Exploring materialism and social relationships in modern culture Material Culture and Mass Consumption offers an in-depth exploration of objects, objectification, ideology, and materialism in modern society. Drawing from Hegel, Marx, Munn, and Simmel, the discussion delves into the physicality of the material world and attempts to understand materialism as a form of cultural expression. Targeting mass production as the root of mass consumption, rather than the result, this book positions material goods at odds with genuine (...) social interaction and questions these relationships from the abstract to the intensely specific. (shrink)

Aestheticians have tended to focus their attention almost exclusively on high art, on museum painting and sculpture, classical music and literature, and architecture, leaving the popular arts to their colleagues in cultural studies. That seems a big mistake, for like it or not, popular movies and television attract enormous audiences everywhere, including very many people who take little interest in high art. This mass art creates stars, actors, and musicians who are so famous that everyone recognizes them. And celebrities (...) such as Princess Diana are also stars. Because stars straddle the boundary between politics and popular art, they deserve attention from our philosophers. Even if your favorite leisure reading.. (shrink)

Princess Diana, Jackie O, Grace Kelly—the star icon is the most talked about yet least understood persona. The object of adoration, fantasy, and cult obsession, the star icon is a celebrity, yet she is also something more: a dazzling figure at the center of a media pantomime that is at once voyeuristic and zealously guarded. With skill and humor, Daniel Herwitz pokes at the gears of the celebrity-making machine, recruiting a philosopher's interest in the media, an eye for society, and (...) a love of popular culture to divine our yearning for these iconic figures and the role they play in our lives. Herwitz portrays the star icon as caught between transcendence and trauma. An effervescent being living on a distant, exalted planet, the star icon is also a melodramatic heroine desperate to escape her life and the ever-watchful eye of the media. The public buoys her up and then eagerly watches her fall, her collapse providing a satisfying conclusion to a story sensationally told—while leaving the public yearning for a rebirth. Herwitz locates this double life in the opposing tensions of film, television, religion, and consumer culture, offering fresh perspectives on these subjects while ingeniously mapping society's creation (and destruction) of these special aesthetic stars. Herwitz has a soft spot for popular culture yet remains deeply skeptical of public illusion. He worries that the media distances us from even minimal insight into those who are transfigured into star icons. It also blinds us to the shaping of our political present. (shrink)

This volume sets out to reverse the neglect.

