All Profile, No Courage; All Sail, No Anchor

What I say here about Virginia Postrel's new book The Style of Substance runs two risks. One, I haven't read the book yet, so I have to rely merely on the reviews, trusting they "have the book right." Two, I have looked at so many of these reviews that anything I say begins to look like a literary "Kevin Bacon Game," linking six reviews back to the original book.

That said, David Frum's comments on Postrel's book (himself commenting on George Will's review of the same) brings several things to mind. Postrel writes about how style and design have become the substance of our buying preferences in the past 50 years -- that we purchase cars, toasters, and computers not only because they take us places, make good toast, and create spreadsheets, but because they tell others by how these products look how we want to be seen. Producers are selling, and consumers are buying, purpose and personal identity. As Will writes, Americans are consuming design and designing themselves.

Frum brings up two problems: designer babies and the bioethical problems therein, and artistic decay. This second dilemma he links to Charles Murray's new book bemoaning the decay of art and beauty in a world that does not treasure God. Says Frum, almost nobody in a secularized world can see any reason to sacrifice the rewards of the here-and-now for the artistic vocation. Hence there are no 21st century Michelangelos in a designer world more interested in what the neighbors think of their new Honda than in tending to the salvation of their soul.

Now, finally, where does this leave me? Reading this, I thought of Schumpeter's warning of capitalism's pervasive tendency to "marketize" and rationalize everything, thereby extending the strict economic reasoning that sets prices and wages to social institutions like church and family. In doing so, these institutions come under pressure and scorn as irrational silly relics, held in contempt by intellectuals and economists alike. Yet these institutions are the structure upon which capitalism depends, impressing upon people the value of hard work, diligence, principle, and honesty. Thus in the end, totalistic capitalism tends to undermine itself, and I found myself wondering: Is Postrel's stylistic thesis an example of Schumpeter's and Murray's fear? That without the social and historical non-market foundations pointing us beyond price tags and pay checks, beauty becomes a Brittany Spears' song rather than a Haydn Mass -- that which sells the most and appeals to people's constantly changing feeling of style, rather than that which appeals to our history and common traditions.

Frum continues: But if the idea spreads that there really is no difference – that what say Cezanne did is just a rarified version of what the stylists at Starbucks do – one should not be surprised that potential Cezannes decide to forgo the hardships and risks inherent in the life of the artist and sign up for the certain benefits of working as a stylist. With those who can actually draw or compose a tune or write clever words absconding for work in the style economy, the art world is left empty to be filled up with misfits and weirdos attracted to the life of the artist precisely because of its hardships. We’ve created a world in which those with artistic talents are systematically hired away from artistic vocations – while just about everyone drawn to an artistic vocation lacks basic artistic talents. By "marketizing" everything, including art and music, freeing it from its religious moorings and making it a rational, buyable, consumable extension of personal identity here-and-now, are we destroying our history and social identity? Are we destroying those things that make us a distinct community and allow us to survive as a society?

Julian Johnson's new book, Who Needs Classical Music?, struggles with this idea, that style (commercial success) trumping all other considerations is both historically unique (the pre-1800 world would have thought America nuts by saying all artistic value is personal taste) and thoroughly corrosive. In other words, if style is everything, all value is determined by what sells the most, and in near syllogistic logic, because Brittany Spears sells more than Haydn, her music is more valuable. Johnson writes, [Classical music's] lack of commercial success, following this logic, is de facto proof that it is effectively good for nobody: it has zero value. Peter Hitchins fears the same with his Spectator article a few weeks back, defending the seemingly indefensible BBC -- where would intelligent, historically aware conversation about art, music, or thought be without non-market institutions?

If everything is style and design (and hence fleeting, marketable, and consumable), what is steady and reliable? Where are the cultural and social compass points, the necessary foundation upon which we innovate and create, that point us in fruitful directions and warn us away from the shoals? Personal identity based upon style passes nothing from one generation to the next but outmoded fashions. That is a gloomy and perilous prospect.