Minimalist Architecture and Interior Design in America:

A Mise-En-Scène of Desire, A Staging Ground for Action

by

Erin Rachel Lee

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for graduation with Honors in Politics.

Whitman College
2020
 Certificate of Approval

This is to certify that the accompanying thesis by Erin Rachel Lee

has been accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with Honors
in Politics.

________________________
Susanne Beechey

Whitman College
May 18, 2020

ii
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ iv
List of Figures ..................................................................................................................... v
1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1
............................................................................................................................................. 5
2. Background ..................................................................................................................... 6
2.1 What is Minimalism? ................................................................................................ 6
2.2 What is Ideology? ..................................................................................................... 8
2.3 Ideology, Culture, and the Frankfurt School .......................................................... 10
2.4 The Artpolitical Environment ................................................................................. 14
2.5 Some Examples....................................................................................................... 17
3. Aesthetic Politics, and Other Challenges ...................................................................... 21
3.1 Minimalism as Aesthetic Politics............................................................................ 21
3.2 “wabi-sabi vibes” .................................................................................................... 26
3.3 Lifestyle Minimalists .............................................................................................. 29
4. Political Aesthetics, and Other Possibilities ................................................................. 32
4.1 Minimalism as Political Aesthetics ......................................................................... 32
4.2 Minimalism: A Cruel Optimism ............................................................................. 33
4.3 Minimalism: A Staging Ground for Action ............................................................ 37
5. Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 40
Works Cited ...................................................................................................................... 42

iii
Acknowledgements

Many thanks to my Readers, Susanne Beechey and Shampa Biswas, for

your guidance and reassurance, and for being inspiring examples of women in

academia.

Thanks also to Professors Phil Brick and Jack Jackson for an engaging

Senior Seminar.

Thanks to Professors Paul Apostolidis and Saladdin Ahmed for

introducing me to the themes I engage with here.

Thank you to my family for your bottomless support.

And finally, thank you, Kyle Kearney, for being a sounding board and a

buddy through four years of being Politics students and young women.

iv
List of Figures

Figure 1: Minimalist homes. ............................................................................................... 5

Figure 2: The Lincoln Memorial....................................................................................... 18
Figure 3: Kardashian’s and West’s home from Architectural Digest coverage. .............. 26
Figure 4: Screenshots from YouTube home tours by Lifestyle Minimalists. ................... 30
Figure 5: Screenshots from YouTube influencers’ Minimalist home tours. .................... 30

v
1. Introduction

The “world has long dreamed of something of which it only has to become conscious in

order to possess it in actuality.”1 - Karl Marx

The mundane, common sense, and the everyday are fruitful grounds for finding

latent meaning. After all, material objects are instantiations of ideology—culture, values,

beliefs, proclivities, politics. Commonly-consumed goods are especially fruitful, as

consumption increasingly defines individuality and societal participation today. The

object here is Minimalism, a difficult-to-define term that denotes a style or aesthetic of

visual arts and design.2 Minimalist architecture and interior design (henceforth referred

to simply as ‘Minimalism’) in American domestic spaces will be the focus of this inquiry.

Minimalism is characterized by open space, orderliness, rejection of ornamentation, and

sometimes harmony with nature. It often features a neutral color palette of white, black,

grey, and exposed wood.3 Minimalism is hard to pin down, but there is a certain ‘I-know-

it-when-I-see-it’ (or ‘-feel-it’) that is essential to the term. This will be central here: not

lofty definitions by artists or critics, but its affective, semiotic understanding by everyday

people. I am interested in the everyday sense- and meaning-making that is foundational to

one’s political outlook. Everyday people are the thrust behind a genuine politics—one

that is democratic and egalitarian—and theory means little if it is not translatable to

praxis.

1. Marx, Karl, Loyd David Easton, and Kurt H. Guddat. Writings of the Young Marx on
Philosophy and Society. Indianapolis, Ind: Hackett Pub. Co, 1997, 214.
2. Ruby, Ilka, Andreas Ruby, Angeli Sachs, and Philip Ursprung. Minimal Architecture.
Architecture in Focus. Munich ; New York: Prestel, 2003, 6.
3. Stewart, Jessica. “What Is Minimalism? A Look at Minimalist Art, Architecture, and Design.”
My Modern Met, October 28, 2018. https://mymodernmet.com/what-is-minimalism-definition/.
A more in-depth definition follows in Section 2.
 Minimalism has become ubiquitous in the United States; it is the design style of

the moment. It can be found in domestic, public, corporate, and commercial spaces—

homes, parks, offices, and storefronts. To an extent, it has become somewhat pedestrian,

even expected. It has a near-universal appeal—if not just tolerability—and is often

described as having a calming effect. In the aforementioned spaces it connotes modernity.

In films and other media, it is often used as shorthand for futuristic or utopic settings.

In recent years, the term ‘Minimalism’ has resurged in its close association with a

lifestyle that follows some of the basic ideas of Zen philosophy—even though its ties to

Zen have largely fallen away. ‘Lifestyle Minimalists,’ as I will refer to them, reject

consumerism, live simply, practice mindfulness, and promote environmentalism.

Minimalism is—ironically—also a form of conspicuous consumption. Celebrities

Kanye West and Kim Kardashian just recently constructed their “minimal monastery”

home for $20 million.4

Likewise, it is also found in more low-brow sources, like the mass-produced

home decor from IKEA and popular lifestyle brands like Urban Outfitters and MUJI.

Even Walmart sells products in this style.

What does all of this mean? Is this merely a fad? an innocuous trend?

What political work might it be doing? How does it relate to the ambient

ideological environment (what I will call the dyad of consumerism and civic

disengagement)?

4. Chen, Joyce. “Kim Kardashian Calls Her Hidden Hills Home a ‘Minimal Monastery’ |
Architectural Digest.” Architectural Digest, April 11, 2019. https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/kim-
kardashian-calls-her-hidden-hills-home-a-minimal-monastery.

2
 To impose a more rigid frame, is Minimalism in America aesthetic politics, or

political aesthetics?

In this thesis I will develop the argument that Minimalism—though it claims to be

subversive and indeed once had subversive potential—has in actuality been captured by

the dyad of consumerism and civic disengagement and is now a supporting aesthetic

element of the ideological/artpolitical environment; Minimalism is aesthetic politics. But

then, taking a step back, I give a wide berth for fantasy, imagination, and creativity to

construct politically productive spaces—particularly via the medium of architecture and

interior design. I will show through theoretical excurses how Minimalist spaces can be, if

not subversive, then, generative, and how resistance can take many forms. Indeed,

Minimalism can be a mise-en-scène of desire, a staging ground for action.

It should be noted that this writing is largely about middle-class and upper-

middle-class consumers. All Americans are “deeply affected by consumerism”5 and there

is certainly a “trickle-down”6 of consumer aspirations (e.g., designer trends percolate

down to bargain bins), so this aesthetic can also be found in the homes of the lower

classes. However, this group constitutes a large demographic of consumers who have

significant capacity for discretionary spending. This group also sets highly visible

standards for what the good life should ostensibly look like. People will always aspire to

the good life, the American Dream. Whatever that looks like inspires widespread

movement toward it. Perhaps manipulating what that looks like could inspire large-scale

change. In a sense, the middle- and upper-middle could be a revolutionary class of sorts.

5. Schor, Juliet. The Overspent American: Upscaling, Downshifting, and the New Consumer. 1st
ed. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1998, xiv.
6. Schor, 8.

