CMNS 222 – Short Essay
Question One:
The convergence of dream and reality.
Alison Ensworth
Rosalind Williams’ essay The Dream World of Mass Consumption
opens with so beautiful a narrative that the reader hardly suspects the
imminent revelation of a darker truth. Drawn in by a story of Parisian
exhibition and wonders of ages past, he falls victim to the very pattern the
author is about to critique – seduction by spectacle, a temporary escape
from reality. However, the truth begins to sink in as Williams continues to
describe the 1900 exposition as the momentous threshold to a shift in
society, and the effect it had on its spectators. In the discussions that
follow, Williams unravels an even greater “lesson of things”, where “things”
are dreams within reality, and the “lesson” being a warning of the dangers
of this portentous convergence. These dangers – namely, the
subordination of culture to economy and material wealth, the
displacement of imaginative culture, and the subsequent distortion of our
perception of reality – continue to play out in our lives today, with
increasing austerity, which is why it is so critical that we become aware of
them before our habits of consumption consume our lives entirely.
The opening of Williams’ essay showcases the 1900 exposition in
Paris as one of great significance, an event that even its observers sensed
was “particularly prophetic… that something rich and strange was
happening there which broke decisively with the past and prefigured
twentieth century society” (pg. 199). While previous expositions were “a
sea of spinning wheels, dancing hammers, and whirring gears” (pg. 199),
this one was a strikingly different spectacle. The difference, though it was
hard to verbalize at the time, was definitively connected to the
industrialized world, and the impact that mass production had of
subordinating culture to profit and economy: artistry was sacrificed for
efficiency, uniqueness gave way to standardization, continuity was
abandoned in favour of revolution, and community was supplanted by
privatization. The result of these shifts was visibly apparent at the 1900
exposition, where the entertainment was no longer educational, but a
way of advertising and selling goods; presentations were no longer of
scientific and technological innovation but of the goods produced by
mechanized industry; displays were no longer an orderly sequence but a
chaotic jumble of dissociative images and information – in short, the
attraction of the expo was no longer intellectual enlightenment but
exposure to “the sensual pleasures of consumption” (pg. 199). As Williams
notes, “the emphasis gradually changed from instructing the visitor in the
wonders of modern science and technology to entertaining him… more
and more, consumer merchandise rather than productive tools was
displayed” (pg. 199). These cultural wonders were used for capitalist
production and profit rather than didactic exhibition, to the end that
“consumer goods, rather than other facets of culture, became focal
points for desire” (pg. 203). Perhaps most indicative of this change was
the appearance of prices, “prominently marked” (pg. 201) on items at the
1900 exposition, but were nonexistent in those of prior decades. Williams
notes Maurice Talmeyr’s warning of “the inevitable corruption that results
when business exploits dreams” (pg. 203), casting a shadow over what
one might consider the fundamental basis of consumerism: the
convergence of dream and reality.
As Williams says, “it is neither necessary nor possible to catalog all
the dreams exploited by modern business… their range is as boundless as
that of the human imagination” (pg. 221), but the phenomenon is of great
significance. This displacement of cultural and imaginative elements into
the service of commerce effectively alters the function of dreams and
aspiration. By “inviting them into a fabulous world of pleasure, comfort,
and amusement” (pg. 203), vendors and merchants at the 1900
exposition subordinated “all other considerations to the ends of business”
(pg. 202) and their audience played right along. According to Williams,
“the sprawling exhibition had no orderly arrangement of focal points such
as previous ones had possessed” (pg. 199), and she refers to this “assault
of dissociative stimuli” (pg. 206) as the “chaotic-exotic” – the embedding
of dreams into reality through a wild jumble of images and élan. This, she
says, is the hallmark of mass consumer society. Even more so today, we
are overwhelmed by a constant barrage of imperatives that drive us to
consume, to purchase a temporary reprieve from these ceaseless
demands of our concern. So great are the media and marketing that
spectacle, emotional stimulation, and sensual pleasure overwhelm our
capacity for intellectual reflection and meaningful aspiration. As Talmeyr
wrote, “obligations of price, of economy, of placement, of health are
imposed on him, and he submits to them. And the quest for success, for
attraction, for show, for excitement, for everything that amuses, will
necessarily be his guideline. Truth, history, common sense, will be arranged
afterwards as best they can.” (pg. 202). These days, our dreams are of
wealth, power, success, status; they revolve around (and stretch only to
the boundaries of) the instant gratification of consumption. Thanks to
capitalists descended from the exhibitors at the 1900 exposition, our role
as consumers is no longer to imagine a better Tomorrow, because we can
buy a better Now. We can immerse ourselves in the chaotic-exotic that
seems to fulfil our needs (but really only numbs them temporarily) and
forget about the real business of living; we need not imagine a better life
because our consumer society fabricates (and mass produces) it for us.
