-
Paying the Price
December 14, 2011 | 22 comments
-
Curiouser and Curiouser
November 18, 2011 | 86 comments
-
Riots of Passage
October 11, 2011 | 99 comments
-
The Importance of Culture
September 19, 2011 | 49 comments
-
Speaking Neatly
July 27, 2011 | 66 comments
The Pursuit of Knowledge
Not for Sale
We have allowed too many things in our world to be priced.
From the beginning of civilization people have made a distinction between goods that can be freely exchanged in the market and goods that are too close to us to be bought and sold. Spiritual goods are tainted or destroyed by the attempt to purchase them, and if they have a price it is measured by sacrifice and self-denial. Thus it is with love, happiness, and sacred things. And thus it is with family, community, and culture. These are goods that have been ring-fenced against "market forces," and which we believe it would be sacrilege to buy and sell. The medieval trade in indulgences caused such scandal precisely because it sold what cannot be purchased -- namely, redemption. And when people finally rose in rebellion against this abuse of spiritual values, European society was turned upside down.
Some goods, like food and clothes, have instrumental value; other goods, like children and works of art, are valuable in themselves. Love is priceless, not because its price is higher than we can pay, but because it cannot be purchased but only earned. Of course, you can purchase the simulacrum of love, and there are people who are accomplished providers. But love that is purchased is only a pretense. Goods like love, beauty, consolation, and the sacred are spiritual goods: they have a value, but no price.
Economists don't like spiritual goods. Such goods are connected to us not as things to be used, consumed, and exchanged but as parts of what we are. To lose them is to lose ourselves. Of course needy people have often sold their children into slavery, desecrated their loves, and denied their faith. But it is need, not price, that compelled them. In a world in which religious faith is wavering and cultural values are insecure, people increasingly think in economic terms. When goods are priced, you can decide between them. But this means that they can also be exchanged for the baubles of the marketplace.
This is what has happened with sex. You cannot buy or sell sexual love, but you can buy and sell its cheapened substitutes. Communities have, in the past, tried to protect themselves against this, recognizing that the future of society depends on protecting sexual love from the market. They have never been more than partially successful. But the wall of decency, even if thin in places and easily undermined, remained in place until recent times, and parents could be sure that their children would not grow up as they grow up today, with the view that sex is to be consumed and exchanged for the sake of pleasure.
Once we raise the question of intrinsic values, however, we realize that many other aspects of human life are at risk from the market. Such is the message of the environmental movement -- or at least, the message that we can all agree with. We have allowed too many things in our world to be priced -- the land and the oceans, the air and the climate.
A century and a half ago John Muir in America and John Ruskin in England initiated the movement to save our world from spoliation. They rightly understood that nothing would be saved if we simply defend it on economic grounds. A valley might be useful as farmland, but it might be even more useful as a reservoir or an opencast mine. Only if we recognize the intrinsic value of nature will it be proof against our predations; hence we should esteem landscapes and forests for their beauty, for their sacred quality, for the part they play in defining us and ennobling our settlements, rather than for their use. Only this will keep the market at bay and prevent us from consuming our world.
No force has been as strong in protecting human sexual love from the market as the force of religion, which elevates sex to a sacrament and forbids its abuse. Likewise, no force has been so strong in protecting the environment as the religious sentiments evoked by Ruskin and Muir. Almost everyone feels that there are places, scenes, landscapes, and townscapes that are threatened with desecration, and whose integrity and beauty must be respected with a quasi-religious veneration. It is to this vestigial religious sentiment that we owe the national parks of America, the lake lands of England, the city of Venice, and the landscape of Provence -- all of which would long ago have been vandalized had it not been for those who protected them as spiritual sites.
There is a problem, however. Without the backing of a shared culture strong enough to unite people against the vandals, our sense of the sacred is a weak and vacillating resource. Our values capitulate in the face of "economic sense." And only the strongest public spirit is proof against profit. The battle between value and price is a permanent feature of the human condition and recognizes no barriers, no territory where it cannot be fought. Even our deepest emotions are invaded by it. Oscar Wilde defined the sentimentalist as the one who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing -- in other words, who is disposed to put everything on sale, emotions and values included. In the end intrinsic values can be protected only in a culture that supports them -- a culture in which people are able to ignore "economic sense."
