Rick Blaine
My Mail is Forwarded Here
- Messages
- 3,958
- Location
- Saskatoon, SK CANADA
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly."
— Bertrand Russell
A German philosopher named Karl Marx argued that a capitalist economy leads to fetishization, and devalues the worth of goods and services, placing the focus instead on their market price.
I know that I personally have made a 'fetish of fedoras' (...sounds kinda catchy, eh? Good name for a band
) Though it has little to nothing to do w/ market price... I don't know quite why I do it, to be honest.
"It is true of dress in even a higher degree than of most other items of consumption, that people will undergo a very considerable degree of privation in the comforts or the necessaries of life in order to afford what is considered a decent amount of wasteful consumption..."
- Thorstein Veblen
Do I have anything more in common w/ a fella that wears fedoras than I do w/ one who also happens to also shoot only with Nikons, as I do? [huh] I dunno.
I try to dress in a manner akin to, though not slavishly reproducing, the wardrobe of an average working Joe c. 1930 - 1941, my Fathers' formative years. I try to wear items that would not have been out of place in that period. Does it make me odd? Perhaps. To what degree am I willing to go? Well, I'll never pay $400 for selvage Levis from Nippon or J (s)Crew, but I will wear $15 - $20 dollar Wranglers or more for Carhartts if I am flush. It is what THEY would have done, no?. More Tom Joad than Fred Astaire, more Woody Guthrie than William Powell. I guess I crave a sense of continuity & connection to what has come before that brings with it an authenticity.
If nothing else, I think I DO recognize my (not necessarily an attractive quality) reactionary, how shall I say it... spirit, thing, je ne se qua against the 21st Century and what it has thus far brought us. As someone here has in his or her sig here. - "I want my century back". Though I doubt this is the healthiest way to handle c-c-c-changes, ya' know?
This is something that has been in the back of my mind for a while (definition through consumption) & this discussion brought it to the fore. Any thoughts?
fftopic: (Though not really, more parenthetically.)
Some etymologists believe that the term hip was in reference to those who used opium recreationally in the 19th century. Opium smokers commonly consumed the drug lying on their sides (i.e. their hips). Because opium smoking was a practice of socially-influential trend-setting individuals, the cachet it enjoyed led to the circulation of the term hip by way of a kind of synecdoche, e.g.- "he's OK. he's on the hip" or in the know. In "Bet the Devil Your Head," Edgar Allen Poe has one character ask another, "are you hipped?"
...boy, can I gas on & on...
— Bertrand Russell
A German philosopher named Karl Marx argued that a capitalist economy leads to fetishization, and devalues the worth of goods and services, placing the focus instead on their market price.
I know that I personally have made a 'fetish of fedoras' (...sounds kinda catchy, eh? Good name for a band
) Though it has little to nothing to do w/ market price... I don't know quite why I do it, to be honest."It is true of dress in even a higher degree than of most other items of consumption, that people will undergo a very considerable degree of privation in the comforts or the necessaries of life in order to afford what is considered a decent amount of wasteful consumption..."
- Thorstein Veblen
Do I have anything more in common w/ a fella that wears fedoras than I do w/ one who also happens to also shoot only with Nikons, as I do? [huh] I dunno.
I try to dress in a manner akin to, though not slavishly reproducing, the wardrobe of an average working Joe c. 1930 - 1941, my Fathers' formative years. I try to wear items that would not have been out of place in that period. Does it make me odd? Perhaps. To what degree am I willing to go? Well, I'll never pay $400 for selvage Levis from Nippon or J (s)Crew, but I will wear $15 - $20 dollar Wranglers or more for Carhartts if I am flush. It is what THEY would have done, no?. More Tom Joad than Fred Astaire, more Woody Guthrie than William Powell. I guess I crave a sense of continuity & connection to what has come before that brings with it an authenticity.
If nothing else, I think I DO recognize my (not necessarily an attractive quality) reactionary, how shall I say it... spirit, thing, je ne se qua against the 21st Century and what it has thus far brought us. As someone here has in his or her sig here. - "I want my century back". Though I doubt this is the healthiest way to handle c-c-c-changes, ya' know?
This is something that has been in the back of my mind for a while (definition through consumption) & this discussion brought it to the fore. Any thoughts?
fftopic: (Though not really, more parenthetically.) Some etymologists believe that the term hip was in reference to those who used opium recreationally in the 19th century. Opium smokers commonly consumed the drug lying on their sides (i.e. their hips). Because opium smoking was a practice of socially-influential trend-setting individuals, the cachet it enjoyed led to the circulation of the term hip by way of a kind of synecdoche, e.g.- "he's OK. he's on the hip" or in the know. In "Bet the Devil Your Head," Edgar Allen Poe has one character ask another, "are you hipped?"
...boy, can I gas on & on...
