Previously: 40 Years in Beer (Book II) Part 50: Papazian goes AWOL as we contest AB’s aggression against Budvar.
Around the same time in 1994 that I began risking charges of treason and apostasy by publicly questioning Charlie Papazian, inquiring whether Papazian had any intention of at least pretending to be an actual leader (and, even 30 years later, my own intention is to never let him forget his evasiveness), a book called Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and Intoxicants came to my attention.
Substitute “mass-produced American low-calorie ‘light’ lagers” for “goods” in this passage from the book, and you’ll understand why I was so enthralled.
Goods are being produced for ever-faster consumption in ever-greater quantities. They lose in “substance or content,” but that is replaced by the external “packaging.” The actual quality, for instance, the taste of a thing, no longer counts, but rather what would have to be called the illusion or image of the thing is what matters. Things no longer speak for themselves. From now on, advertisements define what a thing is. Ads create a world of illusions, within which things are assigned their new place, their new meaning, and the new rituals that...Read more