Turkey has passed the import substitution economic model to a new model of the economy called open out since 1980. Along with the neoliberal policies implemented, the process of integration with the global economy has begun. The incomes of the religious people who cannot be excluded from the effects of this articulation also increased and their consumption behaviors has changed. On the other hand, some transport elements, especially the media, have enabled consumption codes to reach different segments. The (...) new values emerged in this process also caused transformations in individual consumption trends. In this study, the "Scale of Consumption Dynamics" (SCD) was developed in order to identify the trends of consumption of devotees and to find out how they changed. Quantitative research approach was adopted in the study and the datas were collected by face-to-face survey technique. The individuals included in our sample were selected by quota sampling. In this study, an expression pool was created as a result of literature review, expert opinion consultation, brainstorming with academicians and observations. The validity and reliability analysis of the scale was made using different statistics through the SPSS program. As a result of these steps, the dimensions of the scale consisting of 16 items and 3 dimensions are called "showy consumption", "wasteful consumption" and "religious priority consumption". Summary: The first studies on consumption history and sociology belong to Marx, Weber, Veblen and Simmel. In these studies consumption is examined as a part of production process and consumption forms were investigated as a social class aspect. Consumption phenomenon was later studied under critical approach (Frankfurt School) with Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse and Erich Fromm’s theories. Theorists at Frankfurt School study how social structure steers individuals to consumption. After the 1970’s, the meaning of consumption phenomenon has changed. There are studies by Jean Baudrillard, Mike Featherstone, George Ritzer, and Zygmunt Bauman on changing phenomenon of consumption. It is widely believed that modern consumption phenomenon was originated in the USA after the World War II. After the war Keynesian economic policies and Fordist consumption forms later influenced other Western nations. After 1950’s and 1960’s mass consumption was initiated in the USA and except very poor sections of the nations, other social classes, it started to spread out in Europe, the USA, and other countries. In 1970’s and 1980’s, it has merged with individuals’ identity definitions. After 1980’s in Turkey a new economic policy instead of import substitution was adopted. In application along with neo liberal policies, Turkey started to integrate to the rest of the World. Religious people as well influenced these changes and their incomes have increased along with their consumption habits. In addition to media, some other forms of communication channels have carried new consumption habits to other sections of the society. With the increased effects of mass communication media, new social sections have emerged and their cultural characteristics have become the norms of the whole society. A new values created in this process also transformed the consumption habits. In this article, in order to assess consumption habits of religious people as it is now and to understand which direction these habits evolve, Consumption Dynamics Scale (CDS) has been developed. Scales are widely used when a researcher tries to identify and measure respondents’ feelings and ideas on a subject matter. There are different scales used in social sciences such as Thurstone, Likert, Guttman, and Bogardus that are among the most widely used ones. A Likert Type scale has been used in this study. In the first phase of the study and pilot study 5 point Likert scale and in the second phase of the study 10 point Likert scales was used to collect the data. We could not come across with any study in the literature on investigating consumption characteristics Dynamics of individuals with a formal religious education. In the study, quantitative research method has been adopted and the research data has been collected with face to face administration of the survey instrument. The scale development phase lasted about 6 months from August, 2016. Based on 3% error rate, we determined to sufficient sample size as 516, yet we reached 600 individuals and end up with 563 usable responses. Sample has been determined with quota sampling methodology. We formed a pool of statements based on literature review, expert opinion, brain storming with academicians. 49 questions have been selected from the question pool where 93 questions were found, then they are merged, some questions are changed or totally eliminated and final 30 questioned questionnaires made ready for pilot study. Two pilot studies have been carried out. In the first pilot study, 47 people are reached and 30 questions with Likert scales have been administered. In the second phase of the study, 10 point Likert scales with 57 questions has been given to 54 individuals. After pilot studies, data was analyzed with SPSS 20 version and 32 questioned final survey instrument has been formed. In order to check sufficiency of data set for Factor Analysis Kaisser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) test and the relationships among variables Bartlett test were used. Sample composed of 563 responses revealed significant results (3358,808, p=0,000) and KMO test revealed (KMO=0,812) value. After expletory factor analysis, factor loading less than 0,40 were deleted from the scale. Hence the final structure is composed of 29 questions with 8 different factors. The reliability of scales were calculated with Cronbach Alfa analysis separately for each dimension. After reliability analysis, items with 0,60 and less reliability score were taken out from the scales. Finally 16 items were made up 3 dimensions namely “ostentatious consumption”, “wasteful consumption”, and “religious priority consumption”. The items in Factor 1 are related with luxury, fashion and statue, in Factor 2 desire to make more shopping, purchase without need, advertisement and showcase, and factor 3 religious sensitive reference focus and religion first purchasing are decided as appropriate names. Based on the analysis, measurement was decided valid and sound. Therefore, this study is believed to contribute significantly to the existing literature. (shrink)

Without mass media, openness and accountability are impossible in contemporary democracies. Nevertheless, mass media can hinder political transparency as well as help it. Politicians and political operatives can simulate the political virtues of transparency through rhetorical and media manipulation. Television tends to convert coverage of law and politics into forms of entertainment for mass consumption, and television serves as fertile ground for a self‐proliferating culture of scandal. Given the limited time available for broadcast and the limited (...) attention of audiences, stories about political strategy, political infighting, political scandal and the private lives of politicians tend to crowd out less entertaining stories about substantive policy questions. Political life begins to conform increasingly to the image of politics portrayed on television. Through a quasi‐Darwinian process, media events, scandals, and other forms of politics‐as‐entertainment eventually dominate and weed out other forms of political information and public discussion, transforming the very meaning of public discourse. In this way the goals of political transparency can be defeated by what appear to be its central mechanisms: proliferating information, holding political officials accountable for their actions, and uncovering secrets. (shrink)

There have been different approaches to the study of the relations between mass media on the one hand and science and technological activities on the other. In this article, I summarize consumption approaches, point out some of their limitations, and then show how these limitations can be addressed by drawing on an ethnographic study I conducted of an academic engineering research laboratory. I analyze the discursive practices lab members use to interpret mass media. One practice treats media (...) as reference points that mark a lab member’s growing alignment with the profession of electrical and computer engineering, and this constructs an engineering self by providing an opportunity for lab members to display knowledge of the prevalence and shapes of robots and align themselves with the firsthand knowledge prized in engineering culture. Another practice uses the discourse-in-practice of religion to construct an engineering self by aligning the speaker with things that are valued in engineering culture such as objectivity, science, evolution, and literature reviews. The final practice I analyze involves repurposing media technologies in ways that are helpful for both current and future lab research projects, which constructs selves by giving lab members an opportunity to show they know which features of media are relevant for engineering and how these features can be used to address engineering problems. I conclude with a discussion of how this contributes to studies of engineering identity and the relations between science, technology, and media. (shrink)

