There is nothing wrong with consumerism

There is definitely art made with the specific purpose of avoiding the market and commodification. 'Art' often refers to any sort of creative pursuit like entertainment these days -- film, television, objects. They're non-art.

Yeah dude, your avante-garde art is so brave and boundary-breaking. Seeing people fuck in the streets really gets the ol' neurons firing.

Yes there is. When everything is a commodity, nothing matters but profit, and nothing is made but for the lowest common denominator. Culture dies a little more each year.

>wilfully demonstrating your ignorance on this level

>Culture dies a little more each year.
Translation: Oh no! Society at large is going against my ideals. We can't have that!

The world is a farm of farms and you are either the farmer or the cattle or most likely one of the infinite in between mixtures of both

So, are you a sincere exponent of total commodification or is noncommittal ironic detachment your thing?

How is total commodification avoidable?
I mean, no one but maybe the amish would stop you from living with the amish

Yeah I'd say I'm a sincere exponent. Raising numbers to powers is definitely my kinda thing.

Consumerism has given people unprecedented freedom to shape their identities, to become what they really are regardless of their gender, color or creed. The anti consumer left are reactionaries in sheep's clothing, bitter elitists who want people to stop liking what they don't like. And invariably, they always focus their self righteous wrath on the culture associated with marginalised communities: women, the young, the working classes, queers and people of color. They long for a time when art existed as an (implicitly white, straight and male) contemplative self serious pursuit of abstract 'beauty'. But they don't realise just how liberating culture can be. The elitist will dismiss Beyoncé as a manufactured corporate product, while dismissing her agency as a woman of color and an artist together with the very real joy and empowerment she brings to marginalised people. It's like when you read Adorno's cultural criticism, it's obvious he came from a background of wealth and privilege.

Fair enough.

I'm not the guy who complained about culture dying incidentally. I don't know if it can be arrested or reversed anytime soon, to be honest. I hope it can be.

It seems like it necessarily must result in progressively greater serfdom, social atomisation, animal morality, cultural deracination and ecological disaster (in concert with interrelated phenomena, at least). Nothing new.

Nobody cares about consumerism. This isn't the 90's where it's trendy to poke fun at petty bourgeois morons who consistently vote and buy against their own interests.

The problem today is that consumerism for the vast majority of people is no longer feasible.

this.

and this.

>Beyonce brings empowerment to marginalized people

Gimme a fucking break, seeing a pig like Beyonce dance in degenerate clothing on national TV under the guise of female or black empowerment is not only disgusting, but also insulting.

>See, a successful black woman! She represents you! Now ignore all the actual social and economic inequality

kys, disgusting liberal

commodification is really bound up with those two, though. One of the things that makes the modern workplace so draining, is the fact that it demands total involvement, destroying the work/life distinction and making your innermost feeling and the expression thereof into a commodity.

>degenerate nigger music is dominating the market while classical becomes more or less irrelevant

>pig
>degenerate
>disgusting
>insulting
Great arguments. You should probably save yourself the time of bothering with us and move on to people on equal intellectual footing with you in /pol/ and /r9k/.

>"Fuck the elites!"
>acts elitist

Okay.

> Consumerism has given people unprecedented freedom to shape their identities, to become what they really are regardless of their gender, color or creed.

>Consumerism has given people unprecedented freedom to shape their identities, to become what they really are regardless of their gender, color or creed.
No it hasn't. It's given them the desire to model themselves after what they see in adverts and sitcoms, wanting what they're told they ought to want.

>The anti consumer left are reactionaries in sheep's clothing, bitter elitists who want people to stop liking what they don't like.
By definition an "elite" is the person making the stuff to be consumed, not the person being pushed to consume it.

