Coming across two recent books on material culture I have begun to contemplate the possibility and potential importance of defining a comparative study of “Things” and “Stuff”.
Daniel Miller’s 2010 analysis of Stuff (ISBN 978-0-7456-4424-0) follows relatively fast on the heels of Bill Browns 2004 discussion of Things (ISBN 978-0-2260-7612-6). Due to over-demand at the University of Edinburgh Library I have yet to get my hands on both these books at the same time yet individual analysis of the texts has led me to ponder the subtle differences between the two terms. It is worth noting that Daniel Miller has also written extensively about “Things” as well as “Stuff”. His book, The Comfort of Things, is a personal account of a anthropological research project; the first two chapters of which should be essential reading for anyone, like me, who is a perpetual hoarder of all things financially worthless yet sentimentally irreplaceable. The book provides great peace-of-mind to those of us made anxious about our personal effects by peer pressure from both the left-wing arty crowd (who would have one eschew the ownership of too many things as an act of defiance against bourgeois decadence) acting in a pincer movement with the self-same bourgeois, aspirational lifestyle gurus from the Sunday papers and interior magazines (who allow the accumulation of things as long as they are self-consciously expensive and selected and arranged in suitable positions around the home as part of a personal lifestyle statement). Is a house full of “Things” perhaps then, just the physical manifestation of wishy-washy, flip-flopping liberality?
If so, where does that leave “Stuff”. I think I own quite a lot of that too. But “Stuff” has the more negative connotation of the overflow of the worthless. As I sit here the desk in front of me is brimming with unnecessary stuff; the accumulated detritus of weeks of working mostly from home. Currently within easy reach amongst the desktop clutter are: a small pile of DVDs, a bottle of multi-surface spray and near finished roll of kitchen paper from where I hastily wiped up a spilled cut of tea, a pot of moisturising lotion, a half empty pot of Vitamin C, a lip balm, a glue stick and stapler, a role of electrical tape, a pot of map pins, a half eaten bag of crisps, two empty tea mugs and an empty glass, the debit card I was logging into my online bank account with earlier today, leaflets from two art galleries and an artists organisation, a large pair of scissors and a 3B pencil. None of the items in this collection of stuff could ever be considered a “Thing” that has significance to me or that could not be easily replaced by a trip to the local shop or DVD rental store. Indeed much of it is going to be cleared from the desk to the bin or washing up within the next few hours in preparation for a nights sleep and a fresh start tomorrow. Even the debit card is only nominally mine because of a set order of digits and an my embossed moniker. Yet as a collection of stuff they tell the story of a period of activity; a moment of my working life that would otherwise go unmarked. See – I am even proving it is possible to get sentimental over a used crisp packet.
But perhaps I am reading too much into this. The difference between “Things” and “Stuff” may be simply a matter of linguistics. ‘Things”, after all, is the plural necessitating the singular – “Thing”. “Things”, therefore, are a collection of individuals; each thing being an item of noteworthiness in itself whether for personal, financial, historical, anthropological or a multitude of other possible reasons. “Stuff” is an altogether different matter. Or indeed – it is altogether “matter”. It cannot be easily broken down into individual “Stuff” or it’s very “stuff-ness” disappears. Stuff is the noun synonymous with the plural “Things” but it has no singular – no individuality. And it is this lack of individuality that makes the presence of “Stuff” a more oppressive force than the accumulation of individual and personal “Things.”
Unfortunately Millers book Stuff does actually appear to be about “Things” – a missed opportunity for considering in depth the true nature of “Stuff”! Yet if it turns out to be as enjoyable a book on Things as his last opus on the subject I am unlikely to be found complaining.
Do “Things” have meaning while “Stuff” is the collective accumulation of surplus residue? Is this a good working definition? Is “Stuff” accumulated commercial produce while “Things” hold the residue something personal?
Please Comment.
kate grenyer's sensory overload... 
I was tempted to agree that things seem to have more value and on the surface of it to be much better than stuff, but there’s something here about ephemerality, about time passing and the importance of the moment. The present continuous moment in fact.
Things can’t exist grammatically in the present continuous (thingsing?). So they might be lovely objects but they’re pretty inactive ones when it comes down to it. No desire whatsoever to be turned into a verb form. And if you don’t exist in an active way in the present continuous, then quite frankly, there’s some kind of existential crisis going on.
Stuff on the other hand can exist perfectly well in the present continuous (stuffing) and has many meanings. And apart from being available as a verb it doubles as another noun and goes right lovely with a roast.
On a more serious note though: I agree, I feel attached to things because they are unique, even though they’re unnamed. Stuff is not only unnamed but unquantifiable and unknowable. It’s hard to care as much in that case.
Thanks for the thoughtful post (and I promise not to make bad grammar jokes for your next one).
Thought-provoking stuff (oops, there’s that word again :))
Other possible permutations:
‘Objects’ – catalogued, inventoried or scientifically studied things
‘Works of art’ – things surrounded by the halo of ‘art’
‘Tchotchkes’ – American chic slang for desirable things to decorate one’s home
Doodads, thingummies – things that have slipped one’s mind (black holes)
Georges Perec wrote a novel touching on this subject in the 1960s or 1970s called Les Choses (‘Things’). He was a pioneer of ‘cataloguing as literature’ – less boring than it sounds.