Momma Don't Take Our Kodachrome!

Timothy Birdnow

Here is a rather interesting essay on the decolorization of America (and the rest of the world) as black, white, and gray have become the dominant color scheme in the 21st century. The author of this makes some interesting arguments and considers the psychology behind this drabbing of the American mind.

This is especially noticeable in terms of automobiles, which are now as colorless as Gerald Ford. The author doesn't mention one obvious reason; price. Black, white, and gray are chepaer than colors. I remember when I was younger the St. Louis County Police were proud as peacocks over their brown cars, but that ended because it cost a lot more money to paint them brown then get plain white ones.

But be that as it may there does seem to be some psychological issues at play here.

The author argues that the decolorization is due to moving to metals and plastics from wood, although I don't see it.

He takes a page from a book "chromophobia" which argues that this goes back to the beginnings of Western Civilization and the idea is color detracts from form and function. I don't buy that; anyone who has seen a painting from the Middle Ages knows this isn't so. In fact, the Middle Ages was avery,very colorful time. Usually it's portrayed as drab by filmmakers who want to sneer at it, but the reality was colors were highly prized back then and clothes and tapestries ornate and colorful.

Well, the Medieval period was not the modern one, and it can be argued that the enlightenment era was less colorful, but I think you would have a hard case claiming that as well.

Certainly there were religious sects, especially Puritans, who didn't like a lot of color because they figured it distracted from their devotion to the unseen world. Perhaps so.

But I would argue this is cyclical and we see colorful eras interspersed with austere. Take the Roaring Twenties; a very colorful era indeed. It was followed by the drabness of the Depression and WWII era. (The Depression was brown and WWII olive green.) These particular decoloized eras fit the mood of the country, which was Depression brown and War time green.

Take the '60's and '70's; both were explosions of color, fitting the evolutionary and revolutionary times. Anyone remember Simon and Garfunkle "Kodachrome"?

If we are to postulate a psychological reason for this I would suggest it's a side effect of computers and the amazing, colorful graphics; young people in particular are exposed to an assault on the senses with explosions of colors all day, and it leads to sensory overload. Society is compensating, toning down the colors in real life to maintain balance. Oh, it'snot a conscious thing, just that people are choosing more subdued colors in their lives because they have far too much color elsewhere.

It can also be argued that the rise of statism has led to this. Anywhere an authoritarian system is in place we see colors disappear. Why is that? I'm not at all sure but it's inevitable and we've seen in over and over. I guess nobody wants to stand out and so everything becomes bland, so people can melt into the background. Getting noticed in totalitarian societies is decidedly hazardous to your health. At any rate statism leads to monochromatic living, and we have been in an era of statism for some time now.

It works the other way too; tyrants want their subjects to be homogenized, to be cowed into the mass. So removing color makes them more amenable to becoming sheep in the herd. The Soviets did that. Muslims do it tot their women. If everyone lives a shared, colorless life they will merge with the Borg Collective.

The author states:

This, he argues, is the thinking of the rationalists who reject color. Perhaps, but there certainly are big holes in that. Color ads more than "charm" to art; it is often the very core of the artistic work. It sets the mood and tone. Would anyone admire many of the great masterpieces of painting if they were black and white? Sometimes black and white makes a canvas and that is by intent,but mostly colors are there to provide the emotional context. You can't really paint a blue mood without color.

Who would look twice at Starry Night by Van Gough without the cobalt blue?

And he cites a study of color in the U.K. based on old photographs and claims color has been steadily disappearing since 1800. How do these researchers know this, with old fashioned tin type black and white photos? Again, the sixties and seventies were certainly quite colorful eras, especially in Britain.

He does hit the nail on the head with this:


Loud, garish colors in advertising are the hallmark of crooks and shysters and everyone knows to avoid the shiny objects because they are shiny solely to catch your eye. Quality is viewed as not requiring a gimmicky and flashy nature.

He also makes an excellent observation here:


The cubism and minimalism of postmodern architecture certainly bespeaks a society drowning in it's own phlegm. This is the simplicity of the tomb. Architects like it because it's easier to design and build, and cheaper. But it strangles our culture. Yet I suppose it was inevitable as we are in an era where we build nothing to last; everything is planned obsolescence and new and improved is the Shahadah of modernity. Why put the careful touches on things you plan to tear down in ten years?

Just look at buildings built a hundred years ago compared to now; fine cornice work, beautiful stone masonry, wainscoating, etc. Now they slap up cheap metal and curtain buildings that are gone within the decade.

My own home was built in 1927 and it's substantial; all brick, high ceilings, beautiful archways and whatnot. And mine is newer than a lot of St. Louis buildings and it shows; those were SPECTACULAR, the care taken and effort made to put details into the structure and make sure they lasted. When I compare this house to the newer ones my friends own there is not comparison; mine is far, far superior.

(St. Louis pioneered an unique style - two toned brick structures with the lower portion of the building being a different brick and a different tone of color. Oh, and we did the asbestos, shiny bricks

That is where architecture has gone in the last century, faster, cheaper, disposable. And the color schemes are now muted precisely because these are not intended to be permanent structures. They are essentially refrigerator boxes - very large refrigerator boxes, to be sure.

Of course inflation has made a big difference too and the only way to keep houses affordable is to cut corners and that means less interesting architectural features and less color. Inflation is as much to blame for the decline in color in our society as anything.

The author also rightly points out that the New World Order rears it's ugly head, and globalism has stripped everything down to it's bare essentials because tastes differ and so they seek to make things that appeal to the lowest common denominator. (I was once told that hospital food is so bland for this very reason.) Nothing aims at local or regional, always global. So we have this uniformity of style and color so as not to turn anyone off. But it excites nobody either.

Perhaps the deadliest of sins is boredom; it leads to misery and despair and to the seven deadly sins. Hell is going to wind up being not so colorful a place as Dante' envisioned, perhaps, but rather a dull, dull place where nothing good ever happens. The great S-F author (and biochemist) Isaac Asimov once wrote a short story about that very thing. The Last Trump was about the immediate aftermath of Gabriel's horn as the Earth became a bland paste of a world - and soon people began realizing it wasn't Heaven but Hell. An eternal endless boredom.

That is the world we've been systematically creating and computer technology is metastasizing that process in ways nobody dared dream in bygone years. The young require more and more stimulation, with a shorter and shorter attention span, and the real world is becoming blander and blander, turning them to the computers ever more. Food doesn't taste as good (thanks to government health regulations), there is less color, music is insipid and bland and corporate made, often computer generated. There has been a strong movement to limit free speech and thus deprive people of that particular pleasure and right. Work is now "service" so few find the satisfactions our ancestors had of making something for themselves or providing for themselves. Nobody feels like they are doing anything useful. All play and no work makes Jack a pathetic child, and that shows in the immaturity of the Millenial and Gen. Z types who spend their lives doing, well, nothing of value. This is why celebrity is now so important to them; it's as close to meaning in life as most of them can come.

The disappearance of color is asymptotic to this decline in meaning in the lives of the young. Nothing much matters; they are a generation full of ennui (listlessness and boredom). And ennui leads to anomie, the rejection of norms and standards as the young are anti-everything, in opposition to the whole society that so messed them up. Is it any wonder we have so many young people committing mass murder these days? They were not taught about God and the moral law by their elders and the society bequethed to them is purgatory, a place full of ennui. All that matters is celebrity so why not go out with a bang!

So I'm with Paul Simon "Momma don't take my Kodachrome away! we NEED our colors!

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:41 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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