Reading Response: When Things are More than Things

In Cultural Revolutions, Leora Auslander argues that the English, American, and French revolutions were cultural revolutions that brought about many characteristics associated with modern, western society. The insightful, provocative portions of the book were where Auslander displayed how the democratizing effects of these revolutions were not just political and rhetorical, but brought about changes in the way everyday people associate with, and are able to politicize everyday things.

In his review of the book in American Studies (Vol. 50, ½) Andrew Cayton voiced skepticism about Auslander’s decision to organize her thesis by comparing political revolutions. I agree with this sentiment entirely. Narrowly truncating a cultural revolution within the bounds of political events oversimplifies the process of cultural change.  More often than not, the objects Auslander used to make her points were not everyday objects, but novelties. Knowing that upper class American women wore homespun in public and that the French Jacobins changed street names does not say very much about a cultural revolution. As I think of it, a revolution involves lasting change: a worldview shift from which there is no return. Most Americans, especially the poor, did not wear homespun and most of the Jacobin measures (with the exception of their measurement system) were quickly reverted back to pre-revolutionary status.

I see two excellent books itching to get out of Cultural Revolutions. The first is an analysis of the symbiotic relationship between political events and mass culture. Stallybrass’ “Marx’s Coat” did an excellent job of portraying this type of close relationship between the simple action of pawning a coat and the larger social implications of selling one’s status in industrial cultures. The second is a more theoretical groundwork of Auslander’s conceptualization of cultural revolutions and emotional history. Personally, I do not like the comparative model for writing history. As an alternative to comparative history, framing the book around a specific idea allows the telling of histories at different times and places, while eliminating the need to constantly qualify similarities and differences.

Igor Kopytoff’s “The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as a Process,” successfully played with ideas in this way. Kopytoff does not tell a historical narrative. Instead, he analyses and theorizes how and why things become commodities, and the implications of this commoditization for different cultures. From this cultural, anthropological perspective, commodities are things that have value. But how different people interpret that value determine the commodity’s status. Kopytoff’s analysis of the singularization of commodities, particularly in Western cultures, is particularly useful thinking about my object.

The powder horn, illustrated and engraved with a succession of names, is definitely a singular object. Rather than selling it, giving it a monetary value, its last owner donated it to a public institution. After reading Kopytoff I wonder how the horn’s commoditization evolved. At some point in the horn’s history it was a tool, part of a standard military uniform. The engraving may mark a transition point in the life of the object from military gear to a singular commemorative object.

Readings

Auslander, Leora. Cultural Revolutions: Everyday Life and Politics in Britain, North America, and France. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.

Kopytoff, Igor. “The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as a Process,” in Arjun Appadurai, ed., The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.

Stallybrass, Peter. “Marx’s Coat,” in Patricia Spyer, ed., Border Fetishisms: Material Objects in Unstable Spaces. New York: Routledge, 1998.