THE CONFLICT BETWEEN VALUE AND PRICE has led to one of the many tensions between Europe and America. American businesses operate at home in an environment where there are no real aesthetic constraints, and in which advertising, logos, and branding are regarded as a legitimate and necessary part of competition. Wherever they set up shop, the first thought of American businesses is to advertise the fact, and to make as big a splash as possible in order to gain a foothold in the market. This is done through catching the eye, and even if you catch the eye by first offending it, that too is a part of business. Branding and logos produce reliable sales, since they erase all differences of place and time.
The result is the well-known American main street, in which loud advertisements, garish shop fronts, and childish logos destroy every architectural façade, and turn what might once have been a dignified public space into a crowd of brash competitors, each the representative of a predator miles away. Few people seem to mind, since, after all, things in America move on, the old main street was only a passing episode in history, and life is in any case lived in the suburbs, where all space is private and nothing stands out as a threat. This means that American towns have not been protected by a public culture of appearance: they have an innate tendency to dissolve into logos, shop fronts, and adverts, to lose their public face and to turn from frail settlements to robust camping sites.
One of the most important environmental movements in Europe has been sparked off by the creep of American business. This is the Slow Food Movement, which began in Rome when McDonald's proposed to install one of its restaurants in the Piazza di Spagna. The thought of the double arches, with their offensive color and childish shapes, polluting one of the great baroque squares of the Holy City was too much for the locals, and they began first to campaign against the plan, then to campaign against McDonald's, and then to campaign against the whole culture to which that business belongs. They successfully protected the Piazza di Spagna from aesthetic pollution and then decided to spread the message elsewhere. Moving with the slowness implied in its name, the Slow Food Movement now has followers across the continent, and local restaurants are beginning to advertise themselves as selling food by the hour rather than the kilogram.
The Slow Food Movement is only one expression of a growing hostility to the American attitude to downtown business. Protecting the urban environment means protecting it as a public space. But competition at the international level requires the privatization of the street, and the replacement of façades that have evolved from local styles and traditions with garish and standardized imports that have no respect for the individual townscape or the indigenous way of life. Hence local conservation societies and planners identify the logo-branded multinational as their most important enemy. In France the radical anarchist José Bové, now a member of the European Parliament, has led a movement to dismantle the fast food franchises that have been dropped from the skies on the ancient cities of Europe. Others, inspired by Naomi Klein's No Logo, are campaigning for a moratorium on logos and branding, with the design of shop fronts governed by local conventions and styles rather than by the aesthetic tastes of hungry children.
The problem is that aesthetic values are losing their public grip. When, after the war, the city of Warsaw was reconstructed from scratch, it was accepted without question that the old town should be rebuilt as it was, and that signs and facades should conform to the Renaissance pattern-book. Under the Communists things did not change, since there were no commercial pressures for change, and the old city remained as a symbol of public spirit and stable order amid the moral devastation. Now, however, the rot has begun to set in, with a Pizza Hut defacing the space beside the royal castle, and the competition ready to move in. The Poles could protect this much-loved environment only by legislation; but the public spirit that existed after the war exists no longer, and the multinationals have ways of making poorly paid politicians behave as they wish.
As long as European public spirit was strong, it took a stand against the branding of the urban environment. Europeans felt at home in their cities, and ennobled by them. As the public spirit has weakened, and the new McCity has risen on once sacred foundations, so has anti-Americanism increased. The old European sense, that sacred things are not for sale, has been defeated, and, while eating their food slowly behind ancient façades, the European elites stare with hostility at their social inferiors crowding into the McDonald's and Subways across the street. The problem, as they know, is that the life across the street is the future, while the place where they linger over dinner is the past.
About the Author
Roger Scruton is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. His latest book is The Uses of Pessimism (Oxford University Press).
