Good Old Materialism

Symbolic man surrounds himself with objects as tyrants surround themselves with subjects: ‘These will obey me. Through them I am worshipped. Through them I exercise control.’ These fraudulent kingdoms, hard-headed and practical, are really the soft-centre of fantasy. They are wish fulfillment nightmares when more is piled on more to manufacture the illusion of abundance. They are lands of emptiness and want. Things do not satisfy. In part they fail to satisfy because their symbolic value changes so regularly and what brought whistles of admiration one year is next year’s car boot sale bargain. In part they fail to satisfy because much of what we buy is gadgetry and fashion, which makes objects temporary and the need to be able to purchase them, permanent. In part they fail to satisfy because we do not actually want the things they buy. They are illusion, narcotic, hallucination.

- Jeanette Winterson, "Imagination and Reality" pg 144-145, Art Objects: Essays on Ecstasy and Effontery.