At the Hilarious Pessimist, Dalrymple explains why he was recently taken aback at the toys carried by some small children:
…it was the sheer vulgar hideousness of the toys, superabundant in their number and in the crudeness of their design, execution and coloration. They were all of plastic and were, of course, utterly expendable. After the children had grown out of them and into something else, in a few months at most, no one would want to keep them, either for future generations or as a memento of a happy childhood. The toys were made with the dustbin in mind from the very moment of their production.
Here was aesthetic education, or perhaps I should say training, of a kind. Would it be very surprising if these children grew up to value the meretricious and to have no powers of aesthetic discrimination at all?
Your links gives me an error.
I found it at:
http://salisburyreview.com/autumn/blogstony/toys.pdf
Yes, I think it was a booklet to accompany the 90’s tv series Music and the Mind by Paul Robertson where he said something about “Pleasurable but disposable”… I thought that summed up so much.
Although, I have to say I’d find it very difficult to frown upon two little boys brandishing noisy Light Sabers, in fact I’d probably demand to join in, even if it meant forcibly separating one of said boys from his Light saber.
I remember once, probably in my twenties, I was looking at something that was gold, and it evoked a profound vivid feeling. It was kind of elusive like Deja vu but I pondered it for some time to think what was the meaning behind this and lo and behold I traced the source of it back to my very first Starwars figurine, 3CPO… magical.