Letter to the Editor View all comments (55) | Leave a comment
Leave a Comment
More Articles by Roger Scruton
More Articles From The Pursuit of Knowledge
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/06/02/not-for-sale
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
Current Issue
- The Man From La Fortaleza
- Let's Return to the Gold Standard
- Uncle Sam and the Chinese Dragon
- Digital Subscription (Save 78%)
- Buy a single issue (Save 50%)
- Send Spectator as a gift
Clip of the Day
ADVERTISEMENT
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 6.2.10 @ 8:08AM
This article doesn't make much sense. It also reads like it was written from with the Obama administration.
William McNeill| 6.2.10 @ 10:41AM
"The problem is aesthetic values are losing their public grip."
I live on a farm in North Carolina that is set off a highway that was labeled "scenic" forty years ago.
Today all you see is visual blight: billboards, litter, storage facilities, abandoned trailer houses, etc. A visual nightmare.
Thank you, Mr. Scruton, for your astonishing article. I did not think I would ever read anything of value in AmSpec. What a breath of fresh air you have given us.
The environment we move through every day is extremely important to our mental well-being. Blight is visual noise.
I must say that I am shocked to read an article on American Spectator Online that defends the preservation of aesthetic environments. This is certainly not what I am accustomed to reading here, and I would expect Bill Hussein O'Stalin to react as he did in his above comment. I can just hear him muttering, "The government ain't gonna tell me what I can do with my land. I'll trash it if I want to."
Hank| 6.2.10 @ 10:55AM
Mr. McNeill,
I, too, am surprised to read an article on this blog that addresses the degradation of our visual environment.
And Bill Hussein O'Stalin has reacted just as I would expect. He's a typical lowbrow, boorish anti-government fanatic--just one of many who post daily comments.
Alan Brooks| 6.2.10 @ 3:28PM
Bill Hussein O'Stalin is a libertarian, probably.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 6.2.10 @ 4:11PM
There are millions of unspoiled acres and areas in this country. There are many areas in this country where man has never been. What's the point of an article like this? It sounds eerily similar to an article I read in a college newspaper in the late 60's. The fact is the mentality behind this article is what caused the BP disaster. While there are areas where we can drill safely they are kept off and out of bounds. Governmental policies drove this disaster not the business community. The business community complies with government edicts.
The real essence behind this article is that there are too many people. Those businesses don't open their doors courtesy of the welfare state. They have to sell to stay in business.
I, for one, admire McDonalds and their efficiency and their ability to employ millions, all by providing an opportunity which is not funded by taxpayers.
Bill Husien O'Stalin| 6.2.10 @ 4:17PM
One other point. The author does not mention the endless seas of faceless, monolithic government buildings you find in many cities. In fact, I would prefer to see a Pizza Hut.
Bill Husien O'Stalin| 6.2.10 @ 4:17PM
One other point. The author does not mention the endless seas of faceless, monolithic government buildings you find in many cities. In fact, I would prefer to see a Pizza Hut.
Alan Brooks| 6.2.10 @ 7:32PM
No one can accuse you of not being a sincere libertarian.
Bill Hussien O'Stalin| 6.2.10 @ 8:39PM
The only thing liberated here was/is a lie and misrepresentation. Each of you buy groceries somewhere. Award yourselves the Hypocrites of the Year Award.
Alan Brooks| 6.16.10 @ 10:02AM
"Award yourselves the Hypocrites of the Year Award."
So, now, where do we send a check to the Libertarian Party, so they can run caucasus wherein they tear each other to pieces?
Alan Brooks| 6.16.10 @ 10:08AM
oops, caucuses, not caucasus! unless you're in Russia...
Miss Alabama| 6.2.10 @ 1:53PM
Would someone please pass me the smelling salts-- I think I am going to faint.
At last an article in AmSpec that does not insult my intelligence. Thank you, Mr. Scruton, for your effort "to save our world for spoliation."
It's high time that a conservative writer express concern about the urban and rural blight that is diminisishing the quality of life for so many of us.
As you can see by the comments, your sensible environmental vision is not appreciated by many of AmSpec's devoted readers. I am not surprised. Not at all.
Miss Alabama| 6.2.10 @ 1:57PM
Goodness gracious! Can you believe it! I made an error in my post. Here's how the Thank You sentence should read:
Thank you, Mr. Scruton, for your effort "to save the world from spoliation."
