Decor as Political?

In catching up with my correspondence after my Midwest Inspection Tour, I noticed an appalling little exchange on a dreary little website called lottalivin.com, which claims to be about everything Mid-Century Modern (with the occasional foray into Tiki).

Someone published an article about an appalling 32,000 square foot house down in Palm Desert, California. People were clucking and tsk-ing (as was I) when one of the moderators (A third-rate talent who, while a biological woman, reminds one of a Tacoma drag queen) shut it down. In her disjointed, simple-minded justification, she noted this:

throughout history - it is the wealthy that enable art to be pushed to its limits.......the l.a. times is notoriously liberal and leftist and anti-things that smack of individualism.

So, right off the bat, we know that the young lady paid a visit to Ayn Rand and was gullible enough to buy into her political viewpoint. Which is fine - the gullible make the world go 'round - but then she abruptly locked down the discussion.

Which got me thinking - is architecture and decor political? If so, what is Modern?

On one level, EVERYTHING is political, but we'll leave that to the Socialists. To me, modern was a rejection of the previous era's sensibilities. By rejecting the past, it looked to a bright new future - one where the empires were dead, the people were equal, and use of the atom was strictly peaceful.

Most of the designers were either Europeans who had fled fascism in Europe or Japan, or Americans from middle-class backgrounds who had grown up in the poverty of the depression and seen the horror of World War II. Hardly a bunch to venerate the rich, or even feel good about conspicuous consumption.

(Architects are another matter entirely, but aren't they always?)

Anyway, why am I bothering you about this, gentle readers? Mostly because that third-rate Tacoma drag queen wouldn't let me say it there, but also because it really, really annoyed me that ANYONE - let alone a female transvestite with delusions of grandeur - would link MY preferred decor to anything even remotely Ayn Rand.

So, as a palate cleanser, enjoy this picture of a what I'm sure was a solidly middle-class (and undoubtedly liberal and NON-objectivist) couple enjoying the high-fi in a case study home.