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528
SUSAN SONTAG
The connoisseur of Camp has found more ingenious pleasures.
Not in Latin poetry and rare wines and velvet jackets, but in the
coarsest commonest pleasures, in the
arts
of the masses. Mere use
does not defile the objects of his pleasure, since he learns to possess
them in a rare way. Camp--Dandyism in the age of mass culture-–
makes no distinction between the unique object and the mass–
produced object. Camp taste transcends the nausea of the replica.
47. Wilde himself is a transitional figure. The man who, when
he first came to London sported a velvet beret, lace shirts, velveteen
knee-breeches and black silk stockings, could never depart too far
in his life from the pleasures of the old-style dandy; this conservatism
is reflected in
The Picture of Dorian Grey.
But many of
his
at–
titudes suggest something more modern. It was Wilde who formulated
an important element of the Camp sensibility-the equivalence of all
objects--when he announced his intention of "living up" to
his
blue-and-white china, or declared that a doorknob could be as ad–
mirable as a painting. When he emphasized the importance of the
necktie, the boutonniere, the chair, Wilde was anticipating the demo–
cratic
esprit
of Camp.
48. The old-style dandy hated vulgarity. The new-style dandy,
the lover of Camp, is a lover of vulgarity. Where the dandy would
be continually offended or bored, the connoiSseur of Camp is con–
tinually amused, delighted. The dandy held a perfumed handkerchief
to his nostrils and was liable to swoon; the connoisseur of Camp
sniffs the stink and prides himself on his strong nerves.
49.
It
is a feat, of course. A feat goaded on, in the last analysis,
by the threat of boredom. The relation between boredom and Camp
taste cannot be overestimated. Camp taste is by its nature possible
only in affluent societies, in societies or circles capable of ex–
periencing the psychopathology of affluence.
"What is abnormal in Life stands
in normal relations to Art.
It
is the
only thing in Life that stands in
normal relations to Art."
-A
Few Maxims for the Instruc–
tion of the Over-Educated.
50. Aristocracy is a posillon vis-a-vis culture (as well as vis–
a-vis power), and the history of Camp taste is part of the history of