Consume & Obey

[eumeswil]

Da li volite da učestvujete u spektaklu potrošačkog društva ili samo koliko je neophodno za normalno funkcionisanje? Ja npr organski ne podnosim tržne centre, dok imam drugaricu koja je čista suprotnost, ne bi izlazila iz njih.

 

 

Francuski filozof Žan Bodrijar je pisao o fenomenu. Izašlo je prošle godine srpsko izdanje njegove knjige iz 1970, koja je aktuelna i danas.

 

 

 

 

 

"Mi živimo vreme predmeta"

 

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Beogradska izdavačka kuća Darma objavila je knjigu Potrošačko društvo Žana Bodrijara (preveo Stefan Piper), čije uvodno poglavlje pod nazivom “Obilje” vam prenosimo ovde. Iako je objavljena 1970. godina i spada u rane radove iz polja kombinovanja socijalne teorije, semiologije i psihoanalize ovog francuskog filozofa, njena aktuelnost nije utihnula ni pola veka kasnije. Pokazujući na fenomenima svakodnevnog života, kako je u globalnom društvu “potrošnja, u obliku novog plemenskog mita, postala etika današnjeg sveta”, kako se kaže u predgovoru ove knjige, Potrošačko društvo daje  pronicljive i neophodne uvide u konzumerizam koji nastavlja da obeležava široko egzistencijalno polje savremenog čoveka.

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Potrošnja, u obliku novog plemenskog mita, postala je etika današnjeg sveta.

Sama po sebi, ona pokreće proces uništenja osnova ljudskog bića, ili preciznije

–ravnotežu koju je evropska misao, još od antičke Grčke, uspostavljala između

mitoloških korena i sveta logosa. G. Bodrijar definiše opasnost sa kojom se susrećemo.

Opet ću citirati: „Kao što je društvo Srednjeg veka uspostavljalo ravnotežu putem

suprotstavljanja Boga i đavola, tako naše društvo uspostavlja ravnotežu kroz

suprotstavljenje potrošnje i osude potrošnje. Na osnovu vere u đavola i dalje je bilo

moguće organizovati jeresi i sekte crne magije. Za nas, naša magija je bela, sa druge

strane jeresi koja se ostvaruje u obilju. To je profilaktička belina jednog prezasićenog

društva – društva bez vrtoglavice i bez istorije – bez ijednog drugog mita do njega

samog.

 

Potrošačko društvo, pisano konciznim stilom, moraće postati neizostavna

lektira mlađih generacija. Njen cilj može se shvatiti kao ukidanje današnjeg

monstruoznog, ako ne i opscenog, sveta obilja predmeta – koji masovni mediji, a naročito

televizija, tako neprikosnoveno podržavaju – i koji nam svima preti.

 

https://www.darmabooks.com/knjige/zan-bodrijar-potrosacko-drustvo/

 

 

 

 

Članak koji sumira glavne teme  knjige, kako je potrošnja socijalno nametnuta.

https://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/in-theory-baudrillard-3/

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Baudrillard is highly critical of the view that consumerism amounts to liberation.  It is true that certain older regimes of authoritarianism have decayed.  But the new regime is also a system of control.  Repression persists, but it moves sideways.  The image of a sterile, hygienic body and fear of contamination establishes an inner control which removes desire from the body.  The ranking of bodies in terms of status leads to a re-racialisation.  Puritanism becomes mixed-up with hedonism in this ranking process.  The body as locus of desire remains censored and silenced, even when it appears to undergo hedonistic release.  Sexuality is expressed in consumption so it can’t disrupt the status quo.  What is now censored is the symbolic structure and the possibility of deep meaning.  Living representations are turned into empty signs.  Because of this change, the old resistances to repression no longer work.

 

Similarly, groups supposedly liberated – such as women, black people, and young people – are denied the effects of liberation by being re-encoded in terms of myths.  Once labelled as irresponsible, people’s liberation is attached to a coded meaning which demands and bars responsibility and social power.  Real liberation is avoided by giving people an image of themselves to consume – women are given the image of Woman, the young an image of Youth, technological change by Technology (gadgets), and so on.  Liberation is thus nullified, and re-encoded as a role and as narcissism.  Concrete gains for liberation movements are side-effects of this immense strategic operation to disempower oppressed groups through their reduction to a function or role.  We are drip-fed little bits of democracy and progress to ensure the system’s survival.  They operate as its alibis.  Even if income equality is encouraged, the system can survive by moving inequality elsewhere, to status, style, power and so on.

