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A review by asher_deepg
The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures by Jean Baudrillard
4.0
First, let me confess that this is the first philosophy book I've finished, and that this is my first Baudrillard. Yes, the prose is at times quite dense and Baudrillard will come across as cynical at times--well, because he somewhat is. He does take quite a few jabs at economists and advertising. The book attempts at diagnosing the problems with the consumer culture, and does not provide many solutions--if a book like this should.
But beyond all the jabs and dense prose and cynicism, when you read stuff like:
"Happiness has to be measurable; it has to be a 'well-being' in terms of objects and signs. Happiness as (on the ideology and myth of happiness) total or inner enjoyment --that happiness independent of the signs which could manifest it to others and to those around us, the happiness which has no need of evidence--is therefore excluded from the outset of the customer ideal in which happiness must always signify with 'regard' to visible criteria"
"You never consume the object in itself (in its use-value); you are always manipulating object (in the broadest sense) as signs which distinguish you either by affiliating you to your own group taken as an ideal reference or by marking you off from your group by reference to a group of higher status."
Or things like:
"The consumerist man sees to it that all his potentialities , all his customer capacities are mobilized. And if he forgets to do so, he will be gently and persistently reminded that he has no right not to be happy. It is not, then, that he is passive. He is engaged in--has to engage in--continual activity. If not, he would run the risk of being content with what he has and becoming asocial."
"You have to try 'everything,' for the consumerist man is haunted by the fear of 'missing' something, some form of enjoyment or other. You never know whether a particular encounter, a particular experience will not elicit some 'sensation.' It is no longer desire or even 'taste,' or a specific inclination that are at stake, but a generalized curiosity, driven by a vague sense of unease--that it is the 'fun morality' or the imperative to enjoy oneself, to exploit to the full one's potential for thrills, pleasure or gratification."
Baudrillard's book is precise and mind-bogglingly relevant 45 years later.
Being a millennial and belonging to a generation that's annoyingly hubristic about its ostensible affluence and smugness, its hegemony over previous generations, and its notions of happiness . . . I can't help but relate to Baudrillard and love him, if he's a little cynical.
The Consumer Society also perfectly nails part of why I read books; why--regardless of all the distractions and "cool" things around--I think books are gems can't be paralleled.
But beyond all the jabs and dense prose and cynicism, when you read stuff like:
"Happiness has to be measurable; it has to be a 'well-being' in terms of objects and signs. Happiness as (on the ideology and myth of happiness) total or inner enjoyment --that happiness independent of the signs which could manifest it to others and to those around us, the happiness which has no need of evidence--is therefore excluded from the outset of the customer ideal in which happiness must always signify with 'regard' to visible criteria"
"You never consume the object in itself (in its use-value); you are always manipulating object (in the broadest sense) as signs which distinguish you either by affiliating you to your own group taken as an ideal reference or by marking you off from your group by reference to a group of higher status."
Or things like:
"The consumerist man sees to it that all his potentialities , all his customer capacities are mobilized. And if he forgets to do so, he will be gently and persistently reminded that he has no right not to be happy. It is not, then, that he is passive. He is engaged in--has to engage in--continual activity. If not, he would run the risk of being content with what he has and becoming asocial."
"You have to try 'everything,' for the consumerist man is haunted by the fear of 'missing' something, some form of enjoyment or other. You never know whether a particular encounter, a particular experience will not elicit some 'sensation.' It is no longer desire or even 'taste,' or a specific inclination that are at stake, but a generalized curiosity, driven by a vague sense of unease--that it is the 'fun morality' or the imperative to enjoy oneself, to exploit to the full one's potential for thrills, pleasure or gratification."
Baudrillard's book is precise and mind-bogglingly relevant 45 years later.
Being a millennial and belonging to a generation that's annoyingly hubristic about its ostensible affluence and smugness, its hegemony over previous generations, and its notions of happiness . . . I can't help but relate to Baudrillard and love him, if he's a little cynical.
The Consumer Society also perfectly nails part of why I read books; why--regardless of all the distractions and "cool" things around--I think books are gems can't be paralleled.