The COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly changed the way of consumption, physical points of sale have been replaced by digital platforms and compulsive buying has increased due to the anxiety and depression generated by confinement. The capitalist model has consolidated consumer culture as the basis for its growth and regeneration; for decades we have found ourselves in a society where the boundaries between consumer and commodity are blurred, a consumer society.
The consumer society is not just about businesses and consumers playing off each other, but society has constructed a system of consumerism, including a value system, an ideology, a credit system, a public system, a system of holidays, etc., creating a social system of consumerism that implicitly affects everyone.
Jean Baudrillard mentions in The Consumer Society that at the heart of consumerism, consumption is not a function of use that is bought, but a symbol that distinguishes one group of people from another, a symbol that we use to define people, to divide them into hierarchical classes, to define a person according to the different goods they consume.
In the values of consumerism, consumption itself becomes the idea and way of life that people pursue, and people constantly pursue the desire to consume that is created by culture. Moreover, with the role of mass media communication, fashionable consumption, luxury consumption and ostentatious consumption are interpreted as criteria for personal wealth, status and identity, personality taste and the realization of self-worth, and consumption is treated as the fundamental purpose of life, the only criterion of value.
The ghost of consumerism is like a haze, unconsciously eating away at people’s health.
In a society where consumerism is prevalent, it has also led to the emergence of ‘consumerist retrograde’, which shows that anti-consumerism is a change with potential.
There are socially focused movements, such as anti-consumerism, that differ from consumerism in that they defend the right of consumers to know the origin and impact of the products they plan to buy, and they also encourage ethical and responsible consumption.
Max Weber argued that the anti-consumerist puritanical ethic of thrift, frugality and self-restraint was the real force behind the birth and development of capitalism.
Consumerism is in fact a form of “self-healing”, freeing oneself from the anxiety of consumption, from the infinite desire for commodities, and thus gaining a certain “subjectivity” in the face of them.
The consumerist way of life is neither compatible with the overall balance of the ecosystem nor with the long-term interests of humanity. Only a multi-pronged, radical shift towards a new sustainable, ecological way of consuming can find a bright future for humanity and the planet’s ecology.
Bibliography
Baudrillard, J., Ritzer, G. and Smart, B., 2017. The consumer society. Los Angeles, Calif.: Sage.
Bauman, Z., 2010. Work, consumerism and the new poor. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
The Men Who Made Us Spend. 2014. [film] Directed by M. Radford. BBC.
Gursky, A., 2016. Mediamarkt. [image].
Researchs
- The Men Who Made Us Spend is a well-structured documentary that provides a clear picture of the “pitfalls” of current consumer activity.
- The Red Brick Gallery presents “The Supermarket of images” on 28 May, an exhibition curated by Peter Szendy, Professor of Comparative Literature and Humanities at Brown University, with the support of Emmanuel Alloa and Marta Ponsa; the exhibition features over 50 works by 39 artists/groups in a variety of media, including photography, painting, sculpture, video and installation. The exhibition features over 50 works by 39 artists in a range of media including photography, painting, sculpture, video and installation, including Maurizio Cattelan, Yves Klein, Andreas Gursky, Robert Bresson, William Kentridge, Sophie Calle and NFT artist Kevin Abosch.
https://www.cphoto.com.cn/content/article/100176.html
Interventions
- I had a conversation with Dr Meng, a sociologist, about the relationship between consumerism and anti-consumerism. Meng thinks The logic behind consumerism is manufacturing needs. In the past, production determines consumption. Today, consumption determines production in turn. Consumption is essentially about people consuming things, but the diffusion of consumerism today has turned people themselves into things.
- survey
- Interview
An interview with a minimalist
1. What was the opportunity that led you to choose a minimalist lifestyle?
To save enough money to buy a house in the country and retire before the age of 40 for hard savings needs, and then to live in retirement to achieve freedom in life
2. How do you think minimalism has changed your life?
My biggest feeling is that I have seen what makes me happy, I have let go of my attachments when I start to think, and I have fewer worries and more happiness, not just in terms of things, but the emotional detachment has had a more positive impact on me.
3. As an outfit blogger, how do you stay stylish in a minimalist way?
I wear multiple clothes. My style is mainly minimalist, silhouette, practical and textural. I wear items that I have worn in my wardrobe for a long time, and the point is to repeat items that I already have in my wardrobe to build my capsule wardrobe.
4. What do you think minimalism is?
Minimalism is an act of creating space autonomously. In this current era, our generation, what we should learn most is not to occupy space, but to create space autonomously.
5. How do you practice minimalism amid consumerism
I have been trying to escape the grip of consumerism, which is difficult I know. The good thing about minimalism at this time is that it reduces my desire to consume and I ask myself rationally: do you need that thing? Or is it a temporary desire? The object itself is for people’s well-being, it is what I need to create and not to change my ideal for the sake of the object, which is not the way to develop a civilised society.
Interviews with a minimalist
1. What do you think minimalism brings to your life?
A sense of life. The colours, the patterns, when these come into view, I feel my presence, the breath of life, and I need these external objects to prove my short stay in the world.
2. Where is the prosperity of maximalism?
It is a piling up of things, but it is a piling up of things in an orderly way.
3. What do you think minimalism is?
Minimalism is about patterns, rules, mathematics, using a minimum of elements to create beauty, and the complexity of minimalism is not easily perceived, it may contain complex mathematical principles or delicate textural details; minimalism is another kind of beauty, it is about history and culture, a baroque painting will make your dream of the extravagant life of the European aristocracy, a finely carved bronze will remind you of the wisdom of the Shang and Zhou ancestors The focus of maximalism is not on complexity, but on the beauty of association, which requires a greater knowledge base and a more complete concept of life, which perhaps makes it better.
4. How do you define the difference between maximalism and consumerism?
Indeed, maximalism often collects and buys things that are repetitive or unnecessary, but it seems to me this is consuming for aesthetic needs.
- The images I made by using receipts
SWOT-Consumerism
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