>And invariably, they always focus their self righteous wrath on the culture associated with marginalised communities: women, the young, the working classes, queers and people of color. They long for a time when art existed as an (implicitly white, straight and male) contemplative self serious pursuit of abstract 'beauty'. But they don't realise just how liberating culture can be. The elitist will dismiss Beyoncé as a manufactured corporate product, while dismissing her agency as a woman of color and an artist together with the very real joy and empowerment she brings to marginalised people.
To some extent you have an actual point here. But that joy and empowerment is ultimately just the product of some record exec's desire to make money - the music (or whatever example you want to use) isn't allowed to exist unless it's profitable, regardless of its actual quality. To be really "liberating", culture needs to exist on its own terms, for its own sake.

I'm extremely shy and introverted. Without commodification and consumerism I would starve, since I would never be charismatic enough to get my necessities in a gift economy.

Communists are always charismatic and attractive individuals who have more to gain by ending money.

>fails to make a coherent argument
>switches to contrarian polemics
Go on.

>By definition an "elite" is the person making the stuff to be consumed, not the person being pushed to consume it.
retarded_child.jpg

>insulting.
to white dudes who use leftism as a cover for their racism and misogyny it is. And that's a plus for me.

>But that joy and empowerment is ultimately just the product of some record exec's desire to make money

I feel like there's a double standard going on in here. Serious Dude Art also depends on consumerism, but you won't hear people criticising it at least not in the way the criticise art associated with women POC or queers. In the art world, white masculinity is still the default. Moonlight got the Oscar for Best Picture, but due to a 'mixup' the award was given to La La Land instead. We still got a long way to go.

>opening the wrong envelope is racist

Holy fuck you're dense.

>Moonlight got the Oscar for Best Picture, but due to a 'mixup' the award was given to La La Land instead. We still got a long way to go.

This shit can't be serious.

Only if it isn't viewed as an end goal.

>We still got a long way to go.

>muh "progress" narrative

It's the 21st century faggot. Progressivism is behind the times.

...

In the end this sort of attitude is just a breathless affirmation of the culture industry as it exists wrapped up in a patronising ''just look at [abstracted identity category] they eat their slop and enjoy it too, in fact they think the slop is meaningful and really speaks to them on a deep spiritual way, so maybe you should eat your slop as well''

There's got to be a limit to these pol-reactionaries

>implying statistical majority is capable and/or willing to spend time closely analyzing cultural goods
Consumerism is there because it satisfies and satiates the masses. There's nothing wrong with it.

Commodity fetishism has penetrated every single aspect of our lives by this point, even during the middle ages, Christianity wasn't this pervasive. The 'counterculture' if it really even existed, is just another marketing demographic. The most conspicuous consumers are those who fancy themselves above consumerism. Middle class pathologies like 'nerd culture' or the muh 'organic' 'artisanal' foodie crap, exposed brick and chalkboards crowd being the most glaring examples.

>Consumerism is there because it satisfies and satiates the masses.

Except it doesn't. The masses, overmedicated and prodded around like cattle are still restless and seem likely to get more restless in the near future. That's why people feel this strange admiration for those who truly dared to 'go postal' on their fellow lab rats.

I think there is something wrong with it insofar that we're capable of recognizing something is wrong with it.

Its fairly obvious that human beings were born to consume.
Never could the species have made it so far without doing so.
So then why must they feel guilt for their own nature? Thats the real question.

Do these "intellectuals" who decry consumerism and capitalism not participate in consumerism as well? Are the suits they wear, the houses they live in, the fancy dinners they buy, the books they read not a part of this consumerism?

it's literally impossible not to participate in it within a capitalist society

Yes but that's beside the point. There's a difference between being a consumer and realising that consumerism isn't fulfilling.

>still restless and seem likely to get more restless in the near future
This is the result of many factors, but consumerism isn't one of them. In fact it only serves to pacify the masses and succeeds at it tremendously. The illusion of meaning and ephemeral sense of belonging it provides is more than enough for most people to trick themselves into believing they are self-actualizing through consuming. Moreover, as you pointed out, it's even capable do the same for those actively opposing it by presenting itself as an anti-thesis. It's a very stable local extremum on the timeline of our search for existential meaning - both a blessing compared to previous states and a curse to those wishing to go beyond. Hating it is silly, though.

