So in order to create some order in this madness, I have decided to first analyze consumption as an abstract notion - in other words, not in terms of the newest line of Gucci or the billboard by the highway. This also means that I will dissect "consumption" into abstract concepts and analyze them as an intellectual exercise. I think that I am drawn to this mode of evaluation because it is the one with which I am most familiar: like formulating a thesis for a paper in order to give it structure, I am trying to categorize the many facets of consumption in order to learn the way it ticks.
The first order in this intellectual exercise is to set some guidelines for the inquiry. First off, there is the issue of the role of consumption in people's lives. While some argue that consumption is merely an activity in an individual's life, others claim that it is the life itself - a lifestyle and culture with deep roots. For the purpose of analyses, I will assume that consumption is a lifestyle. I do this because I believe that this definition of consumerism is much more profound than that of merely selling and buying - of producing and consuming. This broader definition has more factors to contemplate and is therefore more appropriate for the inquiry.
Secondly, my method, as noted above, will be to categorize the various aspects of consumerism that have been called to my attention through readings, etc. - especially of note is the reading Delectable Materialism: Second Thoughts on Consumer Culture by Michael Schudson. Schudson also labels various approaches towards consumerism; more specifically, they are various critiques of the consumer lifestyle, and he calls them the Puritan, Quaker, Republican and Antibourgeois critiques. My categorization will follow a similar pattern. Instead of labeling by religious and social philosophy, however, I've decided to do so by individual-societal relationships. In other words, I will categorize these various aspects of consumption by how they represent the relationships that individuals have with themselves, with each other, and with the greater society as a whole. I thought that this would be especially appropriate because one of the purposes of this class, as mentioned on the first day, is to move from an individualistic to a societal understanding of consumerism.
The first area of consumerism up for analysis is depicted in what Schudson calls the "Puritan critique." The Puritan "worries about whether people invest an appropriate amount of meaning in goods"(253). To me, this is the personal aspect of consumerism in its purist form - it deals with an individual's relation with the good (the instrument) - which, according to the Puritans, is a spiritual experience. The inherent value of an object depends solely on the position of the individual evaluating it.
The Quaker critique focuses on the "objectionable features of the products themselves, usually their wastefulness or extravagance." At first glance, this approach seems to be a product-centered one; it seems to evaluate the products at face value - as objects. Upon closer examination, however, the Quaker critique is also a type of personal consumerism relationship. It is about how much and in what way an individual values the things he or she consumes. Nonetheless, I will grant that it deals with personal relationships in a more indirect way than the Puritan critique - it is human spirituality as reflected through the objects of consumption.
The Republican critique moves past the confines of the individual and focuses on societal relationships - i.e. an individual's relationship with others. As Schudson says, it is a critique of the "corrupting influence on public life of a goods orientation in private life." So a Republican critic would consider the contribution that an individual consumer would have on the running of the greater society. More particularly, it seems to assume a negative standpoint - highly anti-consumption: the consumer lifestyle ultimately "corrupts" the greater society.
The fourth and final critique - the antibourgeois - attacks the inhumanity of the consumer-driven economic system: "...however beneficent the economic system may appear from the side of consumption, it rests on the exploitation of workers in the capitalist system of production." This, I feel, is the political perspective on consumerism; it deals with the class conflicts that are the necessary byproduct of such a society. Unlike the other critiques, which consist of relationships between individuals and others and the greater society, the antibourgeois critique takes into account the political and historical significance of consumer society.
Breaking up consumerism into these various veins of thought has certainly afforded me with a deeper understanding of this new type of society. I have found that categorizing the different perspectives on consumer society, and then comparing the groups - an almost Aristotelian method of analysis - is a great way to start my journey of intellectual discovery in this class.