3
 My intellectual stance draws primarily from the work of Sheldon Wolin,7 Lauren

Berlant,8 Susan Napier,9 and Critical Theory, but also from cultural studies, affect theory,

semiotics, globalization studies, and leisure theory. I hope to add to the prolific genre of

critical theory, which seeks to uncover the contradictions inherent to capital accumulation

and commodification as well as to critique domination and ideology, and to illustrate

some emendations on how this approach can be used to conceptualize our modern

political/ideological context, which is more complex due to factors such as globalization.

I particularly draw on Walter Benjamin’s theorizations on aesthetic politics.10 I also hope

to solidify architecture and interior design’s importance to this discourse as an object of

study. Finally, I entertain how political ideation might be developed in new directions via

fantasy, leisure, and play.

I draw examples from high-end architecture and interior design magazines and

social media influencers.11 These sources provide aspirational images for what the good

life looks like for Americans broadly—regardless of class. I use social media because it

has become the primary medium for the transmission of culture between everyday

people. These sites (e.g., YouTube, but also Instagram) are also especially visual and thus

convey the aesthetics of our ideological environment quite explicitly. Images also hold

some of the greatest power for the transmission of affect.

7. Wolin, Sheldon S. Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted
Totalitarianism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 2008.
8. Berlant, Lauren Gail. Cruel Optimism. Durham: Duke University Press, 2011.
9. Napier, Susan Jolliffe. From Impressionism to Anime: Japan as Fantasy and Fan Cult in the
Mind of the West. 1st ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
10. Benjamin, Walter. “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction: War and Fascism.” In Social
Theory: The Multicultural, Global, and Classic Readings, edited by Charles Lemert, 6th ed., 219–26.
Westview Press, 2017.
11. Influencers are social media personalities with large followings.

4
Figure 1: Minimalist homes.

5
2. Background
2.1 What is Minimalism?

Although aesthetic simplicity has been a facet of many cultures and philosophies

(e.g., Quakers, Puritans), Minimalism is principally influenced by Japanese Zen

philosophy. Traditionally in Japan, Zen philosophy becomes manifest in architecture.

Philosophical concepts such as wabi-sabi (seeing beauty in organic forms), ma

(emptiness, which encourages contemplation of essential forms), and seijaku (stillness, or

the translation of meditation into design) are key to the design style. Altogether, these are

intended to promote harmony and tranquility.12 These concepts have been influential in

Western design since the 18th century.13

Minimalist architecture is also an evolutionary offshoot of Modernism, which

dominated art discourse throughout the twentieth century. Minimalism is particularly

connected to the Modernist Bauhaus movement of the 1920s, which pioneered utopian

ideals for the future through art, design, and technology. Modernism—like

Minimalism—imagines modernity through simple designs and materials that highlight

the essence of architecture. Minimalist interior design follows these art and architecture

movements—it is also about subtracting the inessential. The essentials of Minimalism are

simple materials (e.g., concrete, steel, wood), open space, orderliness, rejection of

ornamentation and clutter, and harmony with nature; form and material are simplified,

less is more.14

12. Saito, Yuriko. “The Moral Dimension of Japanese Aesthetics.” The Journal of Aesthetics and
Art Criticism 65, no. 1 (2007): 85–97.
13. Stewart.
14. Ibid.

6
 Minimalism expressed a discomfort among intellectuals and artists with living in

an increasingly urbanized/technologized/industrialized world. It was (and is) appreciated

for its ability to provide respite from the “overpowering presence of traffic, advertising,

jumbled building scales, and imposing roadways,”15 as it were, and for its ability to

express alternative aspirations for what the world might look like. Japan itself has

historically served as a vision of a “pastoral utopia.”16 This positive affective value of

pleasure, utopia, and fantasy has ‘stuck’17 quite strongly to Minimalist objects—affect

being those culturally-circulated, “visceral forces beneath, alongside, or generally other

than conscious knowing that can serve to drive us toward movement, thought, and ever-

changing forms of relation.”18

Minimalism has suffused beyond the fine arts. No longer exclusive, and also due

to the aforementioned trickle-down of taste, Minimalism has transcended class. In

domestic, commercial, and corporate spheres it has become the design style of the

moment. In accordance with its historical affective value, its marketing is often

accompanied by such terms as ‘sanctuary,’ ‘wellness,’ ‘relaxation,’ ‘pristine,’

‘sophistication,’ and ‘refinement.’

Lifestyle Minimalists have a sizeable community—especially online. It is a

subculture or even quasi-counterculture movement, but it is not organized in any

traditional sense, is variously interpreted, and Minimalists practice on a spectrum.

Followers—largely Millennials—‘minimize’ their spending, wardrobes, and even the size

15. Ostwald, Michael J, and Josephine Vaughan. The Fractal Dimension of Architecture, 2016,
316.
16. Napier, 8.
17. Ahmed, Sarah. “Happy Objects.” In The Affect Theory Reader, edited by Melissa Gregg and
Gregory J Seigworth. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010.
18. Gregg, Melissa, and Gregory J Seigworth. The Affect Theory Reader. Durham, NC: Duke
University Press, 2010, 1.

7
of their homes and incomes. They explicitly reject consumerism in the interest of

promoting peace of mind and often environmentalism. Marie Kondo has become a

household name because of her teachings in Minimalist living.

Now, before interrogating Minimalism, it is necessary to understand the ambient

ideological/political/historical context in the US today.

2.2 What is Ideology?

There are many nuanced but similar definitions of ideology. I will use a

generalized Marxist understanding of ideology. Ideology is the affixing of meaning

(values, beliefs, ideas) and world view onto experience; it is an act, a lived and living

relation that is firmly sedimented yet spontaneous. It thrives at the level of the

unconscious—it is the common sense, the taken for granted, the normal frame of

reference. Ideology saturates everyday life and discourse; it is not confined—as often

thought—to the platforms of political parties. It is expansive and total and yet it is

anonymous.19 It is integral to sense- and meaning-making.

Ideology refracts how one perceives oneself to be a political subject in relation to

the phenomena of the world—how one should understand oneself, how one should relate

to others, and how one should receive phenomena. Ideology seems to be reality. But in

actuality, for the political subject, reality is mediated by ideology; ideology masquerades

as universal, permanent truth while actually being historically specific. Ideology obscures

reality in such a way that it supports the powerful and the prevailing system. Yet it is not

conspiratorial. It is the product of a set of dynamic social relations that encourage

19. Hebdige, Dick. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. Routledge, 1979, 11; see also Barker, Chris.
Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice. 4th Edition. Los Angeles ; London: SAGE, 2012.

8
equilibrium in the system as well as individual profit accumulation. It is then made

manifest in political and cultural institutions such as the format of government, the

family, etc.20 It is itself a system—a system of representation. As Louis Althusser

explains, these representations are “usually images and occasionally concepts, but it is

above all as structures that they impose on the vast majority of men.”21

Building off of these ideas, Antonio Gramsci theorized how ideology maintains

social dynamics of power and powerlessness. He posited that ‘hegemony’ is how

dominative societies are maintained despite ostensibly obvious inequalities. Hegemony

refers to a situation wherein an alliance of social groups dominates all others—not

through forceful imposition or coercion, but through a gradual process of manufacturing

and winning consent such that their power appears natural and inevitable. Subordinate

groups are confined within the ideological space constructed by the ruling group that

does not appear to be constructed; the ruling ideas become everyone’s ideas—the ruling

ideas being those that undergird capitalism.22 Returning to the example of the cultural

institution of the family, families under capitalism are rationalized economic units. In the

‘nuclear family,’ there are gendered and heteronormative, common-sense expectations

for who completes which labor to sustain the family (work outside the home for the

husband, reproductive labor for the wife) whilst the children are educated to become

future economic participants themselves. These hegemonic standards for family life

appear natural although alternatives exist.

