Ways of Seeing (Penguin Modern Classics)

It recognizes nothing except the power to acquire.

Publicity principally addressed to the working class tends to promise a personal transformation through the function of the particular product it is selling (Cinderella); middle-class publicity promises a transformation of relationships through a general atmosphere created by an ensemble of products (The Enchanted Palace).

Everything publicity shows is there awaiting acquisition.

Publicity turns consumption into a substitute for democracy.

Publicity is always about the future buyer. It offers him an image of himself made glamorous by the product or opportunity it is trying to sell. The image then makes him envious of himself as he might be.

It proposes to each of us that we transform ourselves, or our lives, by buying something more. This more, it proposes, will make us in some way richer – even though we will be poorer by having spent our money.

Publicity is about social relations, not objects. Its promise is not of pleasure, but of happiness: happiness as judged from the outside by others. The happiness of being envied is glamour.

Publicity persuades us of such a transformation by showing us people who have apparently been transformed and are, as a result, enviable.

The purpose of publicity is to make the spectator marginally dissatisfied with his present way of life.