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5e and the Cheesecake Factory: Explaining Good Enough
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8203092" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I'll repost the whole of the post I responded to in the post that you then responded to:</p><p></p><p></p><p>This post is using <em>consumer </em>to mean a person to whom <em>businesses</em>, which are constituents of <em>industries</em>, <em>sell products</em>.</p><p></p><p>Here is Ruskin on consumerism and quality (I'm requoting the quote found in Raymond Williams, <em>Culture and Society</em>, pp 149-50):</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">You must remember always that your business, as manufacturers, is to form the market, as much as to supply it. If, in short-sighted and reckless eagerness for wealth, you catch at every humour of the populace as it shapes itself into momentary demand - if, in jealous rivalry with neighbouring States, or with other producers, you try to attract attention by singularities, novelties, and gaudiness, to make every design an advertisement, and pilfer every idea of a successful neighbour's, that you may insidiously imitate it, or pompously eclipse - no good design will ever be possible to you, or perceived by you. You may, by accident, snatch the market; or, by energy, command it; you may obtain the confidence of the public, and cause the ruin of opponent houses; or you may, with equal justice of fortune, be ruined by them. But whatever happens to you, this, at least, is certain, that the whole of your life will have been spent in corrupting public taste and encouraging public extravagance. Every preference you have won by gaudiness must have been based on the purchaser's vanity; every demand you have created by novelty has fostered in the consumer a habit of discontent; and when you retire into inactive life, you may, as a subject of consolation for your declining years, reflect that precisely according to the extent of your past operations, your life has been successful in retarding the arts, tarnishing the virtues, and confusing the manners of your country.</p><p></p><p>Even if one doesn't agree with Ruskin, and thinks there's no difference in quality between the Marvel Cinematic Universe films and (say) The Seventh Seal - indeed that the former must be better, because more people paid to see them! - still there is no denying his point that <em>producers shape the market, and taste, as much as satisfy it</em>.</p><p></p><p>This was obvious to Ruskin 150 years ago, and should be even more obvious to anyone now. Advertising and marketing are real phenomena, and their job is to create wants and needs, not just (or primarily) to provide information about how already-existing wants and needs might be satisfied.</p><p></p><p>The history of the use of flint axes ten or one hundred thousand years ago has no bearing on this.</p><p></p><p>Nor, to pick another contemporaneous example, does the history of rock and cave art. This was not created for "consumption", or as part of a process of generating demand for "product". Whatever one might want to say about the quality of such works, the idea that <em>the consumer is the final judge of quality </em>has no work to do in that respect.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8203092, member: 42582"] I'll repost the whole of the post I responded to in the post that you then responded to: This post is using [I]consumer [/I]to mean a person to whom [I]businesses[/I], which are constituents of [I]industries[/I], [I]sell products[/I]. Here is Ruskin on consumerism and quality (I'm requoting the quote found in Raymond Williams, [I]Culture and Society[/I], pp 149-50): [indent]You must remember always that your business, as manufacturers, is to form the market, as much as to supply it. If, in short-sighted and reckless eagerness for wealth, you catch at every humour of the populace as it shapes itself into momentary demand - if, in jealous rivalry with neighbouring States, or with other producers, you try to attract attention by singularities, novelties, and gaudiness, to make every design an advertisement, and pilfer every idea of a successful neighbour's, that you may insidiously imitate it, or pompously eclipse - no good design will ever be possible to you, or perceived by you. You may, by accident, snatch the market; or, by energy, command it; you may obtain the confidence of the public, and cause the ruin of opponent houses; or you may, with equal justice of fortune, be ruined by them. But whatever happens to you, this, at least, is certain, that the whole of your life will have been spent in corrupting public taste and encouraging public extravagance. Every preference you have won by gaudiness must have been based on the purchaser's vanity; every demand you have created by novelty has fostered in the consumer a habit of discontent; and when you retire into inactive life, you may, as a subject of consolation for your declining years, reflect that precisely according to the extent of your past operations, your life has been successful in retarding the arts, tarnishing the virtues, and confusing the manners of your country.[/indent] Even if one doesn't agree with Ruskin, and thinks there's no difference in quality between the Marvel Cinematic Universe films and (say) The Seventh Seal - indeed that the former must be better, because more people paid to see them! - still there is no denying his point that [I]producers shape the market, and taste, as much as satisfy it[/I]. This was obvious to Ruskin 150 years ago, and should be even more obvious to anyone now. Advertising and marketing are real phenomena, and their job is to create wants and needs, not just (or primarily) to provide information about how already-existing wants and needs might be satisfied. The history of the use of flint axes ten or one hundred thousand years ago has no bearing on this. Nor, to pick another contemporaneous example, does the history of rock and cave art. This was not created for "consumption", or as part of a process of generating demand for "product". Whatever one might want to say about the quality of such works, the idea that [I]the consumer is the final judge of quality [/I]has no work to do in that respect. [/QUOTE]
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