Quiz 1: Consumer Culture

Materialism

The importance a consumer places on acquiring owning possesions

3 Important Aspects about Possessions in a Materialistic Society

1. Central to one’s life

2. Essential markers of success

3. Necessary for happiness

Anti-materialism

• Important in religion- nirvana, the soul, salvation

• Positively views asceticism, sacrifice, and self-denial

• Materialism is immoral

An attachment of stuff is a detachment from…

people

Conspicuous Consumption

Elevating social status with stuff we own and display

Why is materialism a danger to society?

A disposable society is unsustainable

Consumption

• Original: To devour, to use something up

• The opposite and endpoint of production (specifically in capitalism- by Adam Smith)

What does the process of production to consumption use up?

Finite natural resources, endangering everyone

Consumerism

• Overconsumption: acquisition of stuff beyond basic needs

• Hedonism: Pleasure depends on consumption (like shopping)

Capitalism

• Favorable/positive valued word

• Political economic system

• Private ownership of capital and goods

• Free market

Grant McCracken

• Consumption is good and bad for society

• Anthropologist that studies people’s relationship with their stuff

Grant McCracken: Why goods are not always bad

• Goods are a place we keep our public and private meanings- meanings we use to define ourselves

• We use these meanings to construct our domestic and public worlds

• Help make our culture where we have the freedom to construct ourselves concrete and public

• We can select and assume new meanings (through purchase), display new meaning (through research), and change meanings (through innovation)

• Help destroy stereotypes

Golden Arrow of Consumption

• Our identity is based on what we buy

• Without consumers going to the store to buy things, the entire producer-consumer chain would fall apart

Modernity

The Modern Period that succeeded the Middle Ages

The Age of Exploration

• 1500s

• New wealth was brought to Europe by the conquerors of the new colonies

Enlightenment Period

• Humans can reason

• Thinking is part of the being- Rene Descartes

Two Separate Ways of Being

• Subjects: Human beings (can reason)

• Objects: All non-humans (cannot reason)

• Subjects observe, and are separated from, objects

The Great Divide of Modernity

• Postmodern Scholars created this idea

• Humans are subjects with intentions, beliefs. and values

• Subjects act upon passive objects

• How we study the universe, basis of science

Culture/Nature Divide

• Humans have culture

• Nonhumans are nature

• Humans are superior to nonhumans, culture is superior to nature

• Humans can dominate nature to develop culture

Pre-modern Humans

• Do not use reason

• Primitive (superstition)

• Belong to nature

Materialism (in Philosophy)

• Ideas emerge from the material conditions of existence

• Opposite of idealism

Idealism vs Materialism

• Idealism: What you think is what you thinkdo

• Materialism: What you do is what you think

Marx’s Ideas

• Humans create ideas of self through their mode of production

• Lived from the change of feudalism to capitalism

• Assumed we would transition socialism and communism

• We create ourselves through our work

• Capitalist workers are alienated from the products they make and their workers

When workers transform natural resources into cultural products…

• They gain a sense of identity

• Create social relations with other humans

Capitalism Broken Down

• Workers entered into wage-contracts with business owners

• Products of labor belong to the owners of the means of production

• Wage workers became consumers because they had to buy products from factories

Alienation

Separation from a former attachment

Marx Alienation

Workers are separated from their true nature because labor no longer provides a sense of self

Neo-Marxism

• 20th Century

• Shifted what Marx said about production to consumption

• We create ourselves through consumption because we are no longer doing that during production

• Consumption is alienating- we purchase goods that mask our separation from our true nature

• We falsely believe our stuff gives us a sense of self/status

Relationship between producers and consumers 20th Century

• Producers generate false needs that consumers confuse with wants

• We buy more in a never-ending cycle of anticipation and disappointment- false needs will never make us happy

Problems of Hyperconsumption

• Inescapable siege of advertising

• Heavy credit card debt loads

• Increases personal isolation- the focus on stuff neglects social relationships with people

• Societal problems- fragmented communities created by what products you own; social media is more isolating than unifying

• Loss of national pride and identity- big producers are transnational

Consequences of Hypermodernity

• Unhappy consumers

• Lost control of our personal lives and our community

Jacques Ellul

Societies are run like machines, and machines are ruling our lives

Reverse Adaptation

• Langdon Winner

• Technology is no longer adapted to us

• We adapt ourselves to changes in technology

Master-Slave Metaphor- Langdon Winner

• “Great Divide” referenced

• Humans (subjects) have lost control over machines (objects)

• Subjects are now ruled by objects

• We are now the slaves and we are the masters

21st Century Hypertechnology

Increasing dependence on machines increases alienation

Social Impacts of Hyperconsumption

• Turns us into hyperconsumers- online shopping

• Online shopping is an isolated, antisocial activity

• Consumer goods are isolating

Don Slater

• Consumer culture defines our hypermodern society

• Consumer culture is a culture of consumption and it forms our societal values

• Consumer culture is the culture of a market society- profit vs bargain

  • An antagonist relationship because we are defined by consumption

• Consumer culture is universal and impersonal

• Consumer culture identifies freedom with private choice- misled that we are free because of all possible choices, but that is not what freedom is

• Consumer needs are unlimited and insatiable- needs cannot be satisfied and are usually wants

• Consumer culture is how we negotiate identity and status

  • What we own creates who we are (Veblen)

Anthropology and Consumer Culture

• People create social relationships with their goods, which is good for society