Recently I commented on “
You Say You Want a Devolution", Kurt Andersen's article in the current (January 2012)
Vanity Fair in which he argues that America has stagnated culturally, as evidenced by 20 or more years of unchanged style and fashion. I've spotted a number of published responses, including "
Is 2011 really just 1991?" by Maria Russo in
Salon. Of course I cite hers specifically because her thoughts brush elbows with mine, if only briefly, when she echos my guess that what people wear and what they listen to means less now (or at least means something different):
Technology is definitely making lifestyle—and the expense associated with acquiring it—less relevant. (Which is fortunate for those of us who can no longer afford much of one, anyway.) Much of what Andersen prizes from the allegedly more innovative American past is just display. But when your life—public and private, working and leisurely—revolves around a MacBook and an iPhone, and constant, disembodied exchanges of information in placeless cyber realms… well, you don’t need to overturn the Aeron chair, do you? Nor do you need to fixate on the status-symbolism of where you live. Best of all, you don’t need to worry about what you buy and what it says about you, because you may buy very little.
Notes:
- Also, she sounds way too condescending throughout.
