SOCI 1002 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Consumerism, Conspicuous Consumption, Consumer Capitalism
11 Jan 2018
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Document Summary
Consumer capitalist societies produce unstable personality types. Re ect the contradictions inherent in consumer capitalism. Must repress, deny, delay future grati cation - self discipline for the work ethic. On the other hand we are encourages to endlessly and immediately gratify our desires - self indulge for the consumer ethic. We are besieged by endless temptation but at the same time condemned for indulging: example: food and diet - told we can have it all - weightless without exercise etc. How we spend out money and consume is an important part of who were are: status and class. Erring goffman - status symbols have expressive signi cance": example: drive a super nice care - people will think wow you must be high-class etc. They say somethings about who we are, the type of person we are and the values we hold". Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability / prestige.
