MD The MOQ makes inroads

From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Tue Oct 28 2003 - 15:41:13 GMT

  • Next message: abahn@comcast.net: "Re: MD The MOQ makes inroads"

    Hi All:

    Interesting column by George Will about a new book by Virginia Postrel
    entitled, "The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value is
    Remaking Commerce, Culture and Consciousness."

    Will begins by noting, "Creative thinkers do not merely answer
    questions that interest others, they answer question that others have
    not realized were interesting, or even are questions. For example:
    Starbucks' coffee is not that much better than everyone else's coffee,
    so what is Starbucks really selling?

    The answer, according to Postrel, is a rising appreciation of what she
    calls the "aesthetic imperative" in this expressive age.

    From just the brief description above, two ideas jump out -- "substance
    of style" and "aesthetic imperative" -- immediately connecting in my
    mind to "quality as real as rocks" and "the aesthetic nature of the
    conceptually unknown."

    Lest you think I'm stretching to make a point, consider this passage
    verbatim from Postrel's book:

    "Aesthetics shows rather than tells, delights rather than instructs.
    The effects are immediate, perceptual and emotional. They are not
    cognitive, although we many analyze them after the fact."

    Will adds, "Aesthetics, Postrel stresses, is not irrational or anti-
    rational, it is pre-rational or non-rational."

    Where have you read similar words before?

    According to Postrel, in all areas of life and living Americans are
    consuming design and designing themselves. If she's half right, the
    lure of Quality is making itself felt more and more strongly, as
    Pirsig's cosmic evolutionary morality predicts.

    As for Starbucks, "People are eager to pay Starbucks for more than mere
    coffee--for a sensory environment that pleases more than just their
    palates."

    Looks to me like the MOQ is making inroads into the collective American
    psyche despite the cold shoulder it has gotten so far from the static-
    bound intelligentsia. :-)

    Platt
     

      

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