Columnist Virginia Postrel on Style, Glamour, and Organ Donation

1.) Amidst The Substance of Style you argue that aesthetics matter. Our culture generally values external looks. Dating back centuries, has Western society held these tastes always? Is there an objective standard for beauty?

Much of The Substance of Style addresses the question of why aesthetics matter, particularly in the commercial marketplace. What makes the look and feel of something valuable to us? The reason is that aesthetics provides us with pleasure and meaning. Beauty is an element of pleasure, and it includes some factors that appear to be universal (for example, smooth skin) and others that vary. In fact, one of the universals is our desire for change, which produces fashion.

How the value of aesthetics manifests itself, and especially how it compares to other valuable things, depends on context, including economics. Different stages of production and development affect what’s valuable on the margin, as the economists say. In a subsistence economy, you can’t have a refrigerator or vaccines but you can often have beautifully woven fabrics or paint your home (or your face) in colorful ways. Throughout most of the 20^th century in the U.S., material progress consisted in getting as many people as possible to “not bad” – decent food, housing, shelter, transportation, etc., without a huge concern for aesthetics beyond “good enough.” By the end of the century, however, basic quality was taken for granted in many areas and what was newly valuable was how things looked.

2.) Glamour, as paraphrased by a book reviewer, “is not something people, objects or places possess, but rather something inherent in our perception.”[1] Its innateness appears to suppress our sensibilities. Can one outmaneuver such a mysterious force?

Glamour can be a valuable force. It is enjoyable and can provide sustenance in difficult times, and it reveals truths about what we desire and who we long to be. The problem is that glamour also conceals things. It hides difficulties, costs, flaws – anything that might break the spell. So if we’re going to use glamour as more than an imaginative escape, we need to edit those things back in. If we don’t, real-life experience will do it for us, possibly in unpleasant ways.

3.) Having written for name-brand periodicals – e.g. Bloomberg, Inc., New York Times, Wall Street Journal – you’re also a seasoned publishing manager. How has your decade-length editorship of Reason Magazine shaped your thinking and lettering?

The biggest effect was simply how much I learned about many different subjects, from many different people, during my time as editor. I also became acutely aware of the economic stresses on small enterprises, where every dollar and every employee counts. So, for instance, I’m skeptical about the universal wonderfulness of policies like mandatory family leave not out of some dedication to libertarian principles but because I know the costs they impose on organizations and other employees.

4.) The static, two-party political apparatus is presently weathering a dynamic, grassroots storm. In whose favor does the future unfold?

Right now, stasists, as I termed them in The Future and Its Enemies, are on the march in politics, with a growing backlash against economic dynamism. Right now the focus is on international trade and immigration, but you can see signs of an anti-technology trend as well. Politically, there aren’t a lot of major figures standing up for the value of decentralized innovation and competition. So in the near term, I’m pessimistic, but at least in the U.S. I think that dynamism is culturally strong and will reassert itself.

5.) You’ve also donated a kidney, and believe individuals should profit consequently from body-part bartering. What is your proposed alternative to the National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA)?

My ideal alternative would simply be to repeal the provision of NOTA that bans giving “valuable consideration” in exchange for an organ and let transplant centers, insurers, patients, and donors work out the rest as they see fit. That’s unlikely to happen, however, so in the short-term I support efforts like the Organ Donor Clarification Act of 2016, currently in draft legislation, which would clarify that certain reimbursements don’t count as “valuable consideration” and would allow government-run pilot programs to test non-cash incentives for organ donors.

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[1] Camhi, Leslie. “Allure: Virginia Postrel’s ‘Power of Glamour.’” New York Times. 3 December 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/08/books/review/virginia-postrels-power-of-glamour.html?_r=0>.