The rapid uptake of digital technologies is constantly transforming the modern culture of sports spectating; however, relatively little is known about the impact of digitalization on the changing face of global sports-consuming audiences, particularly from a qualitative perspective. In this article, the relationship between modern mass digital technologies and audiences of sports spectators is described and explained by taking a customer-centric approach to grounded theory using a literature review and in-depth qualitative semi-structured interviews with sports marketing, management, and technology (...) professionals. The qualitative approach permits the gathering of in-depth insights into a problem, generates new concepts through data synthesis and analysis, and captures changing attitudes within the sports industry. Moreover, the qualitative approach to research is not bound by the limitations of quantitative methods and focuses on the primary questions of “how” and “why” digital technology’s mass deployment and diffusion have transformed content consumption in the sports industry. The analysis first systematizes and codes the collected data. Second, all the materials are iteratively read and the key points are outlined. Using the iterative analysis, the theoretical and empirical insights and findings are synthesized in order to achieve the results. Finally, dimensions of the transformation of sports spectators’ consumption are identified and explained. The research implications highlight “how” and “why” modern digital technologies have changed the sports-consuming audience by making it more inclusive in terms of age, gender, demographics, social and health status. These findings are useful for sport managers to better understand their audiences and processes in an ever-changing global society. (shrink)

Mass media have been accused of cultivating anti-immigrant sentiments in Western societies. Most studies on this topic, however, have not made a distinction between the types of television program (information vs. entertainment) or television station (public vs. commercial). Adopting a comparative approach, we use data from the six waves of the European Social Survey (ESS, 2002–2012, n = 162,987) to assess the relationship between individual and aggregate level patterns of television consumption and anti-immigrant sentiments in European societies. Individual (...) television viewing time is positively associated with anti-immigrant sentiments, while frequent exposure to news and information programs is associated with lower levels of anti-immigrant sentiments. At the aggregate level we observe a positive effect of the total viewing time in society on anti-immigrant sentiments. In the conclusion we offer some suggestions on how this effect could be explained. (shrink)

The environmental and social costs of consumer societies have increasingly been recognized. Achieving sustainable household consumption requires an understanding of the underlying roots of current consumption levels. Using the case study of menstrual care practices, different theoretical frameworks—or narratives—for understanding household consumption are evaluated. The author argues that theories of consumption that focus on individual choice based on assessments of convenience or cleanliness, or only on cultural imperatives need to be expanded to take account of the (...) wider political–economic context. Using commoditization theory helps explain not only why mass-produced, disposable menstrual products are dominant in free market societies but also why certain theories of consumption are more prevalent. (shrink)

This study explored in what way and to what extent people's occupational position corresponds with the consumption of news and the exposure to political content offered by the traditional mass media TV, radio, and newspaper, using survey data. The influence of occupational position in general and perceived amount of public social capital on especially consumption of news as well as the exposure to political media content, was evident. Findings are in line with the central assumptions on ‘audience (...) activity’ of audience-centered models in communication research in general and the ‘media use as social action’ approach especially. The subjectively perceived social context, indicated by occupational position as well as the subjectively held structure of relevancies is a central predictor of media use. (shrink)

Fermented dairy products such as yogurt contain many bioactive compounds. In addition, probiotic yogurts are an invaluable source of probiotic bacteria and are a group of probiotic products best accepted by children. There is plenty of research indicating an interdependence between yogurt consumption, body mass index, and adipose tissue percentage, which suggests that yogurt consumption may contribute to reducing the risk of becoming overweight or obese. In turn, the occurrence of overweight and obesity may be accompanied by (...) a reduced sensitivity to sweetness, which modifies food preference selection and acceptance, including with yogurt. This study aimed to assess the preferences and consumption of yogurt in terms of sensitivity to recognize sweetness and obesity in a group of 7–9-year-old children. Body mass index and adipose tissue percentage obesity indicators were determined, and the frequency of fermented milk product consumption was assessed about the results of the sweetness recognition test as well as yogurt preferences. There was no significant relationship between body weight and the frequency of fermented milk product consumption. Correlations were found between the values of body mass index and the ability to recognize sweetness, which was significantly better recognized by underweight children or at normal body weight, moreover, those children with a higher ability to recognize sweetness significantly more frequently preferred plain unsweetened yogurt. (shrink)

