Is Color Being Drained from the World?
And should we be the ones to bring it back? (DN 4.8)
Chapter 4.8
The Traits of a Free People:
Color?
For those of you who are new here, this is an installment of The Distributed Nation: A Plan for Human Independence. As crazy as it may sound, we are herein exploring the concept of how to create a new kind of nation, in anticipation of actually doing so in the relatively near future.
This will be a panarchic-distributed nation—a leaderless archipelago of sovereign people in sovereign spaces achieving our independence not in revolutionary overthrow, but by degrees, over time.
There, you’re all caught up. (Or you can catch up for real here.)
I am writing this book on the fly, and sharing the process with you, for several very good reasons. It allows ideas to unfold organically, and it gives us the opportunity to discuss things as we go, so that I might benefit from your ideas and wisdom. It also keeps me from letting the perfect become the enemy of the good, which might happen if I sat writing behind the scenes—perfecting everything but waiting years to publish.
This all means that I sometimes end up surprised by the next indicated topic. For example, I never expected to talk about color. But here we are…
As many of you now know, it started with a meme posted by
in Notes, which I then restacked.The response was far beyond what I expected. It seems many of you are having the same thoughts and conversations as you drive along. Where has color gone?
There isn’t time to highlight all your many astute comments, but I definitely found them fascinating and instructive. There has been a decline in color variety—not only in cars, but in architecture and clothing—and (almost) no one is happy about it.
But it is (statistically) a real phenomenon:
Discussions of the decline in car-color variety produced three categories of explanation.
Money
It began with my wife’s, as we were preparing morning coffee. Ever the Scully to my Mulder, she suggested a mundane financial explanation: it’s cheaper for manufacturers to stick a small color palette and then mass-produce. (As others later pointed out—it’s a modern variant of Henry Ford’s “They can have any color they like, as long as it’s black.”)
This makes sense. Automakers have probably done enough marketing research to recognize that most people want cars within a small color palette. So they save money by making those, and then charge more if anyone requests a custom paint job.
Others pointed out that insurance may play a role: certain colors indicate different levels of driver risk, so they lower premiums for the more bland colors. One pointed out certain (likely bogus or weak) studies claiming that some colors of car are safer.
There were lots of other nuances I’d love to go into, but suffice it to say that I think the money explanation must be at least partially true.
Top-Down Cultural Enforcement
The next category centered on a common theme: The washed-out grayness of socialism. Anyone over a certain age knows what that means…
Workers on Maoist communes all forced to wear identical dark blue jumpsuits. Brutalist concrete architecture. Alienating socialist realism. Colorful, vibrant West Berlin versus drab, gray East Berlin. Worker versus Parasite.
Indeed, when any of us (again, over a certain age) think of life behind the Iron Curtain, that life is colored in gray. I even saw a little bit of it with my own eyes in 1991, and while being there brought things to life somewhat, it still looked and felt rather gray.
Probably my favorite reply on this front came from
:“Unitards are the uniform of the future. They come in grey, and mauve grey.”
Exactly. Daywear…swimwear…evening wear.
Here too, I cannot do justice to the nuances and variety of responses, but the gist is simple enough: they want to enforce bland sameness upon us—a soft version of the intentional leveling and stultification imposed under totalitarianism…and for much the same reasons. And those reasons go way beyond money.
Bottom-Up Decline
The last major category is the assertion that we, as people, have become bland. That we are choosing conformity over individualism. That we are becoming less interesting, less unique, and more afraid. That we are hiding within the (supposed) safety of the herd—that we do not want to stand out. And many others.
Basically—we have become boring hive creatures who are either choosing bland homogeneity or allowing it to be imposed on us. Either way, it’s our fault.
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The reality may be any one of these, or something else. Chances are, it’s a combination. But what does it all mean? And how should we react?
One answer is simple enough: Who cares? It’s just colors. However, the speed and volume of the responses, and their almost uniform agreement that this is not a good trend, tells me that this matters somehow. People are bothered by it.
They’re bothered by it when it comes to architecture too. The ‘Net abounds with memes juxtaposing beautiful old buildings with the tragically uninspired architecture that has dominated the last half century or so. Is the explanation just money there too—saving money by not putting expertly carved gargoyles on the outside of the 100th floor, where few other than birds will ever see them?
Perhaps. That said, we are, as a civilization, richer now then we were then. Why did they go to the trouble to make beautiful structures, when we largely don’t anymore?