Now that I have made my little correction, let me have one more whiff of the smelling salts, please.
Nick| 6.2.10 @ 3:00PM
Miss Alabama,
I don't think you erred in the first place. I think you accidentally let your true feelings come out.
I believe you bleeding heart liberals refer to this as a "Freudian slip," don't you?
You guys can't wait to spoil the world. Just look at what you did to eastern Europe. Or, what you are doing to China.
E.R. Fitzhugh of Virginia| 6.2.10 @ 4:03PM
Old Nickipoo just can't keep his mouth shut.
He jumps at every opportunity to post his surly, feeble-minded attacks, especially when a writer, such as the wise and dignified Mr. Scruton, or commenter (Miss Alabama) has made an intelligent, valid point.
Glum and ill-humored, Old Nickipoo is in dire need of some refinement--the kind you find among the old, well-bred families of Virginia.
Time to knock off the spitefulness, Old Nickipoo.
And please . . . please stop accusing anyone who makes a quality-of-life argument of being "liberal."
Your needle seems to be stuck in the groove and all your wires are crossed.
Nick| 6.2.10 @ 6:54PM
Why don't you use your real moniker, coward?
Clararbel the Cow| 6.2.10 @ 7:58PM
Lawd have mercy! Heah you go name-calling again.
Nick| 6.2.10 @ 8:05PM
Are you sure you didn't mean the "inbred families of Virginia?"
PeepingTimmy from Waikiki| 6.2.10 @ 8:17PM
Nick,
You're not thinking about looking up Miss Alabama's Freudian slip, are you? You naughty thing.
Which reminds me: What hymn did one slip sing to another?
"Love Lifted Me"
Alan Brooks| 6.16.10 @ 10:05AM
"Or, what you are doing to China."
China is a corporatist nation.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 6.2.10 @ 4:16PM
One other point. The author does not mention the endless seas of faceless, monolithic government buildings you find in many cities. In fact, I would prefer to see a Pizza Hut.
Lullaby's, Legends and Lies| 6.2.10 @ 8:41AM
Roger: You sound like another "blame America first" guy!! Move to Europe if you love it so much!! How dare McDonald's open up a restaurant in Rome, among all the pigeon poop, that'll ruin everything!!
Ron Y.| 6.2.10 @ 11:42AM
Lullaby's, Legends and Lies
What an idiot you are!
Lullaby's, Legends and Lies| 6.2.10 @ 5:37PM
Is that your best? I've been called worse!!
DonDuke| 6.2.10 @ 8:53AM
Another pseudo-philosopher with not much to say.... this was a waste of time to be sure.
PasadenaPony| 6.2.10 @ 11:49AM
Pseudo-philosopher?
What do you mean?
Not much to say? Really?
Evidently, you do not give a damn about the appearance of our American towns and rural landscapes.
Do you subscribe to the "use it-abuse it" environmental philosophy Mr. DonPuke?
Ret. Marine| 6.2.10 @ 9:10AM
Don't miss the point here folks. The past is always a reminder of thing to be in the future. Corporate anything has it's limits and if anything the folks with thier cultures and understanding of it, understand this. If you wish to be a part of the past, it is good for you if you so choose to be part of it, but if you wish to be part of the future, you must move on to it. The difference is it can not be forced upon you by anyone else. One must choose their own paths not forced to reconize others involvement in determining the path.
Pablum| 6.2.10 @ 11:52AM
Ret. Marine, you old geezer, what is it you are trying to say in this garbled posting?
Forgot to take your pills this morning?
Petronius| 6.2.10 @ 9:32AM
Dear Roger
If I get back across the ditch mayhap I'll look you up in Wiltshire. The consumerist can has had your kicks coming for ages, but you're way off base. The environmentalists do not want to preserve anything out of devotion to beauty but to prevent commerce. That goes double for natural resources. They hate the market because it is competitive and forces people to earn a living to sustain themselves. Ergo, this vicissitude of life is intolerable to them. They are slaves to "the man"
because the bills must be paid. They doubly cannot abide the industrious among us making money drilling for oil, digging coal, felling logs, and exchanging our filthy lucre for anything they believe nobody should possess; property. Ask Will Hutton. He's next door to "call me Dave" at #11.