We question Baumard's underlying assumption that humans have a propensity to innovate. Affordable transportation and energy underpinned the Industrial Revolution, making mass production/consumption possible. Although we cannot accept Baumard's thesis on the Industrial Revolution, it may help explain why complexity and innovation increase rapidly in the context of abundant energy.

The increasing visibility and elevated status of musicians has become prominent in contemporary society as a consequence of technological advances and the development of both mass and specialized targeted audiences. Consequently, the actions of musicians are under greater levels of scrutiny and fans demand more from musicians than ‘just’ music. If the industry demands corporate social responsibility practices in a similar vein to how corporations promote themselves; a further question then remains regarding how the increasing prominence of such activities (...) by musicians influences music consumers and fans of individual bands and artists. The current research provides a foundation upon which to better understand the role that social responsibility plays for consumers of music. Consequently, the research has practical implications for promoting socially responsible consumption practices. The various public spaces that music consumption encompasses represent great opportunities in which ethical consumption practices can be promoted. We identify a number of factors that ultimately determine when socially responsible engagement in the music industry is supported, ignored, or even becomes the focus of consumer backlash. (shrink)

Information, as well as freedom of expression and freedom of the media are essential for democratic society and fundamental characteristic of modern states. The year 2020 will be remembered as a year of pandemic caused from Covid-19 (coronavirus) and a year of response to unexpected challenge that the spread of the virus caused. In the times of pandemic and any type of crisis, the media always plays a key role in informing the public all over the Globe. This paper aims (...) to make theoretical descriptive research and analysis of the influence of coronavirus on news consumption, the role of media in communication and presentation of important developments during pandemic. The authors present an overview of the media system and the latest developments in the EU in preventing fake news related to the pandemic. We conclude that media plays key role in informing the citizens during pandemic and therefore they have increased responsibility in providing reliable information. At the same time, since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, the media have been challenged with parallel outbreaks of disinformation and misinformation about the virus, ranging from fake coronavirus cures, false claims and harmful health advice to wild conspiracy theories. Disinformation can in turn speed up the spread of disease, hinder effective public health responses, as well as create confusion, fear and distrust. We highlight the fundamental function of creating awareness regarding the topic based on facts, and the need of media for preventing panic and fostering people's understanding by ‘checking the source and information twice’. (shrink)

The singular ‘farm’ is increasingly a place of ever-greater multitudes, a deceptive and porous whole that is, in so many ways, very much less than the sum of its constituent parts. What might stand as a seemingly fixed entity or unit is, in reality, a constant flow and passage of multiple life ( zoe) and individual lives ( bios). To borrow from Heraclitus’ attributed aphorism, you can never really go into the same farm twice. Yet farms are, arguably, amongst the (...) most defining sites of contemporary human/animal relations. The vast majority of the 24 or so billion terrestrial farm animals that are kept and grown for human and other consumption at any one time do so on farms, with an increasing proportion of them on large scale, industrial farm units. Here is where kingdoms most emphatically meet, collide, intertwine, entangle, respond: the sovereign and the beast, the beast and the sovereign. Three questions: who meets who on the farm, what do they meet, and how does such meeting matter? (shrink)