Consumerism as we know it is a pretty recent phenomenon. Modern marketing techniques date from the early 20th century, see Edward Bernays and his book, Propaganda for a quick introduction.

In premodern societies, wealth was not accumulated indefinitely, but periodically expended in feasts and potlatches. Economists have a tendency to make sweeping, supposedly self evident pronouncements on 'human nature' while ignoring pretty much all records of past human societies. If great cultural and artistic possibilities could opened up by a society no longer based on consumerism and mindless capital accumulation, if it can improve the lives of billions of people, why not make it a goal?

Philosophers just don't like capitalism because they're poor. :)

>smugposting
>no carat nose

It's shit and only exists to fill a void.

>Its fairly obvious that human beings were born to consume

It is a matter of quantity and quality, and the a/effects the consumption has on the """"environment""""

I mainly just buy used books from yard sales desu

> Democratic Socialism has given people unprecedented freedom to shape their identities, to become what they really are regardless of their gender, color or creed. The anti-left are reactionaries in sheep's clothing, bitter elitists who want people to stop liking what they don't like. And invariably, they always focus their self righteous wrath on the culture associated with marginalised communities: women, the young, the working classes, queers and people of color. They long for a time when art existed as an (implicitly white, straight and male) contemplative self serious pursuit of abstract 'beauty'. But they don't realise just how liberating culture can be. The elitist will dismiss Beyoncé as a manufactured product, while dismissing her agency as a woman of color and an artist together with the very real joy and empowerment she brings to marginalised people. It's like when you read Adorno's cultural criticism, it's obvious he came from a background of wealth and privilege.

See, I can bullshit too, sophist.

Accurate.
Of course cuckrals of leftards of Veeky Forums are upset at this.

youtu.be/nAEI4HhKWbY

It's not impossible to leave cap. soc. Just go to Siberia or Alaska and build a shack in a middle of fucking nowhere.

>

consumerism =/= buying things

so you admit that it's at least a fairly big undertaking?

>buy ticket.
>get some tools and a weapon.
>???
>Profit

>gift economy

you're not shy and introvererted, you're just retarded

...

>buy ticket.
>Profit

Try again user.

« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ »

What is it with people and their external locus of control? I figured this impulse control shit out when I was 12.

Why is everyone so retarded about this?

Why ITT ignore the inherent retardation that's the underlying problem?

>u need this?
>yes
>pls consume
>k
>pls consume more
>no
>u need this!
>no

Problem solved. Average normie can't into this? Consumerism is destined to be mainstream ideology until they can.

Fuck's wrong with everybody...

is this a good book?

There might be nothing wrong with consumerism but there definitely is something wrong with a fucking pleb declaring that there's nothing wrong with it. Check yourself before you fucking wreck yourself; you goddamn Pynchon reading cuck.

> Something wrong with pointing out there's something wrong

0/10 elitism

Want and need conflation, poor impulse control and emotional literacy, and the lack of an affirming myth of life beyond material gratification.

This. I don't get it.

Read a few pages, the (writer) condemns society yet he had three marriages.
He also worked for propaganda, delete this filth and don't fill your mind with it.

>writes about how propaganda and consumerism squashes one's capacity for judgements and turns them into unidimensional men
>[More than 300,000 copies sold] on the cover
Oh wow

It really shows the pathology of leftist ideology when people's choices in a market are reduced to an empty word like "consumerism".

I mean, do you guys consider it consumerist to have to buy food in order to stay alive?

Retarded.

>I mean, do you guys consider it consumerist to have to buy food in order to stay alive?

No. Nobody does. Don't be so fucking dense.

>You could have grown the foood
>Hunted the food
>Traded for the food

retard

Why would you ever do that when other people have done it for you and the price is low enough?

CAPITALISM IS BAD, M'KAY?

