{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","title":"Time for Things Labor, Leisure, and the Rise of Mass Consumption","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9780674250529","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","id":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","uuid":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","title":"Time for Things Labor, Leisure, and the Rise of Mass Consumption","normalized_title":"timeforthingslaborleisureandtheriseofmassconsumption","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9780674250529","isbns":["9780674250529","9780674250536","9780674979512"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":355,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Time%20for%20Things%20Labor%2C%20Leisure%2C%20and%20the%20Rise%20of%20Mass%20Consumption","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/search"},"page":{"printed_page":94,"pdf_page":102,"physical_index":102,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"3621da0306513a924ab93e866502c09b407577574c30bda309614ae5f830b2c1"},"chapter":"FOR","content":"This dialectic of desire and disappointment certainly captures some dimensions of consumerism. Yet Campbell’s theory fails to account for why fantasy and hedonic expectation should fix on things as foci for imagined activities rather than the activities themselves—and why the focus should be on activities that require things rather than those that do not. For it is certainly possible to fantasize about pleasurable activities without at the same time thinking about commodities. People can ponder a ramble in nature or a swim or imagine a philosophical conversation, gossip, a flirtation, stargazing, a story, and so on—activities that demand time more than the possession of things. Moreover, even if we take a focus on things as given, Campbell’s theory provides no explanation for why consumers actually acquire things, as opposed to simply bringing them to mind as objects of contemplation.17 If, after the historical development of the imaginative faculties, what people want from commodities is to use them as foci for daydreams, seeking to remain suspended in an anticipatory state, why should they choose, once in such a state, to exit it by actually acquiring products? Why not instead become perennial browsers, connoisseurs of advertisements, experts in the art of pleasurably perusing catalogs and product descriptions? If materialistic acquisition always ends in disappointment, why doesn’t that fact sink in, prompting people to stop short of acquisition of products and instead endlessly fantasize about them?\n\nThe failure to explain materialism itself is a significant lacuna in Campbell’s theory, one that is filled by the commensuration theory. In Campbell’s terms, object-mediated fantasies work better at achieving a desired state of anticipation than fantasizing about actual activities, because thinking directly about engaging in some practice is more likely to raise the issue of the time constraints that characterize concrete human lives. Having to confront those constraints is likely to take consumers out of their state of pleasurable contemplation. By contrast, when the fantasy is mediated by an object of consumption, attention tends to be taken up by the properties of the object, making the issue of time constraints less salient. For example, if people fantasize about a particular model of bicycle, they will tend to dwell on the powers with which that bicycle is endowed—in the case of a mountain bike, for example, perhaps its capacity to absorb shock efectively thereby enabling them to cycle in rugged and exciting places. Focusing on the activity-enabling material powers of the product—on the things they in theory could do with it—keeps in abeyance the disenchanting question of whether they actually have time to use the bike.\n\n94\n\nTime for Things","previous_page":93,"next_page":95}