An idea has been increasingly gaining currency in Western democracies since the 1950s and '60s, namely the idea of the omnipotence of the media, a power that has become more pronounced as the influence of politics has become steadily weaker. This omnipotence of the media manifests itself, firstly, in the fabrication of individualistic tastes and desires, and secondly in the fragmentation of public space and social relations, if not the explosion of public space and social relations.These are the themes to (...) which I would like to return in the hope of not rewriting the story of Pangloss. I think no one will dispute the idea that the media has played, and continues to play, a crucial role in the dynamics of postmodern individualism. The norm of private happiness, the value of pleasure, and the ideal of intimate fulfilment are diffused throughout mass culture, the press and television. Thanks to the media, the fulfilment of these desires and the love of oneself has become a socially legitimated form of behaviour, an ideal for the masses. In celebrating private pleasures and private happiness, the media have undoubtedly contributed to the decline of tradition, strict moral codes and ideological commitments. Living in the present, living for oneself and in accordance with these desires have become the legitimate norm, and in this sense the media have without a doubt contributed to the culture of individualism.That is not all. Television is known to have played a role in the erosion of social life, in the erosion of certain forms of community life like the neighbourhood, the street, and the café, which had been important areas of social interaction since the nineteenth century. Television has put an end to people going out regularly to bars, cafés or on the streets; everyone goes home in the evening to watch the news or look at a film. The traditional social life of men has largely disappeared, and men spend much more time with their family and in private life. Leisure culture and the media have converged in such a way that privileges pleasures enjoyed in the intimacy of the home.For the same reason, television has caused the attendance of cinema, sporting events and theatre to drop. Television has shattered traditional forms of social and public life in favour of the consumption of images within the home, and this trend will undoubtedly only become more pronounced as the number of familial receivers increases, such as video machines, internet, cable, what one can in short call `fragmented television'.Access to information and images is becoming more and more personalized; there are greater possibilities for everyone to construct his own timetable and to escape from the homogeneity of media programming. From this point of view, the media appear to be as much an instrument for the creation of homogeneous, mass tastes as an instrument of individualization, and the privatization of life. In this context, and despite its obvious shortcomings, McLuhan's famous formula `the medium is the message' seems to me correct. (shrink)

Historical outlines of fin-de-siècle European criminology have typically focused on the debate between supporters of Lombrosian anatomical determinism on the one hand, and the more environmentalist (i.e. French) explanations of crime on the other. What has gone largely unnoticed, however, is how the basic tenets of the 'French school' were shaped by an implicit moral concern with mass consumption and indi vidualism, particularly in regard to juvenile crime. This paper examines the psychosocial conception of the juvenile criminal - (...) within the par ticular context of fin-de-siècle culture, social theory and political ideol ogy - to delineate how French criminologists encountered economic modernity and reconceptualized their understanding of the relationship between the child, the family and the state. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:René Girard and the Rhetoric of ConsumptionKathleen M. Vandenberg (bio)The work of René Girard, so productively applied in so many different fields—in theology, in anthropology, in literature, to name a few—has yet to be recognized or applied in the field of rhetorical studies. Yet there exists, I argue, a need precisely for Girard's theories as the over 2000 year-old discipline enters the twenty-first century.Girard's theory of mimetic or triangular (...) desire can be used as a model for understanding persuasion, because it is, among other things, an "expression of a basic set of ideas on... the dynamics of the self and human relations" (1996, vii). Girard's concern is with human relationships and, in a sense, with how individuals in these relationships act rhetorically upon themselves and others. Girard's mimetic theory hinges on the dynamics of imitation and explains how individuals relate through both the conscious and the unconscious sharing of behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs in certain situations. These situations are clearly rhetorical, as can be seen by examining the definition of the "rhetorical situation" set forth by Lloyd Bitzer, in his seminal 1968 article, "The Rhetorical Situation." Bitzer proposes three conditions that must be met for a rhetorical situation to exist: an exigency or imperfection marked by urgency; a rhetorical audience or an audience that can act; and constraints, or elements that have the power to constrain the decision and action needed to modify the exigency (7). In mass-mediated modern rhetoric, I argue that the exigencies exist externally (in the culture) and internally, the audience is both others and self, and the constraints are the alienation, mystification, and desire generated by hierarchies. Twentieth-century rhetorical theorist Kenneth Burke advises that "we must often think of rhetoric not in terms of some one particular address, but as a general body of identifications that owe their convincingness much more to trivial repetition and dull daily reënforcement than to exceptional rhetorical skill" (1950, 26). Such is the case with this particular form of rhetoric, which is generated and propagated by mimetic contagion and thus is best more narrowly defined as sociological propaganda, a type of propaganda [End Page 259] theorized by Jacques Ellul in Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (1975).Ellul, the first to distinguish between political propaganda and sociological propaganda, proposes that the latter encompasses social behaviors "much more vast and less certain" than those of political propaganda (1975, 62). These social behaviors permit the penetration of an ideology in a society, a penetration that is achieved through the active participation of the masses. Sociological propaganda, as Ellul describes it, works from within; it is dependent on the individual's willingness and ability to persuade him- or herself and others. Sociological propaganda, Ellul posits, is created when members of a group behave in such a way as to influence the attitudes, actions, and lifestyles of others; often this behavior is unconscious, unintentional, and spontaneous.In these ways, the rhetoric of sociological propaganda operates in a markedly different fashion than more "traditional" rhetoric, which is largely understood to operate as a unilateral transaction in which an individual orator actively, openly, and orally works to move a relatively passive but physically present audience to act in accordance with the orator's own beliefs through a formally delivered speech. In its reliance on the interaction and cooperation of the many rather than the centrality and dominance of one speaker, in its acceptance of unintentional, spontaneous, and unconscious persuasion, in its dependence on the modern mass media, and in the limitless and nebulous nature of its boundaries in time and space, sociological propaganda constitutes a type of rhetoric heretofore insufficiently addressed by rhetorical studies. Although existing perspectives in rhetorical criticism have certainly addressed some aspects of this rhetoric, sociological propaganda is not easily explained with the terminology of traditional rhetorical criticism or easily approached from traditional rhetorical perspectives.This article asserts that the best way to approach and understand such propaganda is through the perspective of René Girard. Approaching this propaganda from a Girardian perspective permits us to look beyond the symbols of sociological propaganda and analyze our own responsibility in rhetorical... (shrink)

