In the last article, Tools for managing a post-industrial society, among others, I mentioned glamor, which deserves to be discussed separately and in more detail, as a very entertaining and multifaceted, completely new phenomenon in the economy, as a product invented from start to finish. A product that does not satisfy any of the real needs of a person, which has exactly the same value that image-makers and mass media have imposed on market participants, which has limited convertibility into classic money and into real goods.
The closest thing to glamor is such a commodity as derivatives, which have at least some value exactly until they are presented in bulk for payment. As soon as this happens, they turn into what, in fact, they really are.
The volume of transactions with this "type of product" is amazing:
Back in 2004, the leading statistician Bank of International Settlements (BIS) estimated the volume of outstanding transactions in financial derivatives at about $ 300 trillion (a trillion is a million million, that is, a one followed by 12 zeros.
None of the real values available to humanity are not enough to exchange them for pieces of paper invented by smart financiers. For those who wish to argue about the undeniable value of derivative financial documents, I suggest sending the injured holders of these types of securities. Although … no, it is not necessary, there it can even go to assault. It is one thing to argue with a speaker who has not personally invested in derivatives, and quite another - with a person who has already become or is ready to become bankrupt because of them.
An economy operating in a virtual space with virtual values has already been called glam capitalism. I personally associate this term with a golem (a man made of inanimate matter - clay, revived by Kabbalists with the help of secret knowledge, an artificial man who does what is legally "indecent" or even criminal for a naturally living person).
In this economy, attention is shifted from a real product to its symbols, from real money to its derivatives, from real values to those invented here and now and existing exactly as long as there is an advertising budget for their promotion and maintenance. That is, demand in such an economy is generated artificially and from the outside.
As a result, all the classic theories about the balance of supply and demand, market saturation and the pyramid of needs fly to the head. Due to properly organized advertising, you can drive a hungry person into a queue for an absolutely useless product for him, which can be freely thrown away immediately after purchase.
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Such an economy could not but give rise to a special consumer model of behavior, which is called glamor. Glamor is a lifestyle that is emphatically focused on statuses - real or perceived. "Prestigious consumption" has brought up a special class of buyers who are ready to pay impressive sums not for the quality of the product, but for the well-known symbols denoting a "promoted" brand.
At the same time, Baudrillard considers “prestigious consumption” to be the most revealing example, which is intended not so much to satisfy urgent needs as to fix a certain social status.
It is important to understand that glamor is not a unique, distinctive phenomenon “somehow it happened by itself,” but a well-planned social weapon that works strictly in the same way as the entire pyramid of financial derivatives works. One of the striking elements of this weapon is a universal financial vacuum cleaner that works with different groups in different ways, but most effectively and efficiently in the fight against potential competitors - high-paid stars and top managers.
This is done according to a primitive, but no less effective technique - as soon as a dangerous amount of banknotes gets to the patient (for example, a young athlete signs a million dollar contract, a young actress becomes a show business star, a young politician becomes the face of the party), he is slapped approvingly shoulder and say: “You are now one of us, the mighty of this world. But in order to stay on the level, you need a house, a car, clothes, a family that corresponds to your changed status”…
As a result of the implementation of these status requirements, the patient is rapidly transforming from one who has a million to one who owes a million, and thus no longer poses a threat to the real, not invented, elite, which has real, not invented capital.
Glamor disfigures the psychology of entrepreneurship. Almost always, my work with a client begins with a request to help reduce costs, save money. The work is non-linear, collective, heuristic, not for one day. And my old-fashioned head doesn’t fit how the hard-won result can be used to purchase a piece of silk worth 800 euros or a Swiss brand with Chinese filling worth 8000.
The second striking element of glamor is addiction to the media. Like any invented value, glamor is extremely sensitive to the attention from the media, or rather to the lack of such attention. Well, control over the media automatically leads to control over glamor apologists.
But the most destructive element of glamor is its ideological component. Without going around the topic for a long time, breaks and glamor are two sides of the same coin. Glamor cuts off morality, humanism and conscience, like rudiments that hinder shine, and leaves cynicism and expediency. What kind of remorse is there for what has been done - this is inappropriate.
Glamor is a parody of purity. Glamor demonstrates not purity, but wealth, not the ability to clean a teapot, but the ability to buy a new teapot or buy the labor of a cleaner. Glamor imitates eternal life, killing all living things and replacing them with artificial ones.
When asked about dirty children: "Wash these or make new ones?.." - the glamor replies: "Wash is useless." It's easier to drown dirty children. Glamor is deadly and destructive, because it shoots its victims in the head, replacing a person's real goals with virtual ones, real relationships - with imaginary image makers, real life - with a glossy fairy tale tailored according to other people's patterns.
