Selling Hedonism in Postwar America

[jmyrlefuller]

https://daily.jstor.org/selling-hedonism-in-postwar-america/

By: Livia Gershon
January 18, 2020

There’s a paradox in common perceptions of Americans. On the one hand, we are often seen as achievement-obsessed hard workers. On the other, we have the image of frivolous, pleasure-seeking consumers, in love with Big Macs, fast cars, and Marvel movies. The American Studies scholar Joseph Malherek explains that this apparent contradiction is partly a product of deliberate efforts by mid-twentieth century marketing experts.

Before World War II, the U.S. was notoriously dominated by puritanical values that elevated productivity and denigrated pleasurable consumption. In the postwar period, marketing and advertising experts pushed back against this value system. Among the most important figures in this effort were consumer researcher Ernest Dichter, an immigrant from Austria, and German-born Jewish designer Walter Landor. Malherek argues that it’s no coincidence that these two, as well as a number of other leaders in this movement, were Europeans, steeped in Continental philosophy and aesthetics.

(excerpt)

[Absalom]

Journo has the insight and perception of a toddler, if that.
Structured non-tribal culture/society emerged in the Fertile Crescent around 7000 BC.
During the following 8700 years, nation/states emerged, some surviving and thriving
for many centuries, with others declining and disappearing after a short time span. 
A hallmark of the former was their values/virtues/vision, derived from their spiritual sense.
Then the great turning came w/the French Enlightenment, asserting that the betterment of
mankind's condition, in his life on Earth, was a noble virtue; equal if not the superior to any.
The consequences of this, fostered the rise of materialism which has engulfed the world
ever since and Mankind is hardly the better for this transformation.
Anyone disagreeing, measure and compare the quality of the Art that Man has produced,
pre and post Enlightenment.
Intuitively, the mechanism that allowed material betterment to seduce Mankind into replacing much of his spiritual sensibilities was the economic system of capitalism,
ironically born during the Enlightenment!!!