Recap of Lecture
Consumerism
- Desire - False need for commodities
- Greed
- A necessary part of the system - Capitalism cannot exist without creating profit on profit on profit etc
- The system thrives on manufacturing a need
- Social Control - We are made to believe that we have the free choice
- Social Control vs Freedom?
- Stratification in society - Only certain people can have those certain things. Disguises the inequality because of this illusionary idea that you are free and happy
- Consumerism acts as a palliative (a sedative)
- Mass production - the rise of mass production is necessary for Capitalism to expand
- Advertising and the idea of brands emerge at this time
- Freud - Irrational desires and animal instincts
- Bernays - Birth of public relations, linking Freud's findings to advertising and selling products
- 'The Pleasure Principle' - makes us think that we're happy. What do you actually need?
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On this basis, you will be organised into small groups to report back on a section of the text (assigned a few pages from the handout given).
'Ways of Seeing' by John Berger
Find a few examples of adverts which epitomise what you have gathered from the reading.
Pages 148-151
"The pursuit of individual happiness has been acknowledged as a universal right. Yet the existing social conditions make the individual feel powerless."
We feel that we have the right to be individual and happy, but it's limited by existing social conditions.
"The intermindable present of meaningless working hours is 'balanced' by a dreamt future in which imaginary activity replaces the passivity of the moment."
We feel as though we have earned our happiness by working. By doing something crap, we get something good.
"Publicity turns consumption into a substitute for democracy."
By buying into consumerism, you will be popular and better than other people who aren't buying into consumerism.
"Publicity helps to mask and compensate for all that is undemocratic within society. And it also masks what is happening in the rest of the world."
The idea that being wrapped up in consumerism hides global values and politics, and other systems such as communism.
"No two dreams are the same."
The effect of advertising, not an actual dream.
Chanel No 5 - Share The Fantasy
- 'I will feel this way forever' - Consumerism is eternal.
- Social status - You will feel more popular if you buy this product.
- Dream like - Yet 'no dreams are the same'.
- By doing something crap, you get something good - the setting of a holiday, feeling like you've earned it.
- Ad was produced in the early 80s - During the Falklands war? - If so, consumerism is masking what is happening outside of the dream world of advertising. Could also link to the idea of a plane flying over?
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