 

Baudrillard also sees communication and sociality being corrupted into sign-values to be consumed. This occurs through the consumption of ‘services’ based on sociability. The loss of genuine, spontaneous, reciprocal human relations (which require a symbolic dimension) is covered up by the standardised production of signs of social warmth and participation. As with the smile of the salesman, receptionist or PR executive, or the “have a nice day” of McDonald’s, it simulates intimacy. These simulated signs are what now counts as abstract ‘interpersonal skills’. In practice, Baudrillard observes, such false sociality is shot through with the flaws of the mode of production, including aggression and frustration. It turns into an entire value-system dressed-up as functionality. It has a constant repressive effect, pacifying social relations.

 

Excessive social contact due to urbanism leads to psychological pauperisation. People gain an increased need for objects as signifiers of differentiation. Consumption actually excludes the possibility of enjoyment. This is because consumption is always collective, at least indirectly, whereas enjoyment is personal. The disappearance of altruistic forms of integration leads to an expanded role for state repression. Atomisation leads to bureaucratic control, disguised as freedom. Credit is used to condition people into capitalistic forms of action. The ‘people’ or consumers are glorified as long as they do not try to exercise their putative sovereignty on a political or social stage, and instead stick to consuming.

 

Consumer goods are experienced as miraculous, because their production is concealed. They seem as if they come from technology, progress or growth. In fact we have only the signs of affluence, coexisting with ever more impoverished social relations. Competition, generalised across social life as consumption as well as production is ranked, leads to generalised fatigue. Such fatigue is really a resistance, akin to a slowdown by workers or boredom in school. Such resistance, as the only resistance available, becomes habitual and ‘grows into’ people’s bodies. It is a partial revolt necessary to prevent total breakdown, which is also instantly available as a source of discontent in crisis situations.

 

The real social effect of the pursuit of system-promoted goals is an exhausting rat-race. The system of unstable, precarious employment creates generalised insecurity and generalised competition for status. The constant treadmill of work, retraining and status-competition leaves some on the scrapheap and others successful but exhausted. But the ideology of consumption lulls people into believing that they are affluent, fulfilled, happy and liberated.

 

The welfare state is criticised as a way to portray an exchange society as if it were a service society, giving back what it takes from workers. Equality and democracy conceal the real system of discrimination, based on whether or not one can decode consumer goods. Furthermore, the system conditions people to constantly want a little more than they have. The system produces the needs it satisfies (through advertising and demand management), produces only for its own needs, and hides behind the alibi of individual needs (inventing an idea of economic man to prop itself up). It rests on real needs being misrecognised. And it produces needs which it then refuses to satisfy, instead using them as inducements to conformity.

 

[morgana]

nije na tvoj racun nego na racun studija kulture - stvarno je dosadno to rezonovanje o svemu od igle do lokomotive kroz pojam spektakla (posto to vise nije ni optika). spektakl politike, potrosackog drustva, zena kao spektakl, drustvene mreze kao spektakl, kultura, 9/11 kao spektakl, nista to vise ne znaci niti govori, spektakl se despektakularizovao od raubovanja, od debora preko bodrijara do kelnera.

 

[le petit nicolas]

ok, da kazemo onda vasar? kao, vasar tastine?

u  pravu si za "raubovanje" reci, ali za usiljeno, mamuzajuce i sljastece potrosastvo doslovno svega i svih nema bolje reci. uzbudjenje, ne-dosada je rule of the day. a uzbudljivost ide po obrascu kupi-trosi-baci, sve okiceno treparavim djindjuvama. prvo mi pada na pamet srcelupajuce uz-uz-uzdisanje i predisanje tv voditelja dok izgovaraju, recimo, vremensku prognozu. ne prodaju ti informaciju nego spektakularni dogadjaj da ce sutra biti promenljivo oblacno.

mreze su rokoko ovog trenda. mi smo u spektaklu, vrti nam se u glavi od utisaka. a trgovci su negde drugde.

ima i lingvistika (funkcije jezika i sociolingvistika) tu ponesto da kaze.

 

poz

[eumeswil]

Ja sam taj izraz spektakl upotrebio ovako kežualno, bez neke naučne/teorijske "istine" o tome.

[le petit nicolas]

ma ok, otpisala sam morgani.

a, ova recenzija koju si stavio u spojler... napisana je danasnjim govorom. koji nije bodrijarov. zato moze da zavara.

