Many intriguing questions are posed by Alfie Bown's new book Enjoying It: Candy Crush and Capitalism. Are cultural tastes our own? Are our preferences for the arts and leisure activities we enjoy socially constructed? Is taste something that is unique, individual? And if we get it "right" by, say, enjoying classical music, cubism or the writings of James Joyce, how much is this taste the sign of a "superior" or cultured mind?
Certainly, Bown is quite clear where the argument of this impressive, short book stands on such issues that relate, primarily, to our enjoyment as individuals within a late-capitalist society. Drawing lucidly from a range of cultural theorists, Bown suggests that “taste is completely learned and culturally determined”; yet it becomes so tied to our sense of ego that we have to “imagine that our taste is instinctive”.
The elements of our culture that Bown analyses, in pursuing his argument, are certainly familiar to most of us. That highly addictive game Football Manager, Psy's highly annoying Gangnam Style dance, and, well, that highly addictive and highly annoying game Candy Crush are all given the Everyday Analysis (or EDA) treatment, a well-known collective of thinkers for whom Bown regularly writes.
Bown's examples, then, are all cultural phenomena we delight in – or at least most of us know someone who does. Do we still regard these popular pursuits as unintellectual? Their mere mention would get a hearty chuckle from Jeremy Paxman, if they were ever to be the subject of a round of University Challenge: a show that demonstrates the ideological expectations we have of the "high" tastes of those who excel in the academy.
Bown’s point, interestingly, is that to laugh at seemingly throwaway pieces of our culture because we believe them to be innately stupid is not to dismiss them; indeed, laughter allows the ideology that compels us to enjoy to take grip: “Enjoyment is the key to ideology,” he writes, “making socialised things feel natural.” So, a hearty laugh at pop culture, emanating even from the throat and lips of Jeremy Paxman, is a sign of its grip upon our enjoyment.
University Challenge comes to mind as it is designed, I am convinced, to make me feel dumb. The main offenders are the science and classical music rounds, during which I seem entirely unable to guess even respectable answers. Time and again, I fail to name the atom it might be or to discern the music of Johannes Brahms from that of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Interestingly, it makes me feel guilty, in general, that I do not enjoy classical music at all. Surely, I should have better taste? Perhaps this is true; but the recurring concerns of the rounds of University Challenge also suggest an attempt to regulate the enjoyment of its contestants to those tastes that define the erudite British intellectual.
Dumb compulsions of capitalism
Bown’s trick – and he shares it with a few of his close contemporaries – is to speak to his generation of thinkers rather than to that now old-fashioned image of the intellectual who has exclusively “high” tastes. Indeed, there is enough clarity of phrase in this book for it to appeal to a wide range of readers. Importantly, it will make even those who actively resist some of the dumb compulsions of capitalism take note that it is impossible to avoid ideologically-inscribed enjoyment.
The most enriching and accessible sections of Enjoying It are to be found in its chapter-by-chapter conclusions. In a beautifully constructed reading of Football Manager, for instance, Bown suggests it is the game's simulated career trajectory that appeals to those players who feel "alienated" in their real places of work, where the "simulated feeling of career satisfaction. . . works to reinforce the criteria we use to judge 'success', only serving to exacerbate our sense of having more to achieve".
Even those who may regard procrastination at work as somehow rebelling against “the man” are to be disappointed. If we are distracted, according to Bown, by the temptations of indulging in online games then we are far from being agents of a quiet insurrection; instead, we are setting up the feeling of affirmation we get when we close the game and return to work. Indeed, even worse, “‘distracting’ enjoyment,” by its very nature, “works to hide alienation and prevent organised rejection of working conditions”.
Capitalism, then, invites us to enjoy these distractions in order to stop us rebelling more profoundly. It is not the quality of our tastes that matters so much, but the power that our enjoyment may have over us.
Matt Foley teaches English at the University of Stirling