Now that the damned sore spot is out, look at the bottom line. The preoccupation of man with spite and envy makes him allergic to good living. (Here trolls.) And it goes way beyond the presence of the "golden starches" in such a wonderful place as Winchester High Street. For you, tradition is violated. For me, the British experience I travel to your country to enjoy gets tainted. But the average American knows what he likes and likes what he knows. Fish and chips or a pub lunch isn't part of his universe. The upside of this situation is that he rarely goes north of London. I,m sorry to have to say that fast food has become a necessity to attract American tourists to Europe.
Even though I own their stock, the sight of Micky D's at Romford services is just as upsetting as the Twyford Cut. But then, it's about time: the time we do not have to live well.
JP| 6.2.10 @ 10:10AM
This articles has shades of Rod Dreher's Crunchy Con's ideas. The problem with the urban scene in the US is that the working class left it 5 decades ago. Just take a tour of Detroit, or Chicagos Southside to get a peek.
Newer urban metroplexes like Dallas-Fort Worth is where most Americans reside. These vast suburban sprawls, with thier endless expanse of track homes, strip malls, shopping malls, fast food restaurants perfectly fit most Americans ideas of "community".
Compare that with the immaculatly perserved cities, towns, and villages of Central Europe and you get an idea of the how Europe and the US differ. These quiet, bucolic European vistas are what many American dreamers picture as perfect living spaces. However, beneath these facades lie many problems. Just look up the selling prices of a 18th Century farmhouse in the Tyrol, Algau, or Britanny. They sell for over $1 million. Many have been subdivided into tiny apartments that cost well over $1 thousand per month. Go to the urban neighborhoods of Berlin, London, Rotterdam, or Munich and you find the same pathologies an American suffers from in Chicago, Philidelphia, and Los Angles.
But a carefull observer will also notice a dearth of children in these cities (discounting the Muslim minorities, of course). Whether one travels to Tuscany, Franconia, or Kent one cannot help but notice that the majority of the residents are long in the tooth.
The US has fought the ideas of urban and suburban planning for decades. And for good reason. Go to San Francisco, one of the most planned and regulated cities in North America. Unless one is a trust fund baby, high tech millionaire, or chic liberal millionare one cannot afford to live there. One is either an ultra-rich, or one is destitute. The working class commutes 40-60 miles one way to work in the city.
I have noticed a trend in recent decades. The influx wealthy or well to do Baby Boomers to small towns have gentrified many farm communities. When this occurs gone are the old hardware stores, village diners, and grain and feed stores. In are the whole food stores, internet cafes, chic bed and breakfasts, expensive antiqus shops, art galleries and rare book stores. Within a decade many of these small towns have become meccas for well off yuppies and boomers to vacation in. And with this change real estate prices have sky rocketed. The old barber, car mechanic, tractor dealer, and grocer were squeezed out in the process. These old but gentrified villages no longer serve the purpose they did in the past. Beware of liberals with good intentions.
Le Cracquere| 6.3.10 @ 8:12AM
No real argument about San Francisco's oppressive political environment, but I don't believe that planned environments (in the sense that enforcing a modicum of civilization is "planned") inherently EQUALS unaffordability. I'd submit that places where any degree of architectural civility & livability is enforced are so relatively rare that supply/demand drives their prices into the exosphere. If more architecturally and culturally distinguished places were legally buildable & protectable, one might see prices go down.
Tim| 6.2.10 @ 10:26AM
Europe's future isn't slow food, it's slow death. Forget Big Macs versus Crepes, demographics dictate that the future is Falafels...
Derek Leaberry| 6.2.10 @ 10:43AM
Brilliant. Scruton is a conservative in the way Newt Gingrich, Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, Jack Kemp and hundreds of imposters are not. Turn your back on everything big, from the national government to the NAACP to the NFL to the NCAA to big media, big labor and especially big business. Go local.
Ken (Old Texican)| 6.2.10 @ 12:07PM
Folks,
There simply needs to be a "balance"
The "eco-Luddites" need to get a clue.
