08-27-2019, 09:19 AM
(08-24-2019, 10:05 PM)sbarrera Wrote: Also relevant to this topic, this video that was posted as a comment on the FB version of this post. The signs were visible back in the 3T, in 2005.
Ain't it the truth? I remember paying MSLP (manufacturer's suggested list price) at mom-and-pop merchants and having to decide whether what I got was worth the price. I had to decide whether something was truly better than what I already had, whether it fit in, and whether sticking with what I had was a viable alternative. One had to do some sort of cost-to-benefit ratio. If that ratio wasn't high enough, I did not buy it. Impulse purchases were strictly from the grocery store. Entertainment? It had to be good. A vacation? Likewise.
Marketing was heavily making one like what one was getting. It's probably not original on my part, but happiness comes not so much from getting what one wants but instead in liking what one gets. I had the questionable experience of selling stereo equipment... and it seemed a good fit because I enjoyed the music that put the greatest demands upon a sound system. Classical, of course. Basically, if a string quartet (two violins, viola, and cello) do not sound good on speakers, then the speakers were crap. Put that combination is close to the ratio of the majority of instruments in a symphony orchestra. Other instruments are far easier to reproduce well, which explains the Big bands relying heavily on saxophones and brass instruments with an occasional clarinet, with of course the usual vocals. Those came off well enough on the radios and phonographs of eighty years ago -- unlike a string quartet. Glenn Miller did not write for string quartet, and for good reason. With the pricey stereo speakers of the 1970's and 1980's, one could enjoy music for string quartet on a stereo. With the crap sold today at "Big Box Mart" that is impossible. But who needs music written for string quartet? One needs some education to recognize that music with a generic title can be delightful.
But that was when young adults were buying stereo sets that cost as much as about a four-year-old used car. Those stereos were expensive. But if one bought them the right way, they were keepers. They almost never end up in sale in second-hand stores.
So now we buy stuff from "Big Box-Mart", and we load ourselves with clutter. Garden gnomes, "Big-Mouth Billy Bass", memes as decorations ("Home is Where the Love Is" -- if everyone buys it it isn't imaginative to display it)...
So you worked at a factory and lost your well-paying job because you bought stuff manufactured cheaply in China.. are you a schmuck? Sure. Or maybe you have lost meaningful alternatives.
OK, we will probably end up with economic relations closer to those of the 1950's even if the technology is more sophisticated. Maybe we will insist upon individuality in our purchases, which could mean a boom in the most individual of all economic activities: the creation of honest-to-Degas art. OK, most of us will be stuck with not-so-great art, but we will at the least have some unique expressions in our houses. Maybe we will discover classical music again now that we have plenty of spare time in which to savor a Bruckner symphony.
We will have to be selective shoppers just to avoid getting inundated with junk. Quality will matter not so much for its durability as for its quality and characteristic of not being disposable junk. The 1950's, a stereotypical 1T, were brutal to clutter, and I expect aesthetics to be similar in mass culture. People who endured the Great Depression had little use for throw-away stuff.
At this point I go to "Big Box-Mart" and come home depressed much of the time. There isn't that much that I really want there. Something that has some complexity is unsuited to purchase there. I will not buy a computer, tires, or any sound equipment more sophisticated than a transistor radio there. (I did go there last night to get away from a family argument -- and you if live in a hick town you can go either there or to a bar at 9:30 PM. As I take medicines that preclude drinking, guess what was available? I bought... nothing. Even its book selection is incredibly awful).
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.