20. Hebdige, 12.

21. Ibid. (emphasis added).
22. Hebdige, 16.

9
 A few more important points must be made about ideology before continuing:

First, under capitalism, freedom of action is replaced with instrumental decision making.

Subjects can only choose from the ideological landscape set before them; they can react

but not act independently. Second, in order to perpetuate itself, capitalism presents itself

as the best—or only—possible way of life through the system of representation. The

ultimate “goal is that human thoughts and actions do not go beyond capitalism, do not

question and revolt against this system and thereby play the role of instruments for the

perpetuation of capitalism.”23 Utopian thinking is discouraged and even precluded by the

ideological environment. Third, culture is strongly bonded with the commodity form and

capital; culture is created to be sold and consumed.24

2.3 Ideology, Culture, and the Frankfurt School

“Not all art is political, but all politics is aesthetic.”25 - Crispin Sartwell

“All efforts to render politics aesthetic culminate in one thing: war.”26 - Walter Benjamin

The Frankfurt School built upon these ideas of ideology and hegemony. The

Frankfurt School is known for being the origin of Critical Theory, an important and

influential tradition within Cultural Marxism.27 The Critical Theorists critically analyzed

culture and speculated normatively about societal and political development through an

open, Neo-Marxist lens. They saw culture as being one of the ways that ideology

23. Geuss, Raymond. The Idea of a Critical Theory: Habermas and the Frankfurt School.
Cambridge: Cambridge, 1981, 11.
24. Ibid.
25. Sartwell, Crispin. Political Aesthetics. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2010, 1
26. Benjamin, Walter. “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction: War and Fascism.” In Social
Theory: The Multicultural, Global, and Classic Readings, edited by Charles Lemert, 6th ed., 219–26.
Westview Press, 2017, 206.
27. This is not the same as the Cultural Marxism misused by the Right in recent years:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/19/cultural-marxism-a-uniting-theory-for-
rightwingers-who-love-to-play-the-victim.

10
particularly evinces itself and thus as an avenue for critiquing and challenging it. They

particularly built on the idea of ideology being ‘images’ and ‘representation,’ using the

term ‘aesthetics’ to understand this broadly. For the Frankfurt School, aesthetics obscured

“the actual truth of reality, but more specifically the true realities underlying power

structures, social, cultural, or economic ones that governed society but were invisible to

all but the most erudite of intellectuals and intellectually engaged artists.”28 Political

aesthetics/aesthetic politics has since become something of a genre in the study of

politics.

Although today,

[i]n everyday language, ‘aesthetic’ has a refined, almost effete connotation

that seems to make it irrelevant to everyday experience [...] in its broadest
sense, every act of awareness, whether of internal states or of the external
environment, has an aesthetic component. [...] [A]esthetic dimension is not
a rarefied frill but a vitally important aspect of how we relate to the
world.29

In recent years, ‘aesthetic’ has been used as a synonym for ‘style’ in popular culture.

As an approach, aesthetic politics offers unique insight into what is usually taken

to be the material of political science: texts and speeches, but also architecture, clothing,

and styles of embodiment and movement.30 It is principally concerned with their

affective/semiotic value and as such allows access to what is not totally encompassed or

made intelligible by language.31

28. Gage, Mark Foster, ed. Aesthetics Equals Politics: New Discourses across Art, Architecture,
and Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2019, 4-5.
29. Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, and Eugene Halton. The Meaning of Things: Domestic Symbols and
the Self. Cambridge [Eng.] ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981, 176 (emphasis added).
30. Sartwell, 2.
31. Ibid.

11
 Walter Benjamin, a leading member of the Frankfurt School, conceptualized

‘aesthetic politics’ to understand fascism in Nazi Germany. Conventionally and

simplistically, an aesthetic politics means that a political system appears to be productive

for the masses, but does not substantively affect their rights or material conditions. This

was essential to the maintenance of fascist regimes in which the masses expressed

themselves politically, which seemed to be progress, but they remained subordinate. The

ruling group aestheticized the political environment.

Aesthetic politics can refer not only to such an overall ideological/aesthetic

environment produced by a political system such as fascism, but can also be more literal,

referring to more tangible, aesthetic tools used by the regime. For instance. “[t]he

emotive paraphernalia of fascism—propaganda films, marching troops, flags, insignia,

and the rest,” which were used “to marshal collective experience as a powerful social

force.”32 They helped to convey a message of unity, power, and totality. These are all

elements of the overarching ‘design style’ of the regime.

The antithesis of aestheticizing politics is politicizing art. Politicizing

aesthetics/art means using art as a political tool to galvanize the masses in order to

challenge dominative structures.33 Political art challenges dominative structures by

providing critical distance; it promotes the capacity to think outside of one’s highly-

curated political reality. In Art Under A Dictatorship, Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt put it

best:

[a]rt that is the expression of individual search, of experiment, of intuitive play,

art that penetrates the surface of the visual world, that is prophetic, sensitive,
apprehensive, art that challenges the individual, that demands concentration,

32. Manderson, Desmond. “Here and Now: From ‘Aestheticizing Politics’ to ‘Politicizing Art,’”
2016. http://www.helsinki.fi/nofo/NoFo13_Manderson.pdf, 3.
33. Benjamin, 206-207.

12
 effort, art that heightens perception, sharpens the eye, nourishes thought—that art
cannot be tolerated by the dictator. He must eliminate it. In its place he must put
art that requires no visual effort, that is easily read by all, easy on the eye and on
the mind, unproblematic. He must demand art that creates the illusion of a secure,
serene world, that hides the sinister motives and the terror.34

Such art put in place by the dictator might be the aforementioned ‘emotive paraphernalia

of fascism’ or even, as I will argue, Minimalism.

Central to the theory of aesthetic politics is the historical materialist notion that

sensory experience precedes (or precludes) emancipatory thinking. Aesthetics is about

the shared human sensory capacity and how that capacity either produces or forbids the

power to be a political actor.35 However, emancipation does not result from merely

revealing one’s predicament. Instead, it truly comes to fruition when the image of another

way of life is realized: “Emancipation starts at the moment when it is not revealing

inequality, but affirming equality.”36 This will be explored further in Section 4.

Notably, Benjamin understood fascism to be the introduction of aesthetics into

political life, but by no means the only environment in which it can exist. More recent

scholars understand its suffusion into ordinary politics to be more complete. In the

section that follows I will outline the ambient ideological context—or what is also

referred to as the ‘artpolitical environment’ by aesthetic politics scholars—in the US

today, which is more nuanced than that classic proletariat vs. bourgeoisie trope, and also

differs from the conventional and notorious totalitarianism that aesthetic politics was

originally created to conceptualize; next, I will outline what I call the dyad of

consumerism and civic disengagement.

34. Sartwell, 21-22.

35. Gage, 12.
36. Gage, 22.

13
2.4 The Artpolitical Environment

“To be is to have.”37 - Georges Gusdorf

The US’ artpolitical environment has to do with its unique mix of liberal

democracy, apathetic demos, superpower status, late capitalist stage of economic

development, and hyper-materialism.

