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a complaint regularly aired around many
careers
is that in order to succeed at them
there is nowadays no option
but to sell out it appears that we will
inevitably face a choice
between authenticity and poverty on the
one hand
and idiocy and wealth on the other
we're familiar with the complaint in the
arts of course but the same dilemma
shows up
when an interesting restaurant seems
unable to make a profit when a
specialist bread company goes into
receivership
when a garden supply firm focusing on
rare native plants
can't get a foothold in the market
behind the complaint
lies a very understandable but at the
same time very ambitious yearning
that our most passionately held beliefs
and enthusiasms
should relatively painlessly simply by
virtue of their merits
become high priorities for others young
children
are particularly prone to this touching
assumption they may
on meeting a new adult enthusiastically
suggest that they join them in playing a
favorite game
perhaps brew something on a miniature
kitchen stove or
impersonate one of their dolls which
shows how hard it is for a child
to grasp how alien its pleasures might
be
to another person children aren't silly
they are just highly attuned to their
own nature
and spontaneously convinced that others
may share it
they are in a naive but representative
way illustrating an
instinct that stays with us all of our
lives the supposition that others
will and must be moved by what moves
us it's tempting to arrive at a
despairing conclusion
that the economy is inherently devoted
to delivering
a personal insult to the better aspects
of human nature
the truth is a lot less vindictive but
the tendency for the market
to overlook some of our more sincere and
earnest
efforts is real and founded on a raft of
identifiable
stubborn forces in economic and
psychological life
one of the most basic of these forces is
choice
it's in the nature of a growing
successful economy always to expand
the range of choice offers to a consumer
and thereby
always to minimize the a priori claims
of
any one product or service we can track
the characteristic features of this
development
in relation to the media in 1952 a bbc
radio broadcast of beethoven's
fifth symphony attracted an audience of
5 million listeners
approximately 16 percent of the uk's
adult population
today such a broadcast would claim a
fraction of these numbers
what explains the difference is not as
some cultural pessimists might claim
that the uk population has over a few
generations become
a great deal less sensitive to the force
of german romantic music
the fundamental difference is that
today's audience has many more
options in 1952 there were very few
competing sources of entertainment
people listened on mass to the classical
end of bbc radio
because there was nothing much else to
do this rather nicely
gave certain high brow things more
opportunity to be attended to
but it also meant that many substandard
services and products
could enjoy a far larger role than their
intrinsic merit warranted
there is a second reason why modern
audiences are likely to sidestep
opportunities for high-minded
consumption
because they are so exhausted
modern work demands a punishing amount
from us
we typically return from our jobs at the
days close
in a state of severe depletion in such a
condition the
products and services for which we can
be in the mood have to be a very
particular
sort we're probably too brutalized to
care very much about the suffering of
others we may have endured too much
tedium to stay patient with arguments
that are
reticent and subtle we may hate
ourselves a bit too much
to want to eat and drink only what's
good for us
our lives may be too lacking in meaning
to concentrate only on what is
meaningful to counterbalance what's
happened at work
we may gravitate instinctively towards
what's excessively
sweet salty distracting easy colorful
explosive
sexual or sentimental this collectively
creates a vicious circle
what we consume ends up determining what
we can produce
and in turn the quality of jobs that are
on offer
so long as we have only the emotional
resources to consume
at the more narcotic and compromised end
of the market
we'll only be generating employment that
is itself rather challenged in meaning
and compromised in dignity the price we
pay for a marketplace
that refuses to support high-minded
efforts isn't just practical and
economic
it is also at some level emotional one
of our greatest cravings is to be
recognized and accepted
for who we are we long for careful
insightful appreciation of our
characters and interests
this was if things went tolerably well a
bit like what happened to us in
childhood
when a kindly adult through the quality
of their love
spared us any requirement to impress or
as we might put it
to market ourselves we didn't in those
early years
need assiduously to sell who we were we
didn't have to smile in exaggerated ways
sound happier than we were put on
seductive accents or
compress what we had to say in memorable
jingles
we could take our time hesitate whisper
be a little elusive and complex and as
serious as we needed to be
certain that another would be there to
find and accept us
everything we learned of love in those
days ran
counter to the mechanisms of
commercialization
no wonder if we harbor within us a
degree of instinctive revulsion
about selling out the need not to sell
ourselves aggressively
was not just part of an earlier simpler
point
in the history of the world as scholars
rightly point out
it was more poignantly also a moment in
each of our personal histories
to which we may in our hearts always at
some level
be longing to return to
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