Ben Myers asks" Is Fashion A Demonic Power? He then quotes from Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics which is probably the last book I would think of for something on fashion and consumerism.
“Who wants it this way? The particular industry that tirelessly makes money out of it and whose kings, we are told, reside especially in Paris? But who has made these people the kings? What is it that has always made this industry so lucrative? How has it come about that since the end of the eighteenth century men’s clothing has become so monotonous and uninteresting? Conversely, how has it come about that world history might be presented from the standpoint of the sequence in which men have thought that they should shave or not shave their faces or adorn them with the boldest or most hideous arrangements of hair? Who inspires and directs these processes, which are not a matter of indifference to the feeling for life and all that it implies? If it is a matter of rapidly changing taste, what released spirit of the earth pulls the strings so that this fancy passes, another which is anxiously watched by millions comes and prevails, and then after a while it too departs?”As I read discussions whether there will at last be a Mac tablet or a new ipod touch or whether simply a new MacBook computer with touch pad, this question cuts a little close to the bone. Perhaps not Paris but Cupertino now calls the trends and fashion. Are you buying?