And of course:
Disposable economy
Where glamor ends and economics begins from an accounting point of view, I will not answer - to be honest - and did not set such a task for myself … For myself, I defined glamor as the value created solely by the efforts of advertising and has nothing to do with the quality of the goods that it advertises … Remove ads, the cost will disappear. I already wrote about it. And the accounting department … Well, this particular watch, only another model my friend bought first in Switzerland, and then - an exact copy - in Hong Kong. The price difference is 200 times. 2 years have passed - they walk the same, consumer properties are identical.
But now it's not even about that …
Oligarch Abramovich, purely symbolically and demonstratively, took a ride on a "nuclear" yacht, the second time it will no longer make sense. Where is this yacht now? Only on the boards to the Parisian bums to give and left. It is no coincidence that battles for garbage dumps are now going on in Europe - the dump is being updated. If Nietzsche spoke about desertification - woe to the one who carries his own desert within himself - now we must talk about cleansing. The product initially moves to the landfill - from the production line and through the person. From the shop window he looks at garbage, which the consumer endlessly drives through himself: from the conveyor to the landfill. Pitirim Sorokin also wrote in advance about such a prospect, about the civilization of a dump.
“There are things as simple as a file and as irreplaceable as toilet paper. One glance at them is enough to understand what the thing is intended for or can be used for. Take a guided tour of the History Museum and walk through a room dedicated to Bronze Age culture. Everything is very clear: this is an ax, this is a hammer, this is a bowl, and this is an arrowhead. 25-page instructions are unnecessary; everything begins and ends with an extremely understandable practical purpose. Even my cat guessed what the toilet was for and what the doorknob was for.
There are things of a different kind. Wallpaper, wood panels, silver seals, vases, pots with figs, glass elephants in sideboards … They have almost no practical purpose, but their presence creates a certain aesthetic atmosphere, called in everyday life coziness. After all, it is clear that sitting on a fluffy carpet, covered with pillows and puffing on an elegant cherry pipe is much more pleasant than lying on the carpet and smoking Belomorkanal. Wood panels are pleasing to the eye; elephants from the sideboard can be wiped with a rag, relieving the nerves, and the ficus is also something useful there.
Where did it all come from? Well, it started back in ancient times, after especially advanced mammoth hunters realized that with the help of colored feathers, shells and the then analogs of cosmetics, you can not only determine what kind of tribe you are, but also throw show-off, demonstrating to others that the owner of a "glamorous outfit" is relieved of the need to strain for the sake of obtaining food and can pay more attention to, say, reproduction, automatically saving his chosen one from hard work too. Modern diamond bras and ties from Hong Kong perform roughly the same function - it's a matter of positioning.
BUT…
But there is such a degree of “glamorization” of consciousness, after which external attributes become more important than practical application. The crystal pendants on the chandelier become more important than the light that it produces. The Rolls-Royce's hand-sawn gold grille takes precedence over the horsepower under the hood.
It would seem - well, to hell with him! You never know people have strange hobbies in life! There are originals whose hobby, sorry, collecting rhino excrement, but despite the general humorous attitude towards them, no one even thinks of treating these people in places where the walls are soft and the shirts have long sleeves and fit comfortably on the client's back. Let them have fun!
For God's sake, let it be!
But when psychosis becomes widespread, priorities within society, to put it mildly, shift. There are women who save money by denying themselves good nutrition in order to buy a piece of silk with a label, worth $ 800. There are men who exchange three-room apartments for one-room apartments in order to purchase an expensive sports car (this is taking into account the fact that they are not going to drive further than the ring road on it). There are mobile phones on sale, whose “stuffing” leaves much to be desired, but the cost of which goes beyond all reasonable limits simply because of the fashionable design of the case.
People go shopping and buy themselves shoes (great!), Toothbrushes (great!) And tennis rackets (just great!). And at the same time they spend money on coffee machines that will never make an “espresso” better than their wife, marry girls with faces flat from skin tightening, fly to Egypt for the summer, although at night they dream of fishing on a suburban pond and dress in jeans. which cost so much that from the very thought of a possible spot on the bottom, a severe melancholy happens to them. And the point here is not even whether they can or cannot afford all this. It's just that even in the seemingly holy and personal desire to realize our desires, we, again, want not what we want, but what we need."
Everything listed in this long quote is the outward manifestation of covert control of human behavior, who has become an exemplary consumer strictly according to the recipes of the “great teacher” Fursenko.
In conclusion, I want to say that I personally am not against Swarovski. I am against the ideology of superiority at the expense of external brilliance. I believe that this ideology of the superiority of "gods over cattle" is no different from another, where belonging to the elite was measured by a compass and which has already come to the court of history once.
