Consuming Life

Consuming Life, to be published next month, argues that our consumerist society, in which everything is judged according to its market value, and discarded if found wanting, applies, with terrible consequences, to our most intimate relationships as well. Why commit to a relationship if you can always bin it and try another one?

Argues Zygmunt Bauman

The Amazon precis of the book

With the advent of liquid modernity, the society of producers is transformed into a society of consumers. In this new consumer society, individuals become simultaneously the promoters of commodities and the commodities they promote. They are, at one and the same time, the merchandise and the marketer, the goods and the travelling salespersons. They all inhabit the same social space that is customarily described by the term lsquo;the marketrsquo;. The test they need to pass in order to acquire the social prizes they covet requires them to recast themselves as products capable of drawing attention to themselves.

This subtle and pervasive transformation of consumers into commodities is the most important feature of the society of consumers. It is the hidden truth, the deepest and most closely guarded secret, of the consumer society in which we now live. In this new book Zygmunt Bauman examines the impact of consumerist attitudes and patterns of conduct on various apparently unconnected aspects of social life ndash; politics and democracy, social divisions and stratification, communities and partnerships, identity building, the production and use of knowledge, and value preferences.

The invasion and colonization of the web of human relations by the world-views and behavioural patterns inspired and shaped by commodity markets, and the sources of resentment, dissent and occasional resistance to the occupying forces, are the central themes of this new book

Zygmunt Bauman

It many ways Baumans theories echo a post we made at CDP The issue of self-identity in a postmodern world

And this also very much connected to Consuming Life I'm just so depressed :-( Why having communual fun is vital to healthy happy individuals

Comments

[Sophia Parker]

I think this is one of the best books I've read in a while. Just blogged about it at www.sparkthinking.co.uk... I think Bauman brilliantly sees the hidden wiring of modern society. I only wish that we had some politicians bold enough to question the apparently insuperable force of consumerism and argue for an alternative...

[Alan Moore]

Dear Sophia,

Thanks for reminding me of that post. Reading your thoughts prompted me to go and re-examine Bauman's thinking.

Thanks you for posting

Alan