Old World Swine

Driving Force

photo courtesy of 1959ford.com

In the combox of this recent post on attending a local motorcycle show, reader cmatt comments;

There is a little bit of a retro-renaissance going on in automotive design, at least from the Amercian manufacturers. The Ford Thunderbird, the Dodge Challenger/Charger, the Camaro, all look back to the 50's and 60's that were the heyday for those vehicles.

This is true, and from what I have seen the auto manufacturers have done a good job adapting the forms of the old designs to the modern market and updated technology. They are adapting to the market by making model hot rods for the Generation That Never Grew Up.

This does, I think, indicate something.

It seems to me that the current malaise in car design is a reflection of a broader loss of vision in American society as a whole. Who are we now? Where are we going? We don't know. In such a philosophical climate, a little aesthetic nostalgia might be reasonably expected. As we cast around here and there looking for significance, we inevitably look to the past when we don't know where else to look.

That might also help to explain the endless parade of Hollywood re-makes, and the unavoidable resurgence of clothing styles from past decades. One week the Eighties Look is in, next week it's the Sixties. You see it in products and home decor... the faux antique look. Shabby chic.

Auto design, in particular, seems to demonstrate this sense of being all "at sea". In the beginning, cars were, not surprisingly, designed literally as horseless carriages, but the realities of the new technology soon made this approach impractical. Advancements were made quickly, and auto design as a distinct concept really took hold. It was driven not only by technology, but by a fascination and a love for the very idea of technology. Technology as almost a spiritual force, the zeitgeist. Auto design became the flag-bearer of the Industrial Revolution, but was still tempered by the Victorian love of beauty and order.

Then came the wars, and America as a Superpower, the top of the heap. Unrivaled in the world. One feels this palpably in auto designs of the period, especially from 1950 - 1960. Car design was simply bombastic, unbridled by either practical concerns or good taste. One can see that the country that manufactured, say, the 1959 Impala (top of post) was brimming with piss and vinegar... and testosterone. My gosh, those cars were just fun. Like your own personal Disney ride.

Then, as the American life was increasingly designed around the auto (hello, suburban sprawl!), things began to change. For one thing, owning a car became not a luxury or a thrill, but a dull necessity (except, notably, in the cities). This meant that car design had to increasingly to take into account the economic needs of the common worker. Design had to be simplified and pared down. To keep costs within reason, cars were no longer designed primarily to be beautiful or fun, or for high performance, but to be easy to manufacture. Cars began to be designed more and more to accommodate the assembly line processes that made them affordable.

Of course, this was Henry Ford's idea from he beginning; Keep it Simple. Stack 'em deep and sell 'em cheap. But he was quickly outpaced by the other automaker's flair for design and innovation, which Americans were increasingly demanding. Ford made the auto a possibility for every family. With prosperity, cars became a fashion statement, but as the family car became an absolute requirement for modern life, Henry Ford's approach reasserted itself, in spades.

After the first oil shortage in the 1970's, cars were designed to be not only cheap to manufacture and cheap to buy, but cheap to operate. This was the absolute nadir of car design. Wobbly tin boxes with tiny motors and the cheapest appointments, totally devoid of beauty or imagination. I give you the Ford Escort;

We have recovered a good deal from that which marked the depths of our most prosaic and uninspired period - essentially the Disposable Car. We have again timidly embraced curves. We have flirted here and there with chrome. We have sought inspiration from the Muse of the Computer Age; The Nissan Cube looks like some nameless piece of PC hardware... a wireless router or external hard drive.

Altogether, though, there is no longer any discernible, unified, driving force behind auto design. What we see reflected in the cars we now drive is nothing so much as the continued fragmentation - the balkanization - of American life.

Who are we? Where are we going? We don't know.

"Christian-ese" Redux

Reader Louise  (at Jimmy Akin's blog) has asked in relation to this previous post;

"But what about the Christian pop music, and the hat with IHS on it? Are these things bad now? So that we have to beg God's forgiveness for this "rot"?"

A fair question, and one difficult - or rather impossible - to answer directly. I'm certainly not interested in even beginning to say "Well, you shouldn't listen to this, but I think it's okay to listen to that..." or "wearing Christian symbols on clothing is a compromise with the consumer culture, and is therefore bad". Everything depends on the individual's determination (or lack of same) to live a life radically committed to the Gospel.

