         
Elective Reflective Writing Cha. 6: Consumer Culture and the Manufacturing of DesireIndeed the desire of the consumer culture is manufactured. In the context of modernity, and the rise/continuation of mass production, consumer society is a very complex, yet predictable attribute of our human existence. I wonder how greatly different my ideas would be about consumerism, if I lived within a society that wasn’t such. Undoubtedly, the link between consumerism and bureaucratization is a greater number of mass manufacturing plants, a significant decrease in the number of family owned and small production businesses, and a greater distance traveled between work and home; by the average American worker.The authors addresses the effects of such issues in very direct ways, answering questions such as: ‘How has the greater distance traveled to work, embarked upon a new advertising industry, and in turn, how has this effected our consumerist habits?’ Mentionable, how has the industrial revolution effected both rural and urban societies?’ Interestingly, Modernism as posed as a new way of looking and renewing, is related directly with new ways of consuming. For in the emergence of modernism, the “…older concern for saving gave way to a new emphasis on spending and on imagining that the path to betterment was through the increased acquisition of good,” (Sturken, Cartwright, 196). I find this fascinating in light of the present day, when I notice sudden and intensely longing acts of those whom surround me, to convert their homes, businesses, and even ideas, into what comes from, or could be paralleled to the modern experience. In this sense I am referencing new insistence by the masses to be a part of the “modern” experience. Home furnishing catalogues, such as IKEA, are in high demand. Antiques are out. Clutter is out. Too much of anything is out. In the fashion industry, high fashion is growing increasingly “minimal” in form, mainstream clothing lines, such as ‘THE CLASSIC CUT’, ‘SIMPLE’, ‘WARE’, and ‘GRAE’, are gaining intense popularity in a short amount of time, because they hold a “modern” ideology. Also, it gets me thinking about ‘trendy’ foods, and their nostalgalism for modernism… Exchange value, brought about my Marxism, is quite intriguing, in that, the actual value of many popular items is going down, while their exchange value is going up. The authors give a great example: perfume. These same ideas seem to be effecting the art world, as seen as predictable.
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