bullen, this new consumerer ideology was facilitated by the industrial revolution, the printing press,and the opening of Paris's Bon Marché in 1869 (pictured left). Bon Marché was seen as both "a reflection of an encroaching bourgeois culture and a vehicle for the construction of a modern culture of mass consumption which would increasingly affect all social classes" Department Stores and shopping malls helped to usher in era, which gives life meaning through consumable "things"
Kenway and Bullen further their discussion in elaborating over the contentious concept of high culture. While I'm unsure as to whether or not they see the concept of "high culture"as unproblematic, there are others, such as bell hooks who have taken issue with the term. I'd like to expand upon an earlier post I wrote on second-hand style in response to their understanding of high culture. Kenway and Bullen argue that high class is a matter of good taste. To have good taste they contend, is to move away from the body, away from things of necessity. Cultivating the fine distinctions of taste however, "is a disciplined and difficult educational process. So too is learning the unemotional and detached bodily department, which accompanies the performance of good taste." Tom Wolfe and Angela Carter, argue that dressing second-hand style subconsciously/consciously patronizes the working class and poor who dress second-hand out of necessity rather than style. I can't say I disagree with Wolfe's or Carter's assessment. The discussion of high culture by Kenway and Bullen however, has me wondering what else might be at play with respect to second-hand style. If cultivating good taste is a disciplined and difficult educational process, could it be that second-hand style-middle-class-high-culture kids are trying to connect, to break out of the unemotional, detached bodily department inherited from their parents? Style is a way of constructing person hood, and maybe second-hand style is a means of trying to break out of an already constructed person hood. Kenway and Bullen go on to discuss the idea of race as style,and argue that "white culture's nostalgic insistence on Black authenticity blocks Black people's claim to the economic capital, which again has me thinking about the above. Kenway and Bullen conceptualize Black culture as more community oriented than the private practices of white culture. While bell hooks speaks forcefully about the white commodification of Blackness in her article "Eating the Other", I wonder how much the middle-class consumption of rap music has to do with also trying to break out of the restraints of high culture:isolated individualism, and unemotional detachment.
