You might think that the mark of a developed modern culture would be great feats of architecture or marvelous scientific discoveries.

But actually it is most likely the ability to step outside of the culture for a moment, look back at it with a cold and impassive eye, pick out a bit here and a piece there, and turn those snippets into kitschy marketable objects.

And yes, this is probably exactly what all those terminally depressed post-modernist marxist whateverists were droning on and on about in grad school, with all their talk of reification and commodification.

And sure, the more we reify things and put them up for sale, the less real values become, until people start ponying up cash for couture dresses made of mold just because some ad told them that dirtware is the wave of the future.

But isn't there something compelling about the growth of an entire industry around the phrase "Painter of Light." Sickly compelling, sure, but still, Thomas Kinkade is definitely a force to be reckoned with.

The thing is, it's not just that people take intangible things, make them real, and put a price on them so that the people can turn a profit. It's the fact that people can transform one reified object into a whole line of related objects that each also comes with its own accessories, posters, and souvenir shot glasses, and which eventually can collectively support a chain of theme restaurants that go tragically bankrupt once a year or so. That's the really magic part.

I think this impulse to bibelotize ourselves, more than anything, is the American spirit. Even (or especially) when it manifests itself in terrible ways, like racks of postcards that are montages of photos of the WTC burning and collapsing, with a sad-looking eagle photo-shopped into a corner.

Good or bad, that's us.