| Very interesting. There is something to it, but it is, I think, overblown. If one reads Sinclair Lewis's "Babbit", for example, there is already a fascination with the latest gadget, and a advertising already taps into the romantic appeal of being ahead of the pack. The very pace of rapid technological and economic change made the quest for improvement a central feature of our culture. Look at what has happened in the last 10 years: the early PCs became rapidly obsolete, as the Internet became a near necessity. One is nowadays almost as left out of things without an e- mail address as one would be without a telephone. Upgrading became ludicrously troublesome, as one went from needing four megs of RAM, to 8, to 16, to 64, if one wanted to participate in the mainstream of the emerging on- line culture. Similarly with CDs. One day I walked into a "record store", after a few months away, and there were no records, only CDs and tapes. For awhile, I resisted, and just bought tapes, but they are more easily damaged, and soon I felt a need for a CD player. People started giving me DVD's as gifts, and I finally had enough to feel the need for a DVD player. In other words, even without advertising, there is pressure to stay abreast, and a sense of the wonders of innovation. Add to that elements of fashionability and the desire to appear savvy, and the appeal of hipness is clear enough, without needing to postulate the channeling of anger, or the cooptation of impulses to social justice...... |
