Excerpt from: "THE SIMULARCUM OF UTOPIAN DECAY" ( A. GLASS 2020)

 "...In 1949, America not only began to imprint itself as a nuclear super power, it also created

something very unique for a country that built itself on capitalism as an ideology of

production, that occurred after decades of depression and a global war, to which American

infrastructure remained intact, but its economy had suffered. A baby boom began in 1947,

attributed also throughout the West with an average of 3 babies born per woman, there

was of course the stability of post war recovery, particularly in America, where jobs were

plentiful. Yet, this hyper consumption, was also referred to as 'Pragmatic Spending', in a

period of 1945 to 1949, Americans bought mostly the necessities for family life,

refrigerators, stoves and cars. This is, under a modernist template, very much embraced

the family values, over any excesses of opulence. There was a fear, very similar in

sentiment to what was occurring in Communist Russia at the same time, that over

indulgence would lead to a societal decadence. However, the difference was split between

the two ideologies, one faith based, via the American Christian ethos, the other as 

paranoia that a society will see itself purely as a commodity based product. This may be

simple in its basis of retrospection and observation of consumption, when it is regulated

by, either an ideology or moral Christian belief, the reality was the statistics of what was

consumed at that time. So, when the model of 1950s consumption is studied, there is

something very curious in its reflection. A similarity of a society now..."

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Excerpt from:  "THE SIMULARCUM OF UTOPIAN DECAY" (

A. GLASS 2020)