JUNE 2, 2008

Disease-themed
accessories and
the rise of
ostentatious virtue

NONFICTION: Ribbon Culture

Recently, an outburst of suspicion and outrage was manufactured at the spectacle of Barack Obama’s daring to wear a jacket without a flag pin on its lapel.

It’s therefore an apt moment to read Ribbon Culture, a fascinating, exceedingly well-researched new book by British scholar Sarah E.H. Moore. This is the definitive study of the sympathy icons that have become ubiquitous these past couple of decades: who wears them and why; the relationship between consumer product (e.g., Estée Lauder’s Pink Ribbon line of underwear) and cause supported; and the sociology and marketing of compassion. Moore’s lucid prose is remarkably free of academic jargon, and she’s careful not to denigrate her myriad interviewees (which must have proved challenging).

We all want to support worthy causes, but after reading Ribbon Culture, you may conclude that discretion looks like the better part of virtue as well as of valor.

Ribbon Culture (Palgrave Macmillan; hardcover; 190 pages)

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