Within the art world, few have influenced and
revolutionized our view art and the world. Among them is John Berger, with his
famous text “Way of seeing”, published in 1972. Berger was born in 1926 to a
couple of immigrant workers from Hungary. His father served in WWI and he
himself served in WWII, and later on studied in Chelsea School of Art in
London. His working class background and his participation in war had major
influence on his political and cultural view as an art critic, thinker and
novelist. Examples would be an essay titled “ Permanent Red”, demonstrating his
political affiliation. In art, he is a Marxist Humanist and was critical of
western ideas like modern art. In politics, he donated to the Black Panther
movement, and had refrained from criticizing the Soviet Union only until the
later part of the Cold war. He had produced several writings that cover a range
of stimulating and politically controversial subjects from the alienation of
English urban life to migrant workers turning to the contemporary style of
their European counterpart. This is where his most famous work, “Ways of
seeing”, comes in.
Written and published in the 70s, at the
height of the cold war and the counter culture movement, as a direct response
to Kenneth Clark’s “Civilization” - a 1969 TV series on Western art,
architecture and philosophy. Based on the premises that what we see are dictated
by our knowledge and beliefs, “Way of seeing” (1972) was a critical jab at
western culture aesthetic and capitalist publicity and demonstrated Berger’s
political and social ideologies. Perhaps this was highlighted best in this
quote from the book, which will be the main subject of today’s writing:
“Glamour cannot
exist without persona| social envy being a common and widespread emotion. The
industrial society which has moved towards democracy and then stopped half way
is the ideal society for generating such an emotion. The pursuit of individual
happiness has been acknowledged as a universal right. Yet the existing social
conditions make the individual feel powerless, He lives in the contradiction
between what he is and what he would like to be.” ( p.148 )
The key
terms pulled from this are “Glamour” and “Envy”, which will be the 2 main ideas
that occupied most of the essay. A general break down of this quote would be
that glamour by its nature relies on envy to simply exist, and in the commodity culture / capitalist economy,
advertisement and publicity push you to achieve an ideal life when the reality
is that only the few privileged can. This is a perfect environment to generate
envy, and in turn, fuelled the idea of glamour, which itself then create even
more envy. This cycle is later on supported in the more contemporary works from
Gundle and Castelli (2006,2008), but also argued against in some aspect by
Postrel (2013) and Hughes (2007), whom works will all feature in this essay.
Perhaps
it is best to put Berger’s quote into context, as part of a bit on modern
publicity and how “ publicity is the process of manufacturing glamour” (Berger,
1972, p.131). Within this, he compared the evolution from oil painting to
modern publicity, how it had change from a form of product that consolidate and
enhance one’s own value to a product that more or less makes people feel less
then they should, then suggest that those who have more are
better, in doing so, push the spectator to achieve it by purchasing the product
that it is selling. In his views, publicity is essentially a product to
day-dream, where “the
interminable present of meaningless working hours is balanced by a dreamt
future in which imaginary activity replaces the passivity of the moment. In his
or her day-dreams the passive worker becomes the active consumer. The working
self envies the consuming self.” ( Berger, 1972, p.149).
This is where he turns back to dissecting the notion
of glamour. In Berger’s view, it is a modern day invention made by the process
of creating social envy and day-dreams among the masses. Stephen Gundle, in his
book “The Glamour system” (Gundle, S and Trini Castelli, C; 2006 ) linked it’s
history to the periods when aristocracy was eroding and the aura of its power
were being reproduced for commercial and social ends. Glamour then became in
the bourgeois society something that can be earned, and only grew ever more as
the idea of desirability changes with the advance of technologies to something
that is familiar yet allusive , bounding itself to only the wealthiest, who
then were considered “glamorous” to ensure their dominance in the new
capitalistic economy. This “glamour” of course, is fuelled by the envy of the
other classes who was also introduced to idea of glamour being achievable, yet
lack the proper means to achieve it at that point in time. To refer back to
Berger, this idea is supported through these quote:s “Being envied is a
solitary form of reassurance. It depends precisely upon not sharing your
experience with those who envy you” (Berger, J ,1972, Ways of seeing, p.133). This
is quite apparent as history have shown how Capitalism has empowered and grown
by advertising itself to be the tool of achieving these desires i.e “The
American dream”
The connection between publicity and the notion of
glamour, envy and other points in Berger’s quote becomes even more apparent, as
Berger continue to criticise the idea of “you should be like this” that is propelled
through the use publicity, of eliminating one’s free will to make their own
meaningful decision, masking and compensating it by consumption - a
substitution for democracy itself. This is supported by Gundle : “Glamour requires in order to
exist , some sense of equality and citizenship, but not necessary democracy” (
Gundle , 2006 , The Glamour system , n.p). In a way, it is this more direct and
blunt sense of “equality” that create individual/personal envy, which is what
in her work on “Sociology” (2007), Christina Hughes acknowledged that is
inevitable and is a part of universal psychological traits. (Hughes, C; “The equality of social envies” –“ Sociology” vol.41 ; p.5). Combined that with Gundle idea of
glamour can not exist without mass involvement, we can draw the conclusion that
indeed Glamour cannot be without social envy.
For the most
part, Berger’s ideas are reasonable and reflect the reality of society, but as
Postrel explains: “Glamour does not always connect to social envy … as many of
the resentments and hostilities of true envy are missing from glamour”, (2013,
The power of Glamour, p.31-p.32). Indeed there should be a distinction between
the different sides of envy, between jealousy
and admiration. Hughes (2007) acknowledged
this fact, stating a research that pointed there are forms of envy that have no
effects or can be beneficial to society which are split into emulative envy, when
you do not bare the envied any ill will, and benign envy, where it pushes people
to achieve what they envy, which create a mobile and dynamic society that continuously
thrive to best itself. If we extend Berger’s quote, it says: “Either he then becomes fully conscious of the
contradiction end its causes, and so joins the political struggle for a full
democracy which entails, amongst other things, the overthrow of capitalism; or
else he lives, continually subject to an envy which, compounded with his sense
of powerlessness, dissolves into recurrent day-dreams”.( Berge, J; 1972; Ways
of seeing ; p.148) .One’s pursuit of personal happiness is a universal right,
thereby having something that will push him to become what he wants in order to
be happy, bridging that gap between what he is already and what he can be, should
be enough justification for the idea of glamour. In a way, Berger’s quote has inadvertently
put a limit on this human ability to achieve, an ability that has driven our
race since the time of our creation.
Overall, one can split the ideas presented by these
writers to both sides of the fence, with Berger (1972) and Gundle (2006) both
argue for the connection between envy and glamour and its ties to the darker
sides of the capitalistic economy and culture, while Postrel (2013) defends the
notion of glamour based more on a emotional aspect, along with Hughes (2007)
more neutral and more scientific insight on the matter. Gundle sums it up
perfectly when he described glamour as full of oxymoronic qualities. As a
progressive and semi-socialist, I can agree upon many of the facts stated by
Berger in Way of seeing, but I also acknowledge the complexity of social ideas
and the psychology behind it, and would definitely support the notion of having
an “glamorous” goal that you can strive to achieve. After all, there’s nothing
wrong with having a bit of glamour in your life
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