Despite the fact that buying food isn't really consumerism there are obviously issues with consumerism in the food industry.

Mass production of food items is extremely wasteful. Stores stock more food than they can sell. Cheap ingredients are used and result in unhealthy foods being produced. Marketing is far too prevalent in the food industry and takes advantage of people's ignorance (low fat foods, diet foods etc). Consumerism does not encourage quality. The food insdustry is a poster child for what is wrong with consumerism.

>Mass production of food items is extremely wasteful.

Absolutely. But the reverse is a catastrophe.

Sorry I should clarify that more. Mass production for profit is extremely wasteful.

Also, arguing that because one extreme is worse than the other is no argument at all.There are more options available to us than the existing state of affairs and every individual growing their own food or hunting their own meals. I don't believe anyone is saying that a food economy as a thing is wrong just that the current state of affairs has reached a point where it's not beneficial for anyone.

Food, healthcare, basic shelter. These are the three things that people cannot live without and are the ones that are most perverted by market forces because they are necessities.

...

>Mass production for profit is extremely wasteful.

It obviously wouldn't be if all the food was eaten.

sage

>the current state of affairs has reached a point where it's not beneficial for anyone.
Define "beneficial." The vast majority of people in the developed world are able to eat a meal every day. The people who run the companies make tons of money.

>hur dur muh tautology
Thanks for that. Very insightful.

The current state of the food economy means that only products that are "sellable" actually make it to the stores. Shit tonnes of perfectly edible food is discarded because of superficial imperfections that are effectively meaningless. Meanwhile people starve to death at worst or struggle to feed themselves many even in developed countries.

People are able to eat a meal every day in developed countries but I think it's hard to attribute that to consumerism. Rather consumerism is something that happens in countries with higher living standards because it's possible there.

Also yeah you're right the people who run the companies make tons of money so it does benefit them but for many of them the benefits of making an extra couple of million for the super rich is minimal compared to the affect it has on those the poor, even in developing countries. Some billionaires next million dollars means very little to him but could quite literally keep dozens of people from dying for a year.

>it's obvious he came from a background of wealth and privilege

>forced to flee from the nazis
>privileged

Whiteness gives you inherent privilege, even if you don't feel or seem privileged.

>u need this?
>yes
>pls consume
>k
>pls consume more
>no
>u need this!
>no
Problem solved.

What was the problem? Me and my wife (and her boyfriend (female) make tonnes of money, we can afford the newest gadgets and gizmos and toys... what is wrong with consumerism? We are happy already, we know we have to live, we like things... we see something, an advert, or in a store, we buy it if we want, it makes our home look nicer, it lets us have some novel fun... what are you talking about, where is there problem that needs to be solved?

>Money gives you inherent privilege, even if you don't feel or seem privileged.

FTFY

White people are better off than black people in general but it's a money thing. Attributing it to "whiteness" is pointless.

>sage
advice?

>Some billionaires next million dollars means very little to him but could quite literally keep dozens of poor people from dying for a year.
soo... hes doing the world a favor? t-the... villain is the hero? No.. it cant be... they cant have all the cakes and eat them too

What if my goals don't involve happiness?

Wrong. Poor white people have privilege due to their whiteness, but not due to their poorness. Do not conflate these two types of privilege.

Do you honestly have trouble understanding that?

all 'privileges' are ultimately economic

White privilege is tied to the fact that white people more often have money than black people and the cultural perception that this causes. I'm not saying it doesn't exist but it's a cop-out on behalf of white people to say that it's because of skin colour and not a result of changeable economic factors.

this. all privileges are to do with power and money is what give people power.

American categories of 'race' are not some sort of eternal metaphysical truth that applies everywhere. Nazis saw Jews and most slavs as members of an alien 'race' even though they often look as 'white' as germans do. In the middle east and eastern europe, people who look pretty much the same can still feel a genocidal hatred for each other, often rationalised by the most insane race science theories you can imagine.