The Ideology of consumption or, What does it mean to live in a tasteless world?
Abstract
This article opts for a return to a critique of the ideology of
consumption. Following Slavoj Žižek it argues that what must
be addressed in present-day consumer-capitalism is the level
of the superego. Superego is not about living up to certain
norms/standards; rather, superego fits consumerism quite
well, in that it is the injunction, even obligation, to go beyond
any norms or standards and enhance enjoyment. The article
attempts, through a diagnosis of postmodern ways of eating
and consuming, a new metaphorization of consumer-capitalism
as »tasteless«: We live, basically, in a tasteless world where
desires and tastes must be reinvented continuously, and we are
trapped in the tastelessness of this same world, caught in the
matrix of consumption, whatever we do.
Publisher
LIR. journal
Collections
View/ Open
Date
2013Author
Benjamin Hansen, Brian
Keywords
Ideology
consumption
Žižek
superego
postmodernism
Publication type
article, peer reviewed scientific
Language
eng