This mentality leads to a blurring of our real world as our sense of reality
(and our sense of self) is shrouded in a veil of spectacle and numbed by
drunken spree so greatly encouraged by capitalist bangs and whistles – or
“the décor of a harem”, to use Émile Zola’s words (pg. 205). Williams rightly
states that “the purpose behind such a display is to win attention and to
raise merchandise above the level of the everyday by associating it with
exciting imagery” (pg. 219), and as a result, we have come to expect an
amplified sensual experience in our everyday interactions with mundane
objects. We have had our perception of dreams and reality turned upside
down.
What results is not only the displacement of our dreams, but the
complete distortion of what we perceive to be reality. Just as observers of
the 1900 exposition were seduced by exhibits of “gross alteration, or
absolute falsery” (pg. 201), so are we the victims of “ornamental delirium”
(pg. 202) contracted from chaotic-exotic consumerism. Talmeyr’s criticism
of the 1900 exposition holds up just as well today as it did in his time: “they
don’t want to show us anything serious, and we have nothing serious to
ask that’s serious. But isn’t this precisely the vice of all these exoticisms of
the exposition? They offer themselves as serious in not being so, and when
they cannot be so.” (pg. 201). Are we not all seduced by ads or
enticements of one kind or another, perhaps even more so by the ones
that are overtly outrageous? Are we not drawn to the larger-than-life
fantasies painted for us by retailers, cinematographers, digital
programmers, and stunt doubles? We all engage in the dream world of
mass consumption from time to time – and for many of us, it’s a way of life.
Because consumerism is the drum that beats the loudest in our society, we
are quite accustomed to exhibits of “blatant lies and subtle ones, lies of
omission and of commission, lies in detail and in the ensemble” (pg. 203).
But so easily we forget to see them for what they are, to recognise that
many of the “exhibits claiming to represent […] the real anything are not
real at all” (pg. 203). Instead, we choose to abandon truth and escape to
a dream that seems so real, because “people want to evade reality, not
to learn about it” (pg. 214). Over time, we abandon truth so often that we
lose touch with reality, and our natural capacity for intellectual growth
erodes.
Perhaps one of the clearest examples of this type of escapism is the
cinematic experience. In film, our dreams are played out before our eyes
in ways that make them seem real. Film “allows [the masses] to enter
hitherto inaccessible reaches of society through ‘elegant and worldly
dramas which introduce them to milieux where they cannot otherwise
penetrate.’ Whether the distance is geographic or social, film allows the
pleasures of mobility” (pg. 213). But these milieux are rarely depicted
truthfully; as Williams cautions, “‘photographic truth’ is not truth. Film can
give ‘the exact reproduction of natural reality’ while still being ‘a factor of
artifice and of falsification’” (pg. 214). While many of us moviegoers
understand this on some level, we still buy into its escape; “because film
speaks in the language of imagery, it is at once emotionally exciting and
intellectually deceptive”, and it “captivates the imagination of the viewer
without engaging his mind” (pg. 214). This is why Talmeyr, and later Louis
Haugmard, condemn films as “imaginary excursions” of “childish
escapism” (pg. 213) that distract the masses from “their sorry and
monotonous existence, from which they love to escape” (pg. 214). So we
escape from a world where we must put our minds and bodies to work for
what often feels like very little emotional gain, to a theatre where “the film
does all the work for the viewer, who needs to put forth only the most
minimal intellectual effort… the passive solitude of the moviegoer
therefore resembles the behaviour of department-store shoppers, who
also submit to the reign of imagery with a strange combination of
intellectual and physical passivity and emotional hyperactivity… In the
movie house the characteristic sociability of environments of mass
consumption is taken to its limit in ordered rows of silent, hypnotized
spectators” (pg. 215).