And
the "Cut it down and pave it" crowd has to be restrained.
Balance!
pomdter| 6.2.10 @ 12:28PM
I think you are misdiagnosing the problem. New development of strip malls in my town aee done with wide sidewalks, stone facades, & subdued signage. Not due to demands of traditionalists or environmentalists, but as a more successful business model of attracting people into a comfortable community feel.
The real problem has been what took them so long to figure out the economic value of aesthetic constraints.
John3| 6.2.10 @ 2:03PM
There is a saying that one needs to look where one came from to reach one's final destination successfully. A country's roots determine its demise or its success. Europe's roots date back to its Catholic-Christian traditions. America's roots date back to the Declaration of Independence and its Constitution based on God-given rights of life, liberty and justice for all. Both Europeans and Americans are deliberately ignoring these facts and going farther and father away from their roots. This is the main problem. This is what will cause the downfall of both Europe and America.
I Shall Endure| 6.2.10 @ 2:54PM
American style commercial signage is as beautiful as anything in Olde Europe; it's just a different kind of beauty. A drive along New Jersey's Pulaski Skyway is as awe-inspiring as Yosemite Park.
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
BustahBangBang| 6.2.10 @ 7:56PM
And don't leave out graffiti. Ain't nothin' purttier than miles 'n' miles uv graffiti, specially if its got my name on it.
BustahBangBang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . you old coots need to look for my signahture.
Le Cracquere| 6.3.10 @ 8:13AM
Marcel Duchamp, call your office.
I Shall Endure| 6.2.10 @ 2:56PM
Let me add one more thing: it'll be another couple of centuries before everyone agrees with me.
Nostalgia: it makes EVERYTHING pretty.
R.S.Wiggs| 6.3.10 @ 12:43PM
Thank you for your insight and long yers of study, Mr. Scruton. I'm reading your book, Beauty right now and am shocked that, during my education as an artist and art teacher, I never heard your ideas mentioned. There was certainly an emphasis on Marxist, Feminist, Post-Modern, and Deconstructive "ideas" , but I guess this should come as no surprise. Your work reminds me of a line (poorly paraphrased here) from Cormac McCarthy's No Country fro Old Men: when people stop saying Ma'am and Sir, almost any evil becomes possible. Our collective loss of aesthetic manners needs a revival.
Y. Yang| 6.3.10 @ 3:00PM
"Our collective loss of aesthetic manners needs a revival."
I'll say. And the revival needs to start right here with the ill-mannered readers of AmSpec.
Steve Browne| 6.6.10 @ 9:48AM
Thanks for the encomiums to Warsaw, my second home.
However the Stare Miasto, about a five-minute walk from my apartment, was built better the first time - it's crumbling. The Pizza Hut is in fact not an eyesore but was made to fit in reasonably well.
Most of the rest of the city was rebuilt in Stalinist Stackaprole style (like American Housing Development - only uglier) and is nothing to shout about.
When the first McDonald's in Warsaw opened on Swietokrzyska Street (across from my apartment) I knew people who took the communter train into the city from miles around to try it out.
Part of the novelty for Poles was the experience of standing in a line that moved that fast.
And, in a country which had no tradition of service since the end of the war, western fast-food places trained a new generation in the techniques and attitude of customer service.
You know, "service with a smile"?
I too feel modern city architecture leaves something to be desired. But if you want to see how traditional European city patterns have been updated with modern building techniques, I recommend seeing the new developments in Novi Beograd on the Danube shore.
Kipling| 6.21.10 @ 11:28PM
I respectfully suggest that Prof. Scruton is incorrect about one thing. In the Wilde quotation, a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing is not a sentimentalist but a cynic. See Act III of Lady Windermere's Fan.
Reid Buckley| 6.28.10 @ 7:30PM
Thank you for this thoughtful and truly conservative article. Keep it up.
FeFe| 5.5.11 @ 12:53PM
When children are reared in single parent households, they most often have no grandparents informing them of their aesthetic values against the vandals, and spiritual goods against the marketplace. Is it any wonder Tea Party groups feel as if their government, multinationals, EU, UN, IMF, NATO, etc. are carpetbaggers?