The United States today faces a crisis of democratic values. Sheldon Wolin

diagnoses and articulates this problem with his concept of ‘inverted totalitarianism.’

Inverted totalitarianism is also approximated by terms such as neoliberalism, late

capitalism, corporate fascism, consumer democracy, post-Fordism, and “the

contemporary mutation of capitalism we contend and live with.”38 The older,

conventional totalitarianisms—such as those described by Hannah Arendt39—differ from

their inverted form in that it is the aggregate product of many small, unintentional

decisions rather than the direct will of an individual or group with singular ideological

motivations. It is more “gaseous,” “dispersive,” and “open”40 than the strict enclosed

model of capitalism as a dominative structure. Its dispersive nature is exactly what makes

it so invisible—and so insidious. Two of its core tenets are ‘antidemocracy’ and ‘elite

rule.’41

Antidemocracy refers to the demobilization of the populace, and in effect the

deconstruction of the demos. The people are too occupied by long working hours (and

37. Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton, xi.

38. Kumm, Brian, and Corey Johnson. “Subversive Imagination: Smoothing Space for Leisure,
Identity, and Politics.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Leisure Theory, 891–910, 2017.
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56479-5_50, 896.
39. Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt,
2011.
40. Kumm and Johnson, 902.
41. Wolin, 239.

14
thus a lack of leisure time) and uncertainty of employment to be politically engaged.

Instead, political engagement takes the form of sporadic voting or even political

consumerism. The populace feels disenfranchised by their government, and also that their

individual power to effect change is limited. Stability and self-interest are preferred over

change.42

Elite rule refers to the surfeit of corporate economic, social, and political power.

Governance is transformed into an elite space requiring special background, skills, and

education instead of the domain of everyday people. Inverted totalitarianism operates via

a ‘managed democracy,’ a political system that produces the illusion—or aesthetic, one

might say—of a flourishing democracy; democracy serves a mere “rhetorical function.”43

It is a system wherein inequality and political stagnation seem natural and inevitable, and

wherein elections have little potential to alter the allotment of power.44

As Wolin explains, “[i]ts genius lies in wielding total power without appearing to,

without establishing concentration camps, or enforcing ideological uniformity, or forcibly

suppressing dissident elements so long as they remain ineffectual.”45 This is still a new

and contested concept, but even if one would not go so far as to call the United States—

‘The World’s Greatest Democracy!’—a totalitarian-esque state, it is difficult to ignore the

vast economic inequality, the qualities of meritocracy, the outsized influence of

corporations (read: citizens) especially on our ‘two party’ system, the widespread

practices of state-sponsored domestic surveillance, the excessive emphasis on military

42. Ibid.
43. Wolin, 131.
44. Wolin, 239.
45. Wolin, 57.

15
might, the creation of a foreign national enemy (e.g., ‘terrorists’), and the current

administration’s proclivity for more overtly authoritarian practices.

Although the foundational problem is aesthetic politics, not consumerism,

consumerism is an important supporting apparatus in the ideological environment.

‘Citizens’—now consumers—are placated by expanding commercial choices, even while

their political choices are reduced. Consumption has increased dramatically in recent

decades alongside the United States’ ascent to hegemonic world leader, the rise and fall

of the Cold War, and the blooming of globalization. For middle-class Americans

especially, the American Dream has grown to now include a larger home, a second home,

multiple cars, vacations, and the latest in technology and fashion. Throughout the latter

half of the twentieth century and continuing on today,

[d]efinitions of the ‘good life’ and even of the ‘necessities of life’ continued to
expand, even as people worried about how they could pay for them. What was
going on? The economic trend was a diverging income distribution. The
sociological trend was the upward shift in consumer aspirations and the vertical
stretching out of reference groups. They collided to produce a period of consumer
anxiety, frustration, and dissatisfaction.46

The political trend was the diminishing of civic engagement as Americans turned inward;

citizens became consumers, discontent is directed toward personal financial

shortcomings. In this dyad, each element necessarily feeds into the other. Consumerism

stretches and strains the fabric of civic life.

Indeed, consumerism and managed democracy are interwoven, mutually

reinforced. This scaffolding reinforces the structure of capitalism that underlies all

relations. Altogether this results in ‘civic demobilization.’ At their core, the two elements

of the dyad share a necessary performativity—performance of flourishing, of success.

46. Schor, 11-12.

16
Subverting this bipartite structure is necessary to the cause of promoting a more

democratic, egalitarian, and sustainable nation. This is especially critical now as the

world must face the climate crisis head on.

2.5 Some Examples

The aesthetics of inverted totalitarianism amount to the illusion of flourishing

democracy. Some of the aesthetic elements are, for instance, going to the voting booth on

Election Day and receiving an ‘I voted’ sticker, or marching in a political demonstration.

They feel validating and appear to implement political desires, but do little to change

conditions on their own or to break out of the prevailing system.

The aesthetic can also be seen in architecture. US government buildings are

neoclassical, meaning they emulate the canons of Ancient Greek style—Greece being the

origin of democracy. Government buildings like the White House are symmetrical,

perfectionist, and formulaic, with columns and a stark white exterior. This monumental

state architecture semiotically projects notions of democracy, rationality, power,

solidness, an imposing inevitability as well as a long history. President Donald Trump’s

“big beautiful wall” might also be considered aesthetic.

17
Figure 2: The Lincoln Memorial.

This context has everything to do with why I have decided to focus on

architecture and interior design out of everything that could be studied in the artpolitical

environment. Architecture and interior design have special qualities that make them a

fruitful site for investigating hidden ideology. This is because architecture is quite

literally the manifestation of the way we want to build our society. It is world-building in

a very concrete sense. It is an incredibly idealistic, if not merely a materially realistic,

articulation of who we are and strive to be. It molds how we move, learn, feel, and live. It

is profoundly life-shaping.

The classic example of how architecture implicitly and aesthetically conveys

ideology—shaping us—is the classroom. In a lecture-style classroom, desks face inward,

thus directing attention toward the professor who has singular authority over knowledge.

The architecture shapes and reaffirms collective understandings of the appropriate power

dynamics.

18
 Architecture and interior design in homes are especially connected to the common

sense-ness of ideology because it is in this constructed setting that we spend every day. It

is unlike a sports game, religion, or politics happening in Congress, which are all cultural

facets that occur more sporadically and are less a part of our everyday lives. Additionally,

the home seems more personal, intimate, and private. The home is the epitome of where

we think we have autonomy, but even choices about the home exist within a prescribed

set.

Even so, there remains a relatively large amount of agency in the home. Indeed,

[d]efinitions of the ‘good life’ and even of the ‘necessities of life’ continued to
expand, even as people worried about how they could pay for them. What was
going on? The economic trend was a diverging income distribution. The
sociological trend was the upward shift in consumer aspirations and the vertical
stretching out of reference groups. They collided to produce a period of consumer
anxiety, frustration, and dissatisfaction.47

I am interested in “[t]he symbolic environment of the household.”48 According to

some scholars of consumption, consumption involves a great deal of internal satisfaction

rather than merely being an external marker of status. Indeed, “in contrast to what

occurred in ancient and traditional societies, modern consumers tend to construct the

context of their personal enjoyment through mixing up and manipulating illusions, thus

reproducing their ‘day-dreams,’ primarily through objects. Objects are appreciated above

all for their meaning and their images”49—they are a means of manifesting the self as

well as being aspirational. What might “day-dreams” of Minimalism indicate? What

might Minimalism yearn for?