The department store is another example that Williams provides of
consumerist escapism, where the culture of shopping gives shoppers a
feeling (real or imagined) of wealth and worldliness as they purchase the
tokens of their fantasies. Here especially we see the chaotic-exotic in full
swing. However, developments in globalization and technology have
taken shopping to a whole new level: now, the entire globe is engaged in
the consumerist agenda, to the effect that virtually everything in the world
is consumable – especially if you’ve got the right smartphone app. It’s true
that “modern technology widens the horizons of the masses” (pg. 213) but
when applied to the consumerist culture, it encourages the notion that
one can consume a wider variety of things; dreams of any sort are within
reach. The world is ours to consume. Of department stores and cinemas,
Williams writes, “Environments of mass consumption are places where
consumers can indulge temporarily in the fantasy of wealth” (pg 222), but
the indulgence no longer has to end; one environment bleeds into
another and we now live in a world of mass consumption where our
senses are overwhelmed from every side by stimulation that
simultaneously numbs our capacity to truly contemplate and self-reflect.
As Haugmard warns, “… we shall progressively draw near to those
menacing days when universal illusion in universal mummery will reign”
(pg. 216). Drawing on this, Williams writes, “this widespread passivity, both
physical and mental, is responsible for other distressing social trends.
People love to believe that there is a short cut, an easy way out, and they
want to be deceived because it is a way to avoid confronting real
problems” (pg. 232). We shop to forget. We watch movies to escape. We
play video games to virtually achieve our dreams, or take on a false
persona. Are we so disinterested in the world we actually live in? Williams
offers little in the way of a solution to what seems like a grim disintegration
into perpetual fakery. But the awareness alone is perhaps sharp enough
to make us question our escapism, our consumption, and what we see as
“reality”. We might even think outside the box now and again, and dream
to new heights entirely independent of consumption. Stay tuned for the
documentary…
References:
Williams, R. (1982). The Dream World of Mass Consumption. Dream Worlds.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
DANGERS – thesis statement
1) Culture becomes subordinate to economy and material wealth.
- “the submission of truth, of coherence, of taste, of all other
considerations to the ends of business” (pg 202)
- “inviting [consumers] into a fabulous world of pleasure, comfort,
and amusement” (pg 203)
- “the sensual pleasures of consumption clearly triumphed over the
abstract intellectual enjoyment of contemplating the progress of
knowledge” (pg 199)
2) Consumerism alters the function of imaginative culture, dreams and
aspirations.
- “as enticing and exotic as any child could imagine” (pg 201)
3) Our perception of reality is distorted by the consumerist shift towards a
[this] new logic of representation.
- technology generates spectacular cosmetic effects and distractions
that we come to perceive as the norm
- globalization has engaged the entire world in the culture of mass
consumption, making virtually everything in the world consumable
and flattening culture
- “modern technology widens the horizons of the masses” (pg 213) but
more specifically encourages the notion that one can consume a
wider variety of things; dreams of any sort are within reach
- electricity, for instance, “invested everyday life with fabulous
qualities” (pg 217), making dreams and aspirations of earlier eras
commonplace in modern reality; “a fairyland environment” of
“glowing pleasure domes and twinkling lights” (pg 217) that is almost
immediately exploited for commercial purposes.
- “if the world of work is unimaginative and dull, then exoticism allows
an escape to a dream world” (pg. 220)
- “Environments of mass consumption are places where consumers
can indulge temporarily in the fantasy of wealth” (pg 222) but the
indulgence no longer has to end; one environment bleeds into
another and we now live in a world of mass consumption where our
senses are overwhelmed from every side by stimulation that
simultaneously numbs our capacity to truly contemplate and selfreflect.
-
- “This widespread passivity, both physical and mental, is responsible for
other distressing social trends. People love to believe that there is a
short cut, an easy way out, and they want to be deceived because it
is a way to avoid confronting real problems” (pg. 232)