It comes down to a matter of perspective. Is our faith just "part of a well-rounded life", or is it the organizing principle that gives meaning to everything else? The question might be framed this way; if not for the ICTHUS emblem on the car, or the IHS hat, or the bible verse t-shirt, how would your neighbors, your friends, your community recognize your lifestyle as especially Christian? If these things didn't exist, what is it about you that would make people know you were a committed follower of Christ?

Keep in mind that in saying "God forgive us" for these kinds of things, I am praying mostly for myself, having been in a position to contribute to the mess by designing Christian T-shirts and other knick-knacks for several years. The horror, for me, would be that anyone could truly say, "You can always tell a Christian becasuse they have little bible verses on their knick-knacks".

Yes, I do think we need to ask God's forgiveness for the extent of the compromises we have made with the prevailing consumer culture (mostly without even thinking), and we need to look hard at our relationship to the wider culture, but much of the responsibility lies with Christian artisans of every stripe to dig deeper, reach higher and not settle for mediocrity by merely putting a Christian spin on a material culture. This might mean having to work a lot harder, it might mean walking away from a job opportunity. It might mean lots of things.

Catholic artisans in particular have a rich and ancient tradition of excellence to build on... we should ask ourselves, where is today's Pieta? Chartres Cathedral? Mass in C minor? Crucifixion of St. Peter? If we don't create the masterpieces of our age, who will? (...and again, I'm mainly talking to myself, here)

I don't want to be guilty of making the perfect the enemy of the good, but from my perspective it looks much more likely in our culture that the good has been seriously undermined by the "good enough". Am I being a little hard-assed about it? Yeah, maybe.

I was once much more involved in Christian Retail, which meant getting a good look behind the scenes at how Christian products are developed for the mass market (a process which, like the making of laws and sausages, one might not really want to see). Part of this involved attending a massive Christian products convention in Dallas one year. I have to say, the reality of the sheer amount of money flying around, the slick marketing, the celebrity culture, opportunism, etc... I found disturbing. I heard a reliable report that one Captain of Christian Industry took some visiting manufacturers (atheist foreigners, which is not their fault) out to a strip club. Why? Because they would like him, they would feel like they were buddies, they would be impressed, they would be easier to work with.

But for every lap dance proffered at such a gathering , there are a hundred very expensive steak dinners, rental limos, pricey gift bags and the like. It is (I believe) fundamentally a culture of materialism, with a Christian gloss. This is not to say it is this way in every single case, only to say that I found a disturbing materialist atmosphere prevalent in that Christian marketplace. Were there good points, as well? Sure, and I could name some for which I was grateful. But the overall tenor of the thing was... creepy.

I tried to imagine Jesus walking the aisles of the cavernous convention floor, and decided pretty quickly that had he been there in person, he would have slipped out quietly and would likely as not have been talking to the homeless guy at the roadside who we passed on the way in. I, myself, couldn't leave without breaking a lot of commitments. I consider that I "left" that place over the next several years.

Steampunk

In a combox below, reader Foxfier's pupils dilate as she asks if I am a fan of Steampunk, since the UPC drive I featured yesterday is designed in that style.

Incidentally, Wikipedia defines steampunk as;

...a subgenre of fantasy and speculative fiction that came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. The term denotes works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used—usually the 19th century, and often set in Victorian era England—but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy, such as fictional technological inventions like those found in the works of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, or real technological developments like the computer occurring at an earlier date.

It says of steampunk design specifically,

Various modern utilitarian objects have been modded by enthusiasts into a pseudo-Victorian mechanical "steampunk" style. Example objects include computer keyboards and electric guitars. The goal of such redesigns is to employ appropriate materials (such as polished brass, iron, and wood) with design elements and craftsmanship consistent with the Victorian era.

Am I a fan? The answer is "Yes (and no)".

Like anything, most examples of steampunk design aren't that noteworthy, and some of it I just find ugly in a way a little more interesting than usual. On the whole, I think we have enough exposed gadgetry and mechanical crap in our lives already. Add to that the fact that most of the steampunk designs involve merely grafting onto an object gears and tubing and guages that are totally cosmetic and useless, and things can get ridiculous pretty quickly (sure, decorative elements are often non-functional, but, you know... a little moderation, please). It would be fun to own some of these things (it might feel like you were a character in a sci-fi film), but I think in many cases the fun would wear off after a while and at some point you'd basically be left with something else to drag to the curb on trash day.