In our neighborhood—a nice-ish development with comparatively unique-looking houses—all the siding colors are pretty bland. The reason why may be simple enough: if you let your freak flag fly and side your house in grape-juice purple, you might have more trouble when you go to sell it. The same may be true with the resale value of cars.
And yet, somewhat tragically, people still seem to be yearning to see more color.
I know I want to. I don’t want to drive a pink car or wear a magenta shirt, but I love it when others do. I love seeing the color. I think a colorful world is just more visually interesting.
My personal tastes learn toward the earthy. Greens and browns and tans and the like. Someone once called me Captain Earth-tone. Accurate.
I don’t want to change my personal style, but I do want to see colors out there in my world. A purple car, or a blue van with fluffy white clouds on it, would make me happy to see. Does that make me a hypocrite—that I want to see it, but wouldn’t wear it? (I would happily drive a forest greenish-brown car, but I am not going to drive a lime green one.)
There are cities and villages in the world with incredibly colorful buildings. If everything looked like that, it might get a little too psychedelic—like being trapped in Disney’s The Three Caballeros forever. But a little more of it would be nice.
There are also cultures with vibrantly colorful national dress. Again, I myself wouldn’t wear red, magenta, and purple all at the same time, but I am glad someone is.
Why wash out movies, logos, and art, as the
indicated in the post above? Why move clothing in a more bland direction? We don’t need to go full-blown mushroom trip, but why go the other direction?There are multiple videos like this one out there, showing the stultifying impact that fundamentalist Islam is having on the national cultural dress of the countries over which it is gaining control:
Could that be analogous to what is happening in the West? A cold homogenization resulting from centralization? The uniformity imposed by collectivism?
This chapter of The Distributed Nation is talking about Who we are and who we might like to be. It is the last chapter before we get to the How and the rubber really meets the road. And given the response, this color issue has struck a chord with us.
So what is that chord? And how should those of us interested in starting a panarchic nation of our own react?
As I have said many times before, our culture will form organically; it will not be imposed from any central “authority.” But if this color-draining effect is the result of centralization, collectivism, control, and conformity, then don’t we want to resist it somehow?
After all, centralization, collectivism, control, and conformity are exactly what we are seeking independence from. People were literally dying—risking bullets in the back or shark infested waters—to get away from the imposed grayness of totalitarianism.
I would not tell you that you ought to start wearing colors you don’t like or buying cars in colors that will reduce their resale value. I would never ever—God forbid—say that we should artificially LARP some sort of national outfit. Ick.
But there is clearly something here, and I think we should talk about it. Should we resist this somehow? Should we—somehow, some way, some day—try to help bring color back into the world?
Obviously this is a low priority for us. And obviously I am thinking out loud and on the fly here. But the subject came up, and it seemed right to at least pose the question.
Thoughts?
Bad news: This work cannot continue without support.
Good news: A cup of coffee once in a while is all it takes.
Thank you to everyone who has chimed in on this fascinating subject!
(If I missed you, let me know!)
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It has been said that architecture reflects culture - if so we're in a heap of trouble. Automobile styling & colors of the mid-fifties and the early sixties reflected the imagination and optimism of the post-war era. Current day progressivism is an inversive oxymoron - in reality we've regressed into authoritarian rule & sovietization of our culture with our lives getting ever smaller and greyer day by day. Where we're heading is anyone's guess, but I'm sensing a re-awakening of human aspirations & spirit. Can't come soon enough.
When I was promoted to the executive suite, my wife insisted I upgrade from my then 23-year-old sports car (which I dearly loved) to something more fitting of a VP. I acquiesced, but on the condition that it be a specific make, model, trim level, and color combination (exterior/interior).
Looking for a certified used example took some effort, but I eventually tracked the exact car I wanted on the other side of the country and had it shipped to my home. (In 2018, it wasn’t yet the norm that you’d buy a car online.)
Anyway, not a super high-end car. It was (debatably) a step up from my sports car, but not a Porsche or Ferrari.
But here’s my point. It’s a beautiful bright blue with a yellow interior. And I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been complimented in parking lots or gas stations on the color. Truly. “Nice car!” they say, almost always followed by, “Love the color!”
It IS a beautiful blue. Love it. Wasn’t easy to track down as it was a premium color and - sadly - infrequently ordered by buyers or dealers.
But while I always smile and am gracious when complimented, at the same time I’m reminded each time how sad it is that we’re so starved for colors these days that my car stands out at all…