 

poz

Edited March 18 by le petit nicolas

[morgana]

16 minutes ago, le petit nicolas said:

ok, da kazemo onda vasar? kao, vasar tastine?

u  pravu si za "raubovanje" reci, ali za usiljeno, mamuzajuce i sljastece potrosastvo doslovno svega i svih nema bolje reci. uzbudjenje, ne-dosada je rule of the day. a uzbudljivost ide po obrascu kupi-trosi-baci, sve okiceno treparavim djindjuvama. prvo mi pada na pamet srcelupajuce uz-uz-uzdisanje i predisanje tv voditelja dok izgovaraju, recimo, vremensku prognozu. ne prodaju ti informaciju nego spektakularni dogadjaj da ce sutra biti promenljivo oblacno.

mreze su rokoko ovog trenda. mi smo u spektaklu, vrti nam se u glavi od utisaka. a trgovci su negde drugde.

ima i lingvistika (funkcije jezika i sociolingvistika) tu ponesto da kaze.

 

poz

 

bas rokoko, na stranu sto meni potrosacko drustvo uglavnom ne smeta jer je i proizvodjacko i demokratizujuce, ali da, stiglo je i u poslednji zaselak i to mu, u smislu podrazumijevanja tj ideologizacije jeste kraj - otuda i pre-owned trend i ozakonjenje prava na popravku tehnicke robe itd, doduse primarno iz prakticnih, ekoloskih razloga, a ne sociopsiholoskih - ali oni me  vise i zanimaju. 

ja sam fan koriscenja starog telefona dok ne crkne i to je moj stav.

al volim da imam telefon.

Edited March 18 by morgana

[Ayatollah]

Evo i prikladne numere za ovu temu:

 

 

[le petit nicolas]

@morgana razgovaras sa zenom koja je nedavno kupila 3. telefon u dvadesetak godina. 

 

bodrijar je nama faca (bio, jos od simulakruma) i ostao jer je kod njih sve to ranije stiglo. pa, kao, au, al je vidovit i pametan. on je skoro pa samo preveo na jezik popularne sociologije lude tartuovce semioticare i frankfurtovce. tako se meni cini. iako, ni to nije malo.

 

poz

ed. dodatni plus @Ayatollah sto me je podsetio na ovaj spot. ovako (kudeljna kosulja i pantalone, s pustenom subarom) su se nosili gradjani budve polovinom 17. v. 

Edited March 18 by le petit nicolas

[le petit nicolas]

a sad, odgovor na pitanje postavljaca topika. ne volim, jer mi trosi vreme koje vise volim da provodim na druge nacine.

nervno se slamam sto stvari ne traju kao ranije pa moram da se natezem s majstorima ili da tabanam (online/uzivo) po novo isto. i usput napunim glavu stotinama modela i cena iste stvari, hiljadama podataka. onda mene boli glava.

 

vise od potrosastva, koje smatram posledicom, stetna je suluda trka za proizvodnjom koja je proglasena za vrednost po sebi. stalno i sve vise mora da se proizvodi. dobara, usluga, informacija, sadrzaja, birokratije. necu o trosenju prirodnih i neprirodnih resursa planete, industrijskom itd. zagadjenju... a sto ljudi ne bi lepo proizveli koliko im treba i posle otisli da se odmaraju i druze na livadi? djavo poneo protestantizam i kapitalizam.

 

poz

Edited March 18 by le petit nicolas

[morgana]

meni je bodrijar bezveze

skroz.

i realno je epigon i u toj svojoj bransi ali eto, spektakularizovao je pisanje (doslovno) i trziste ga je prepoznalo.

 

Edited March 18 by morgana

[Kristalno jasna]

neee, doduše volim da konzumiram lepu garderobu, ali u okvirima kućnog budžeta, ne patim za onim što se ne uklopi u budžet, volim da imam lepe stvari, a mogu i bez njih

[Time Crisis]

Što se mene tiče isključivo preko neta, u prodavnicu mogu eventualno da odem samo da pokupim.

[Shan Jan]

Skoro dobio od kolega pare za rodjendan jer nisu znali sta da mi kupe. Jos stoje, koliko god mislio, ne mogu da smislim nista materijalno sto mi fali. 

[jezovuk]

Meni tako stoje neke pare od rođendana već godinu i po, 'sad ću nešto sebi da kupim' 

[zema]

25 minutes ago, Shan Jan said:

...ne mogu da smislim nista materijalno sto mi fali. 

 

mozda ti fali nesto drugo?

 

https://seksi-adresar.co/oglas/ice/