However...

There are some brilliant artistic minds working in the steampunk style and doing truly elegant and amazing things like these;

 

(From a post at Techotic blog)

These are beautiful, functional items. I love the old-fashioned, round typewriter keys. True, this kind of aftermarket modification is not open to most people (belonging to obsessed hobbyists, professional designers and rich people, mainly), but hopefully this kind of approach might seep into some of the corporate design departments eventually. It's fun, it's beautiful... it makes the person sitting at the computer feel a little better about being human, which is what design should be about.

I heard today, though, that France is now the second leading market for McDonalds in the world, behind the U.S. How is that related? Well, the French famously loathe McDonald's. They protest and complain about how it contributes to the degeneration of French culture, but... the McDonald's burger is half the cost of a sandwich from a bistro down the street. They buy it for the same reason we buy it... cuz it's cheap. Bland and unhealthy, but cheap.

Corporate designers have surprisingly little control over the design process. It is dictated first by what is quick, easy and - above all - cheap. Budget is what drives design 99% of the time, and designers are often left with very little elbow room in which to work. Why? Because we consumers want cheap stuff, and we won't by a computer for $800 if we can find one with the same functionality for $795. Companies know this, and act accordingly.

We pretty much get what we want. We just need to learn to want something a little better.

Good Bloggage

Paul S., at his blog Spike is Best has a thoughtful meditation on Jesus' parable of the generous landowner who pays equally for unequal work. A fellow Chestertonian, he writes well and features some fine original poetry, as well, from time to time.

Professio is a new-ish blog of Catholicism, art and culture from another Chestertonian (there can never be too many). In a recent post, he poses the question "Can It Be Done Smaller?" in a brief defense or explication of the Distributist spirit. He also asks another question that I'll deal with in another post.

Finally, Paul N. - The Aesthetic Elevator - has been musing on the concept of Beauty and includes human relationships as being among the truly beautiful (or I guess, ugly) things we can create. He also features some good quotes on the subject from people like Cardinal Henri de Lubac and C.S. Lewis. I was gratified to read his thought about the beauty of human relationships being similar to creating beauty in more temporal ways... art, music, poetry, that kind of thing.

Every Christan artist ought to try and read Tolkien's short story Leaf by Niggle, which touches on and develops this idea. He seems to confirm that in our daily decisions and relationships we create something far more durable and significant than any conceivable work of earthly art could hope to be. Our life in Christ - that aspect of our personhood that is united with and animated by his will through the Holy Spirit - exists in eternity as something solid and distinct, like an everlasting sculpture we work on every day without realizing it. We shape it by our thoughts and actions.

Paul is also depressed about scarves right now... or probably more accurately, about mass produced and mass marketed "hominess". This reminds me of all the trouble I used to go to as a teenager in order to get my jeans to wear and fade just right... then the industry giants started mass producing pre-faded and worn jeans, even including the holes and frayed cuffs.

Yesterday, I saw an ad flashed on a gas pump LED screen that read "Grandma's Cookies, 2 for $1.00". I don't know what they're selling in every gas station coast-to-coast in those little mylar pouches, but it ain't my grandma's cookies.

We Did This to Ourselves

The Aesthetic Elevator carries a brief post regarding the latest bit of shameless Messiah Marketing, "Lookin' Good for Jesus" lip balm, shown at left. Now, there are apparently those who think this is a Christian product, that it is a sunny and naive (if cheesy) endorsement of simple faith and purity.

I have a very hard time believing this was conceived as anything but a parody of the Christian faith. See, slamming Jesus in public is okay, now, even hip, so taking a swipe at chastity in the guise of a gaudy bit of Jesus Kitsch is just *too* clever, you know.

In fact, the people that market this remind me of the Clevers in C.S. Lewis' book The Pilgrims Regress; "Priceless!", exclaimed one half of the Clevers, "too Puritanian!".

Then, it puts me in mind of Jadis shaving Aslan's mane. Or of this;

"They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand and knelt in front of him and mocked him. 'Hail, king of the Jews!' they said." - Matthew 27:28-29

Looks like someone is desperately working toward their Jaded and Sardonic Merit Badge. But, you know, making fun of stuff is easier than using  your time to like, you know, try to do anything important.

I might begin to believe these hack artists actually have some stones when they introduce a line of Mohammed cosmetics. How daring! How droll! What's holding you up, guys?