46. Schor, 11-12.

48. Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton, xii.
49. Sassatelli, Roberta. Consumer Culture: History, Theory and Politics. 1st ed. Los Angeles:
SAGE Publications, 2007, 17.

19
 To conclude this section, Minimalism as a cultural object is uniquely interlaced

with the dyad. Its underlying philosophy is concerned with materialism and

individualism. It exists at the crossroads of some of the most pressing political issues of

our time: consumerism, civic disengagement, environmental degradation, and

globalization among them. The question going forward will be: Is Minimalism in

domestic spaces aesthetic politics or political aesthetics? Is it merely another supporting

element of the artpolitical environment, or does it have the potential to subvert

dominative and exploitative structures—the dyad of consumerism and civic

disengagement? What political work is encouraged or foreclosed by Minimalism?

The remainder of this writing will develop the argument that, through a Critical

Theory lens, Minimalism does not challenge the dyad; it is aesthetic politics. However,

what follows are theoretical excurses, a somewhat meandering exploration, of other

political possibilities. These focus on the notion of fantasy, which is often used as an

escape from enclosed ideological environment—to various ends.

20
3. Aesthetic Politics, and Other Challenges
3.1 Minimalism as Aesthetic Politics

The following section will explore the ways in which Minimalism is a supporting

element in the artpolitical environment. In other words, why it does not subvert the dyad

of consumerism and civic disengagement. This section will contain three main critiques

of the subversive potential of Minimalism:

1) Minimalism has been perverted into just being an aesthetic, thus diluting its

actual message and potential to effect change. An aesthetic that is principally

about rejecting consumerism has been turned upside down. This renders it inert

and instead about conspicuous consumption, thus supporting the dyad. This also

results in...

2) Minimalism giving the impression of the US flourishing, being futuristic, etc.

when the country and its politics are actually dysfunctional in many ways. And

finally,

3) Minimalism makes people think that building their fantasy utopian world is as

easy as buying Minimalist-style consumer goods. Aspirational images of the good

life solidify this.

I will begin by applying the dialectic model, a foundational part of Critical

Theory, in order to understand Minimalism’s perversion. It is a tool to conceptualize how

capitalism retains its ability to dominate and how we all contribute to its perpetuation

despite any resistance or tension. Dialectical reasoning helps us understand this seeming

contradiction by naming the phenomena in our ambient ideological environment. These

phenomena tend to be ‘normal’ and anonymous. Following the formula of, for instance,

21
‘misery/wealth,’ ‘workers/capitalists,’ and ‘use value/exchange value,’50 the situation

here is,

Minimalism/consumerism

These two seeming opposites both exist under the dyad. These are two opposing

ideologies; Minimalism’s ideological components could challenge consumerism, yet they

are both able to exist—and the dyad remains dominant—because “[t]he tension between

opposing poles can be resolved in a process that Hegel and Marx called ‘Aufhebung’

(sublation) and ‘negation of the negation’: a new/third quality or a new system emerges

from the contradiction between two poles. Sublation can take place at different levels of

society, either relatively frequently in order to enable a dynamic of domination or

infrequently in situations of revolution when domination is questioned. In capitalism,

contradictions are frequently sublated in order to enable capital accumulation.” So while

‘use value/exchange value => value,’51

Minimalism/consumerism => Minimalist-style consumer goods

In order to sublate the threat of Minimalism, the aesthetic is taken and incorporated into

the ideological environment. The original ideology is largely left behind. This allows it to

still exist under the prevailing system while also rendering it inert—again, inverted

totalitarianism does not need to enforce its will, but rather renders dissident ideas

ineffectual and seemingly normal. Although the positive affective value of Minimalism

remains, its material qualities differ from its earlier forms—it is cheaply made, mass-

50. Fuchs, Christian. Critical Theory of Communication: New Readings of Lukács, Adorno,
Marcuse, Honneth and Habermas in the Age of the Internet. First published 2016. Critical Digital and
Social Media Studies. London: University of Westminster Press, 2016, 11-12.
51. Fuchs, 11.

22
produced, and is sold acontextually. Its aesthetic value is forefronted, and hegemony

maintained.

Nicos Poulantzas52 elaborated on how hegemony maintains equilibrium even

when a dissident factor such as Minimalism threatens to compromise the balance in favor

of the dominated as opposed to the dominant. Although he wrote about how the state

(i.e., the political sphere) facilitates such processes, it seems sensible that this idea could

be superimposed onto the corporate state given its current predominance under the dyad.

The corporate state makes certain compromises (e.g., financial sacrifices) such that the

overall equilibrium of the dyad can be maintained. Meaning, although corporation’s

corrupting of Minimalism (i.e., producing Minimalist-style consumer goods) has resulted

in some being more Minimalistic (i.e., buying less/political consumerism), overall they

have subdued the threat of this competing ideology which might actually be in the

interest of the dominated. Corporations have also managed to turn it into an additional

avenue of profit.

As a result, capitalists profit from the popular style, citizens/consumers are better

able to cope with the increasing stresses of living in inverted totalitarian society (perhaps

akin to ‘regimented leisure time’) not only via the pleasure of consumption but also

through the placative affective properties, and the machine rolls on. The result is also

placation in the face of other urgent problems—such as environmental degradation—in

addition to worsening them.

In this way, not only has Minimalism’s subversive potential been captured by the

dyad, but it has been weaponized against its original values. It has been reduced to its

52. Poulantzas, Nicos. Political Power and Social Classes. 2d impression. London: Verso, 1982,
192.

23
commodity form—fetishized. Meaning, Minimalism creates the appearance of positive

change against the dyad and ancillary problems without actually effecting change. It is

indeed “art that requires no visual effort, that is easily read by all, easy on the eye and on

the mind, unproblematic.” It is “art that creates the illusion of a secure, serene world, that

hides the sinister motives and the terror.”53 It is a fantasy that distracts from actual

change. It is aesthetic politics. Indeed, it is an aesthetic politics unique to this context—to

this epoch in American history—because Minimalism is deeply intertwined with

consumerism, recent ideas of that good life called the American Dream, and likewise

with illusions of personal freedom.

Although Minimalism is not yet in every home, it appears to be on that trajectory

because of the overwhelming availability of Minimalist-style consumer goods and the

fact that it has been solidified as being aspirational. Also important is the dimension of

mass-production; in his seminal essay “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,”

Benjamin highlighted that technologization can allow for democratization of art, but if it

is in the hands of the wrong few, it can lead to the opposite;54 technologization of art—

for instance, through mass production techniques—can further foreclose one’s political

imagination. This is because it is, in effect, mass-producing ideology. What does it mean

for every American home to basically look the same? What political ideation about what

life should/could be might that occlude?

This process overall could be compared to the notorious and well-studied

commodification of punk. The once-subversive, subcultural style is now mainstream.

53. Sartwell, 21-22.

54. Benjamin.

24
“[P]unk has been continuously appropriated as a commercial design style. And in fact

this displays the reversal that might befall any set of artpolitical forms or gestures.”55 In

essence, punk’s political aesthetics were rendered inert by turning them into aesthetic

politics. Doc Martens, for instance, are now worn by punks, blue-collar workers, and

celebrities alike. Subculture is diluted to mass culture. The subversive ideas are left

behind. This aesthetic has effectively been depoliticized. However, Minimalism’s capture

by the dyad is even more troubling than the loss of punk. Not only has it been

appropriated by capital, but it was an entirely new, foreign ideology from another

country. Unlike punk, whose style involves perversion of everyday objects (safety pins,

leather, etc.) already in the ambient environment, Minimalism was an entire set of new

imported objects that brought new ideas.

