Home » Opinion » Book review
Tracing consumer culture to 17th century England
By Wan Lixin |
July 31, 2010, Saturday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
IF progress is gauged by the thoroughness with which our society is reduced to the dichotomy between producers and consumers, we have every reason to be flattered.
Our recent history proves that when consumption for its own sake is openly endorsed as a higher purpose of life, it has the magic to quickly tranform a society from one of scarcity to that of surplus.
A corresponding shift in ideology is called for.
Wastefulness and showy expenditures were once harshly condemned, but now we openly talk of "stimulating internal demand," and offer incentives to consumption.
For China, the age of plenty is a fairly recent affair.
But Linda Levy Peck's "Consuming Splendor: Society and Culture in Seventeenth-Century England" rightly attributes the germination of consuming culture to the English four centuries back.
Their appetite for pricy items at that time can be directly linked to today's mass materialism, and the rise of global trade.
As new trade routes brought silk, jewels, spices and paintings to England, the craving for these exotic products became contagious, pushing England to the fore among rival nations.
The demand fueled the need for global trade.
But when British emissary Lord Macartney sought an audience with the Qing Emperor Qianlong in 1793 to promote trade, the Chinese emperor brushed aside their diplomatic entreaties with disdain.
"We possess all things. We set no value on objects strange and ingenious and have no use for your country's Manufactures," the emperor said.
A solution presented itself when the British discovered the value of opium.
When this vice trade was suppressed by the Chinese authorities, it responded with two wars.
Today, China has reportedly surpassed Japan as the biggest consumers of luxury products in the world.
Although violence is no longer necessary to spread the gospel of plenty and luxury, it is still revealing to revisit that glorious era when consumption was first enshrined.
Historians tend to view the 17th century England through the prism of religion, and the church did at first see as morally bankrupt the purchase of such costly items as silk, chocolate and art.
Members of parliaments even passed bills to legislate austerity.
"The condemnation of luxury because it undermined virtue, military strength, and hierarchy continued into the seventeenth century and beyond," the book claims.
Commentator Thomas Mun wrote in the 1620s that "silks, sugars and spices" were "unnecessary wants" that would make their possessors "weak" and "effeminate."
Consumerism won, and the rationalization of consumerism continues to be valid today.
In the 1600s, England was already a "nation of shopkeepers," and consequently a nation of shoppers was believed to be good for business, employment, and poverty relief.
Thus shopping centers became the new public square where shoppers could stroll, socialize and express the sophistication of their tastes through their purchases.
"Splendid clothing, houses and interiors projected wealth and power, and articulated a sense of self constructed through luxury goods as well as lineage," Peck observes.
These shops displayed shopping items in a way that fosterd desire, created fashion and peer pressures.
"This new artchitecture of desire, which fostered sociability and emulation, not only offered new wares but encouraged new wants," the book conludes.
Today the culture of consumption -- aided by easy credit and omnipresent advertising -- has so dominated our life and the national psyche that all reality has to be justified through the logic of exchange value.
As Jean Baudrillard writes in his "Consumer Society," "Our society thinks of itself and speaks itself as a consumer society. As much as it consumes anything, it consumes itself as consumer society, as idea. Advertising is the triumphal paean to that idea."
Our recent history proves that when consumption for its own sake is openly endorsed as a higher purpose of life, it has the magic to quickly tranform a society from one of scarcity to that of surplus.
A corresponding shift in ideology is called for.
Wastefulness and showy expenditures were once harshly condemned, but now we openly talk of "stimulating internal demand," and offer incentives to consumption.
For China, the age of plenty is a fairly recent affair.
But Linda Levy Peck's "Consuming Splendor: Society and Culture in Seventeenth-Century England" rightly attributes the germination of consuming culture to the English four centuries back.
Their appetite for pricy items at that time can be directly linked to today's mass materialism, and the rise of global trade.
As new trade routes brought silk, jewels, spices and paintings to England, the craving for these exotic products became contagious, pushing England to the fore among rival nations.
The demand fueled the need for global trade.
But when British emissary Lord Macartney sought an audience with the Qing Emperor Qianlong in 1793 to promote trade, the Chinese emperor brushed aside their diplomatic entreaties with disdain.
"We possess all things. We set no value on objects strange and ingenious and have no use for your country's Manufactures," the emperor said.
A solution presented itself when the British discovered the value of opium.
When this vice trade was suppressed by the Chinese authorities, it responded with two wars.
Today, China has reportedly surpassed Japan as the biggest consumers of luxury products in the world.
Although violence is no longer necessary to spread the gospel of plenty and luxury, it is still revealing to revisit that glorious era when consumption was first enshrined.
Historians tend to view the 17th century England through the prism of religion, and the church did at first see as morally bankrupt the purchase of such costly items as silk, chocolate and art.
Members of parliaments even passed bills to legislate austerity.
"The condemnation of luxury because it undermined virtue, military strength, and hierarchy continued into the seventeenth century and beyond," the book claims.
Commentator Thomas Mun wrote in the 1620s that "silks, sugars and spices" were "unnecessary wants" that would make their possessors "weak" and "effeminate."
Consumerism won, and the rationalization of consumerism continues to be valid today.
In the 1600s, England was already a "nation of shopkeepers," and consequently a nation of shoppers was believed to be good for business, employment, and poverty relief.
Thus shopping centers became the new public square where shoppers could stroll, socialize and express the sophistication of their tastes through their purchases.
"Splendid clothing, houses and interiors projected wealth and power, and articulated a sense of self constructed through luxury goods as well as lineage," Peck observes.
These shops displayed shopping items in a way that fosterd desire, created fashion and peer pressures.
"This new artchitecture of desire, which fostered sociability and emulation, not only offered new wares but encouraged new wants," the book conludes.
Today the culture of consumption -- aided by easy credit and omnipresent advertising -- has so dominated our life and the national psyche that all reality has to be justified through the logic of exchange value.
As Jean Baudrillard writes in his "Consumer Society," "Our society thinks of itself and speaks itself as a consumer society. As much as it consumes anything, it consumes itself as consumer society, as idea. Advertising is the triumphal paean to that idea."
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