P. 23 “McKendrick seems tempted to resort to notions of inherited need in order to explain the existence of fashion, referring to the desire to be fashionable as a ‘constant of the human condition’. Such an argument naturally directs attention to those economic and commercial developments which ‘allowed’ this ‘need’ to be fully expressed for the first time. Happily he does not pursue this sterile course of argument but turns instead to place an emphasis upon the role of manipulation in the ‘creation’ of the Western European fasgiona patterns suggesting “it needed to be released and mobilized and exploited before it could significantly add to aggregate demand. The conditions making this possible grew steadily more favourable ….But it still required active and aggressive selling to reach that market and exploit its full potential.”… fundamental weaknesses at the level of theory.”
P. 38 “a natural corollary of endless wanting is the high rate of product (and hence want) obsolescence. How is it that wants depart as suddenly and as effortlessly as they arrive? How is it that individuals manage to cease to want that which they ardently desired only a little while before? For modern consumer society is symbolized at least as much by the mountains of rubbish, the garage and jumble sales, the columns of advertisements of secondhand goods for sale and the second-hand car lots, as it is by the ubiquitous propaganda on begaklf of new goods. There is a widespread tendency to take such behaviour for granted and to assume that, even though it might not be morally desirable, it is at least a perfectly ‘normal’ or ‘rational’ mode of acting. It takes only a little reflection to realise, however, that such a view is neither supported by psychology nor anthropology, but is merely the product of a deep-=seated ethnocentricity.”
P. 102 “the Puritans were even more hostile to opulence than they were to voluptuousness; their objection being that ‘vain ostentation’ – that is anything which, neither glorifying God nor being useful to man, served merely to promote human pride – was sinful. An obvious target gere was the decoration of the person, especially clothing, as any unnecessary elaboration in this context was seen as a sure sign of the idolotaory of the flesh2
P. 134 “Puritans having developed a ‘taste’ for the strong meat of powerful religious emotion, and when their convictions waned, seeking alternative fare with which to satisfy their appetite. Draper refers to the middle classes ‘craving’ for the strong meat of powerful religious emotion, and when their conviction waned, seeking alternative fare with which to satisfy their appetite. ,, an obvious place to find them was in literature where artificially created feelings could be eperiened by ‘living’ real-life situations vicariously; this is certainly what the graveyard ports and the Gothic movelist sought to provide. … an obvious psychological as well as an historical connection between the decline of religious terrorism and the rise of terror-romanticism.”
P. 152 “sensibility … it covered feeling sorry for oneself, feeling sorry for others, and being moved by beauty, and yet all responses had equal significance as indications of goodness. Responsibveness to beauty thus became a crucial moral quality, such that any deficiency in this respect became a moral lapse, whilst correspondingly virtue became an aesthetic quality, such that, in turn, any moral lapse was in ‘bad taste’.
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P. 153 McKendrick described the consumer revolution as occurring because families which “had long been in command of income sufficient to acquire new possessions … now… felt compelled to do so”… in the late 18th century large numbers in society felt that they must be in fashion, whether they liked it or not. Surely the nature of such compulsion could only be in moral in essence…. Because the middle classes had such a strong Puritan inheritance that they were so eager to ‘follow fashion’ and hence consume ‘luxury’ goods with avidity. This they did out of a deep-seated fear that they might be (and be thought to be) lacking in virtue.”
P. 168 “Refinement, and its expression in elegance, constituted the core of the dandy ideal, whether in dress or deportment. Dress was to be perfect, but understated, as were all gestures and expressions of feeling, while refinement in conversation led to a premium being placed upon wit. To attain this ideal of refined behaviour was to successfully display a superiority of self, and hence arrogance was also a defining characteristic of the dandy. Naturally competition between them was intense, as each strove by means of dress, gesture, tone of voice, glance and overall manner, coupled, of course, with wit, to triumph not only over all situational risks to their poise but over each other. It was a measure of Brummell’s skill in this respect that he was universally acknowledged, for many years, as being the leading dandy”.
P. 176 “The evolution of sensibility into a full-blown romanticism can be seen as following, at least in part, from the necessity of defending a philosophy of feeling against its detractors, something which placed an excessive strain upon the attempted association of the values of sincerity and propriety. For the accusation that such an ethic envourgaed dissembling, hypocrisy, indifference to suffetring, and even cruelty, could only really be countered by arguing that these were not the products of ‘true’ sensibility, but rather the outcome of behaviour governed by conventional expectations. … just as the dandies represented the triumph of proprietary over sincerity, so the Romantics (and especially the romantic Bohemians) come to represent the reverse.” This development can also be seen in the popular novels of the time, which typically portray young ladies who are forced to suffer by ‘society’ for their spirited natures and fine sensibilitries, before eventually succeeding in realizing their dreams.”
P. 193 “Since the key characteristics of the divine was taken to be creativity, both in the sense of productivity and originality, imagination became the most significant and prized of personal qualities, with the capacity to manifest this in works of art and through an ability to enter fully into those created by others, both acting as unambiguous signs of its presence .. the Romantic was someone who had an ideal sensitivity to pleasure and indicated this fact by the spontaneity and intensity of his emotions. .. his idealistic determination and sense of obligation towards his personal ‘genius’ combined to make him feel estranged from an artificial, materialistic and utilitarian society.”
P. 200 “The romantic ideal of character, together with its associated theory of moral renewal through art, functioned to stimulate and legitimate that form of autonomous, self-illusory hedonism which underlies modern consumer behaviour.”… The romantic world-view provided the highest possible motives with which to justify daydreaming, longing and the rejection of reality, together with the pursuit of originality in life and art; and by so doing, enabled pleasure tio be ranked above comfort, counteracting both traditionalistic and utilitarian restraints on desire.”
P. 227 The cultural logic of modernity is not merely that of rationality as expressed in the activities of calculation and experiment; it is also that of passion, and the creative dreaming born of longing. Yet, more crucial than either is the tension generated between them, for it is upon this that the dynamism of the West ultimately depends. The source of its restless energy does not derive from science and technology alone, mor yet from fashion, the avante-garde and Bohemia, but from the strain between dream and reality, pleasure and utility.”
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