Even Marie Kondo, Japanese author of four books on minimizing and organizing

one’s life such as The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and preacher of Minimalism,

has started a company to sell Minimalist-style goods. This is a crude example of the

homogenization theory of globalization—the neoliberal ideology of the US has arguably

suffused throughout the world. The homepage of her website prominently features her

quote, “The goal of tidying is to make room for meaningful objects, people and

experiences. I can think of no greater happiness in life than being surrounded only by the

things I love.”56 Even Kondo is consumerist. It is consumerism narrowed, not subverted.

It is hardly “life-changing,” at least not beyond the surface level.

55. Sartwell, 13.

56. KonMari | The Official Website of Marie Kondo. “Konmari.” Accessed April 8, 2020.
https://konmari.com/ (emphasis added).

25
3.2 “wabi-sabi vibes”

What follows is a more in-depth example of the extent and nature of

Minimalism’s depoliticization. Notorious maximalists Kim Kardashian and Kanye West

recently renovated their home into a $20 million “minimal monastery” that is now worth

a reported $60 million.57 It has been idolized by their social media followers and lauded

by Architectural Digest as a “minimalist masterpiece.”58 Their home is a prime example

of what the apex of Minimalist design/consumer goods has become.

Figure 3: Kardashian’s and West’s home from Architectural Digest coverage.

57. Chen.
58. Architectural Digest Instagram Post, (@archdigest), February 3, 2020.

26
 To pull directly from Architectural Digest,

‘Kanye and Kim wanted something totally new. We didn’t talk about decoration
but a kind of philosophy about how we live now and how we will live in the future.
We changed the house by purifying it, and we kept pushing to make it purer and
purer,’ the designer explains.59 […]

West proudly links his decor to the ‘wabi-sabi’ philosophy60. ‘You are familiar
with the cultural pursuit of wabi-sabi in Japan?’ Letterman asks West as he
admires a set of decorative ceramics in the home’s living room. ‘That’s what this
house is: wabi-sabi vibes,’ West responds with a grin. […]

West also opens up about how he uses art as a way to navigate through society
and make a statement. ‘I think I use art as a superpower to protect myself in a
capitalistic world,’ he says. ‘And, also, I can use it to make money.’61

Although West is referring to his musical career, this quote also captures the deep irony

of luxury Minimalism. It is in a sense used to self-inoculate against the negative effects of

capitalism and other dominative structures whilst doing little to challenge them on a

broader scale. It is calming, futuristic, utopic. It is precisely the “vibe,” even an arguably

good vibe to strive for, but misses the point; it is materially inconsistent with the values.

There is no mention of sustainable building materials, reducing the footprint of the house,

or otherwise minimizing their life. The result is that their fans and others seek to emulate

the style with little regard for what wabi-sabi or Minimalism originally meant—or could

mean.

Thus, consumers strive to purchase Minimalist-style consumer goods from wholly

contradictory sources, from Restoration Hardware to Crate and Barrel to IKEA to

59. Rus, Mayer. “Step Inside Kim Kardashian West and Kanye West’s Boundary-Defying Home |
Architectural Digest.” Architectural Digest, February 3, 2020.
https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/kim-kardashian-kanye-west-home.
60. Again, wabi-sabi roughly translates to ‘wisdom in natural simplicity.’
61. Chen, Joyce. “Kanye West Explains the ‘Wabi-Sabi’ Aesthetic of His Minimalistic Hidden
Hills Home.” Architectural Digest, June 7, 2019. https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/kanye-west-
on-wabi-sabi-aesthetic-of-hidden-hills-home. (emphasis added).

27
Walmart, which mass-produce Minimalist goods to follow the trend. ‘Before and after’

virtual tours of renovated apartments are very popular to make and view on YouTube.

YouTube influencers completely renovate their homes, tossing the old and bringing in the

new—often from sources that cheaply mass-produce the Minimalist-style consumer

goods. This demonstrates the enormous power of consumer aspirations about the good

life.

Although West and Kardashian are by no means the first of their kind to use

Minimalism, they are a striking example. If this is truly their image of an aspirational

future, the embodiment of what they philosophically hope to achieve, then why would go

about it in this way? Buying such cheaply-made pastiche of Minimalism will not take us

very far toward a sustainable, just future.

This is precisely the performativity of the good life—the fantasy that perpetuates

the prevailing systems. Cultural hegemony has shifted toward promoting ideal, pacifying

home environments, but there has been little in the way of challenging why respite is

needed at all. It is not surprising that Americans would indulge in this fantasy of ideal

living and modernity; Americans are used to being peddled anti-aging miracles,

restorative vacations, and life-changing diets. This especially because of the overall

decline of American prosperity and strength in recent decades that has put American

hegemony into question. Take for instance the US’ slump in productivity, increasing

competition from rising economic powers, globalization’s intractability, Vietnam, Iraq,

now climate change and Coronavirus, etc.

28
3.3 Lifestyle Minimalists

Lifestyle Minimalists take a step further into the delusion. For instance, “The

Minimalists,” makers of the widely-watched documentary Minimalism: A Documentary

About the Important Things in Life, tout that,

Minimalism is a tool that can assist you in finding freedom. Freedom from fear.
Freedom from worry. Freedom from overwhelm. Freedom from guilt. Freedom
from depression. Freedom from the trappings of the consumer culture we’ve built
our lives around. Real freedom.62

But are they really free? Where Minimalism as a movement has ended up is something

more akin to a political consumerism than revelatory emancipation—or even subversion.

Although political consumerism has been shown by scholars to have some potential to

effect change,63 in practice it is often (sometimes willfully) mistaken for the only political

work one needs to do—buy the recycled paper, the organic produce, the fair-trade coffee,

the Minimalist-style furniture. In reality, it should only play a part in challenging

hegemonic structures. A political consumerism is still consumerism.

62. Millburn, Joshua Fields, and Ryan Nicodemus. “What Is Minimalism?” The Minimalists
(blog). Accessed April 6, 2020. https://www.theminimalists.com/minimalism/.
63. Stolle, Dietlind, and Michele Micheletti. Political Consumerism: Global Responsibility in
Action. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

29
 Figure 4: Screenshots from YouTube home tours by Lifestyle Minimalists.

Not only this, but they follow the same aesthetic style as non-Lifestyle

Minimalists. They have not created a distinct aesthetic language for their movement that

would set them apart, and which might more closely resemble a productive political

consumerism.

Figure 5: Screenshots from YouTube influencers’ Minimalist home tours.

30
Notice the shared color palette; the exposed wood; the plants; the simple furniture; and

even the gestures toward a less creolized, Japanese Minimalism (see with wooden slatted

cabinet in top left of Figure 4). One might contend that this could actually represent a

repoliticization of the aesthetic, as an important aspect of the emancipatory potential of

aesthetics is that it can not only provide critical distance, but can also provide images of

another possible way of life. However, this is citizen as chooser—not actor64 or

individual. They undermine their ostensible project by using this aesthetic, by buying

these aesthetic goods. To subvert or escape the dyad would require an aesthetic language

of their own. This is the political aesthetics that Benjamin described, which will be

explored further in the next section.

To conclude this section, I would like to return to one of the tenets of a praxis of

Critical Theory: “[i]n a dominative society, contradictions cause problems and are to a

certain extent also the seeds for overcoming these problems. They have positive

potentials and negative realities at the same time.”65 Though there are these negative

realities, what might be the positive potentials of Minimalism.

64. Appadurai, Arjun. “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy.” In
Globalization: The Greatest Hits, a Global Studies Reader, edited by Manfred B. Steger, 33–47. Boulder:
Paradigm Publishers, 2010, 44.
65. Fuchs, 11 (emphasis added).

31
4. Political Aesthetics, and Other Possibilities
4.1 Minimalism as Political Aesthetics

According to Benjamin, political aesthetics is the remedy to aesthetic politics. To

reiterate,

‘[a]estheticizing politics’ turns visual representation into something a-temporal

and utopian; ‘politicizing art’ on the contrary, involves returning the image to the
temporal and spatial specificities of its origin, with a vengeance. Thus is made
possible an art that can hold politics to account rather than simply exult in it.66

Political art invites us to ask questions about our everyday realities. It does so by

contextualizing the mundane, making connections we otherwise might not between

various social phenomena, and generally by providing critical distance from the

everyday. Surrealist art (1917-), an outwardly revolutionary movement, tried to run with

this philosophy; Surrealism provokes thought by juxtaposing unexpected objects or

otherwise making seemingly absurd statements. It seeks to unlock sub-/unconscious

dreams, ideas, and images, and is deeply influenced by Marxist thought. Surrealists hope

that such art holds to key to the psyche and could lead to emancipatory revelations and

thus revolution.

However, this makes for impractical, exclusive political praxis. The conventional

dichotomy of intellectuals vs. ignorant masses that many at the Frankfurt School held—

again, they largely believed that “the true realities underlying power structures, social,

cultural, or economic ones that governed society but were invisible to all but the most

erudite of intellectuals and intellectually engaged artists”67—is reductive and leads to

66. Manderson, 2.
67. Gage, 4-5.

32
such lofty suggestions for praxis. People are more than homogenous, insentient masses to

be wielded this way or that, to be liberated by the powerful intellectual. Additionally,

such intellectually-engaged artists have been unable to substantively or materially alter

the artpolitical environment. I am interested in proffering the everyday person more

purchase as a political agent, with room for them to do so in their own manner that does

not rest on the power of high arts and other supercilious ideas. Again, theory means little

if it is not translatable to praxis.

4.2 Minimalism: A Cruel Optimism

Let us return to one of political aesthetics’ central concerns: what might now be

termed affective or semiotic value. Minimalism is closely associated with—and

celebrated for— its qualities of utopia, futuristicness, and sanctuary. Analyzing films and

other cultural phenomena, Lauren Berlant developed the concept of ‘cruel optimism’ to

conceptualize why subjects might be drawn to certain objects, ways of being, and ideas

that may appear contradictory to an outside observer. The contradiction here would be,

first, that consumption of Minimalist-style consumer goods is unsustainable, and second,

that the use of the style is merely a choice from within the artpolitical environment, not

the result of individual political agency. She explains,

A relation of cruel optimism exists when something you desire is actually the
obstacle to your flourishing. It might involve food, or a kind of love, it might be a
fantasy of the good life, or a political project. It might rest on something simpler,
too, like a new habit that promises to induce in you an improved way of being.
These kinds of optimistic attachment are not inherently cruel. They become cruel
only when the object that draws your attachment actively impedes the aim that
brought you to it initially.68

68. Berlant, 1 (emphasis added).

33
This aim is usually something akin to happiness, fulfillment, etc. In essence, when one

aspires to achieve the unachievable—that fantasy of the good life—they struggle more

than they might if they tried to define their own good life. For example, let us again

return to the hegemonic family structure. The efforts to legalize gay marriage could be

interpreted as a relation of cruel optimism. Striving for non-traditional relationships to be

accepted into this institution rather than interrogating the institution’s underlying

assumptions (which are inherently patriarchal and heteronormative and were not made to

suit alternative relationships) makes the effort cruelly optimistic. I assert that Minimalism

also entails a relation of cruel optimism; it carries the affective promise of happiness and

thriving. Because Minimalism is associated with a futuristic, utopic good life, people

strive to achieve it by any means—even if that means buying products that make such a

future unlikely. This leads to performance of the good life instead of its manifestation—

the visual effect of emancipation. It actually occludes a/the good life’s realization in the

process.

However, this is not necessarily a damning prognosis. Critical Theorists might

have deemed this false consciousness or something similarly unsympathetic. While it is

true that “one of optimism’s ordinary pleasures is to induce conventionality, that place

where appetites find a shape in the predictable comforts of good-life genres that a person

or a world has seen fit to formulate,” in other words that subjects tend to follow the good-

life blueprints lain out in the ideological environment, Berlant also asserts that,

“optimism doesn’t just manifest an aim to become stupid or simple—often the risk of

attachment taken in its throes manifests an intelligence beyond rational calculation.”69

69. Berlant, 2.

34
The intelligence Berlant writes of is finding ways to survive without the unrelenting

pressure to thrive that a less forgiving praxis might enforce. What might appear to an

outsider as performativity could also be recategorized as identification with an image of a

good life, expression of an unfilled need, or something else that entails moving away

from the life one is prescribed.

I am particularly interested in Berlant’s idea of ‘lateral agency’—a sort of “self-

abeyance, or floating sideways;”70 a certain spreading out but not moving forward.

Berlant describes “the scene of slow-death, a condition of being worn out by the activity

of reproducing life”71 that subjects undergo in the dominative and exploitative structure

of capitalism. In this condition, when the deck is stacked against you, it is understandably

difficult to resist and to live up to the lofty expectations laid out in theory. Instead of

perfect praxis or linear progress, she explains that “agency can be an activity of

maintenance, not making; fantasy, without grandiosity; sentience without full

intentionality; inconsistency, without shattering; and embodying, alongside

embodiment;”72 agency can be lateral when one’s movement or thinking (up or out) is

restricted. Berlant is more interested in a certain reformulation of agency than in

sovereignty, the conventional measure of one’s power over their life. Minimalism offers

such lateral agency. The fact that Minimalism adds pleasure and respite to people’s lives

makes it politically productive. It is productive not only in terms of promoting survival

and resilience in a challenging environment, but leisure itself is a means of resisting

capitalism’s constraints. Time spent enjoying oneself in the privacy of the home is time

70. Berlant, 116.

71. Berlant, 100.
72. Ibid.

35
when they are not aiding capital. Although leisure now is deeply tied to consumerism,

scholars are coming to appreciate a “phenomenology of enjoyment”73 that could resemble

something like agency. There is a tension here that I am comfortable with—for now.

Again, contradictions are the seeds for overcoming problems.

Indeed, in order for us to resist the dyad, it is necessary to be more subjective,

more forgiving than aesthetic politics can allow. We must also allow for more

subjectivities than those of intellectuals or artists. In a chapter on obesity Berlant explains

that

“[t]he structural position of the overwhelmed life intensifies this foreshortening of

consciousness and fantasy. Under a regime of crisis ordinariness, life feels
truncated, more like desperate doggy paddling than like a magnificent swim out to
the horizon. Eating adds up to something, many things: maybe the good life, but
usually a sense of well-being that spreads out for a moment, not a projection
toward a future. Paradoxically, of course, at least during this phase of capital,
there is less of a future when one eats without an orientation toward it.”74

Minimalism helps sustain people in this moment. It is an imperfect treatment for the vast

and complex problem that is the dyad of consumerism and civic disengagement. Lateral

agency creates some space for movement unlike the theoretical straightjacket of a rigid

aesthetic politics. Yet I do not wish to abandon aesthetic politics. For all its constraints, it

lays the groundwork for how cultural outlets such as architecture can serve as an

alternative medium for political ideation apart from—or at least, alongside—the

conventional ones: texts, constitutions, speeches, etc. I find this to be an incredibly useful

concept; architecture embodies a way of living in some ways better than any writing can.

But as Berlant reminds us, we must also orient Minimalism—this world-building—

73. Napier, 10.

74. Berlant, 117 (emphasis added).

36
toward the future. Minimalism can offer not only respite, but can also be a staging ground

for action. How might these seeds sprout?

4.3 Minimalism: A Staging Ground for Action

“Is not their civilization rather higher than ours?”75 - Christopher Dresser

Fantasy, for all its cruel optimism, is not a dead end. Fantasy can “distort the

present on behalf of what the present can become.”76

In order to conceptualize fantasy’s potential, it is productive to reframe fantasy as

something a bit more useful: imagination. Changing the discourse around utopian

thinking is useful because it is so often disregarded by ‘political realists’ as not only

being impossible, but also a distraction from the real political work that needs to be done.

Indeed, “the idea of fantasy carries with it the inescapable connotation of thought

divorced from projects and actions, and it also has a private, even individualistic sound

about it.”77 However,

imagination, on the other hand, has a projective sense about it, the sense of being
a prelude to some sort of expression, whether aesthetic or otherwise. Fantasy can
dissipate (because its logic is so often autotelic), but the imagination, especially
when collective, can become the fuel for action. It is the imagination, in its
collective forms, that creates ideas of neighborhood and nationhood, of moral
economies and unjust rule, of higher wages and foreign labor prospects. The
imagination is today a staging ground for action, and not only for escape.78

Fantasy—or, less grandiosely, imagination—nourishes what some scholars call a

‘collective subversive imagination.’79 Minimalism is a certain collective dressing up or

75. Hoganson, Kristin L. “Cosmopolitan Domesticity, Imperial Accessories: Importing the

American Dream.” In Consumers’ Imperium The Global Production of American Domesticity, 1865-1920,
13–56. Chapel Hill [N.C.]: Chapel Hill N.C. : University of North Carolina Press, 2007.
76. Berlant, 263.
77. Appadurai, Arjun. “Here and Now.” In The Visual Culture Reader, edited by Nicholas
Mirzoeff, 2. ed, repr., 173–79. London: Routledge, 2010, 177.
78. Ibid. (emphasis added).
79. Kumm and Johnson.

37
trying on of a new way of life, and creating Minimalist spaces is itself a step forward

from merely imagining them. More subversive ideas are already sprouting. Take, for

example, the growing Tiny House Movement. These homes are 100-400 square feet,

whereas the average American home is 2,600 square feet. Followers downsize—rather

than merely aestheticize—their lives.80

Taking a step back, it comes as no surprise that Minimalism would be used for

such fantastical purposes; it is situated within a long history of Western Orientalist

fantasies about the East, of appropriating aesthetic objects while leaving the ideology

behind. Orientalism of Japan has been unique. Although Japan’s cultural differences are

certainly imagined, emphasized, exaggerated and distorted81 by the ‘Occident’ as with

other cultures in the ‘Orient,’ Japan is often painted in a more favorable light. Japan is

seen as being more ‘civilized’ than its fellow Eastern Others, and even worthy of

comparison to Western nations. Occupying a unique place “in the Western imagination,

Japan has existed as an object of respect, fear, derision, admiration, and yearning,

sometimes all at once.”82 Indeed,

when we look at the full range of Western views of Japanese culture starting in
the nineteenth century, what is most striking is a relative lack of racism or
belittlement, still less the ‘hostility and aggression’ that [Edward] Said claimed to
find invariably when one culture (mis)represents another. Sometimes the praise
for Japan, especially its aesthetics, verges on fulsome.83

80. The Tiny Life. “What Is The Tiny House Movement? Why Tiny Houses?” Accessed April 23,
2020. https://thetinylife.com/what-is-the-tiny-house-movement/.
81. “What Is Orientalism? | Reclaiming Identity: Dismantling Arab Stereotypes.” Accessed April
21, 2020. http://arabstereotypes.org/why-stereotypes/what-orientalism.
82. Napier, 2.
83. Napier, 9.

38
For example, nineteenth-century British artist and critic Christopher Dresser asked, “Who

shall say that the Japanese are imperfectly civilized when they thus pay homage to

learning and skill and prefer these to wealth? Is not their civilization rather higher than

ours?”84

The global migration of aesthetic ideas and the creation of fantasies has already

helped spur new ideation of what civilization could look like, new widening of Western

consciousness about itself and Others. In this globalized/globalizing world, ideologies

spread, collide, combine—resulting in new formulations and possibilities.

Now for a final meditation.

84. Ibid.

39
5. Conclusion
“Fantasy is the mise-en-scène of desire”85 - Jean Laplanche and J.B. Pontalis

Susan Napier, a scholar on Orientalist fantasies about Japan, wrote about the

above psychoanalytic definition of fantasy: “‘Fantasy is the mise-en-scène of desire.’

Mise-en-scène is a term used in theater and cinema indicating the setting and props of a

performance; its use in this case suggests the constructed quality of fantasy.”86 Im

interested in this theatrical, constructed understanding of fantasy. “Performance” and

“props” are apt metaphors because people are literally setting scenes in which to act out

their impression of what life is or should be. They are curating their own private lives.

Place this here, not there. This, not that. Minimalism is certainly performative, but so is

all architecture, interior design, fashion, and other aspects of social relations that

constitute our culture.

Minimalism is neither completely unconscious performance of ideology nor

completely conscious political action, but something in between. A certain coming-to-

lucidity is at play here. Minimalist could be the beginnings of an articulation of a desire

for emancipation that could ultimately lead to its realization. The irreal, or as-yet

unrealized possibilities can be worked through via this medium. The home provides a

visual medium—a tabula rasa87—onto which we can inscribe new ways of living,

meaning, dreams, aspirations, and fears.

85. Napier, 3.
86. Ibid.
87. Napier, 11.

40
 Indulging in fantasy/imagination is not passive escape, but a “highly active

pursuit, seeking out or even creating new worlds and new identities.”88 Like ideology,

fantasy is an act, a process, a development of subjectivities. It is moldable and realizable

just as ideology is. Minimalism is part of an ontological process of becoming, not an end

in and of itself. It is something to work with, not just toward. It is not merely political

aesthetics nor aesthetic politics. Instead, let us recategorize Minimalism as not only a

resting place, but also a generative space amidst complex, difficult-to-articulate and -

endure political realities and complicated fantasies. For as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

writes,

[w]e have all experienced times when, instead of being buffeted by anonymous
forces, we do feel in control of our actions, masters of our fate. On the rare
occasion that it happens, we feel a sense of exhilaration, a deep sense of
enjoyment that is long cherished and that becomes a landmark in memory for
what life should be like. […] It is what the painter feels when the colors on the
canvas begin to set up a magnetic tension with each other, and a new thing, a
living form, takes shape in front of the astonished creator.89

88. Napier, 3.
89. Napier, 10.

41
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Figure 4: From author’s own collection.

Figure 5: From author’s own collection.

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