The book in front of you is the first international academic volume on the legal, philosophical and economic aspects of the rise of 3D printing. In recent years 3D printing has become a hot topic. Some claim that it will revolutionize production and mass consumption, enabling consumers to print anything from clothing, automobile parts and guns to various foods, medication and spare parts for their home appliances. This may significantly reduce our environmental footprint, but also offers potential for (...) innovation and creativity. At the same time 3D printing raises social, ethical, regulatory and legal questions. If individuals can print anything they want, how does this affect existing systems of intellectual property rights? What are the societal consequences of the various types of products one can print with a 3D printer, for example weapons? Should all aspects of 3D printing be regulated, and if so, how and to what ends? How will businesses (have to) change their way of working and their revenue model in light of the shift to printing-on-demand? How will the role of product designers change in a world where everyone has the potential to design their own products? These and other questions are addressed in high quality and in-depth contributions by academics and experts, bringing together a wide variety of academic discussions on 3D printing from different disciplines as well as presenting new views, broadening the discussion beyond the merely technical dimension of 3D printing. Bibi van den Berg is Associate Professor at eLaw, the Center for Law and Digital Technologies at Leiden University, The Netherlands. Simone van der Hof is Full Professor at eLaw in Leiden and Eleni Kosta is Associate Professor at TILT, the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society at Tilburg University, The Netherlands. (shrink)

The article shows that Russian philosophical community is very sensitive towards the history and the current state of philosophy of science and of science studies, which are a subject matter of special interest by virtue of a dedicated space in the university education system. This status is also supported by its proximity to the international philosophical mainstream of the 20th century and its specific object, its connection with science. Philosophy of science at the same time retains some neutrality in relation (...) to the dominant political ideology and proposes claims for an objective knowledge. History of philosophy of science, therefore, serves largely as a history of philosophical rationalism, and its prospects are determined by the strengthening of the role of science in modern culture. However, the modern existence of philosophy of science is undergoing substantial change and experiences a series of challenges. Among them there are the humiliation of intellectuals and scientists in society political voluntarism, mass consumption and the cult of mysticism. Under these conditions, a philosophical study of science and technology is forced to take on the challenges of social criticism and shape special civil institutions for self-preservation. Thus philosophy of science integrates the political, ethical and even social engineering components that allow for treating it as a hard core of interdisciplinary interaction of all socio-humanitarian disciplines. (shrink)

This article deals with a phenomenological standpoint on paradoxicality of image-consciousness, i.e., an analogical representation in which an image possesses material support. Contrary to tradition, E. Husserl thought of imagination as being both an intuitive and a mediate act. Husserl’s opinion results from paradoxical nature of an image itself: an image appears but it doesn’t exist, while the exhibited thing does exist but doesn’t appear in proper sense. The paradoxicality of an image results in its double conflict — with actual (...) present and with Bildsujet. Initially, Husserl considered that the more analogous features an image possesses the less conflict exists between it and Bildsujet, but then his own experience made him change his mind. Examining a wax figure example, he came to the conclusion that this perfectly human-like object is rather a fiction than an image for it is constituted in a position-taking intention, not in a neutralized one. However, despite we’ve got knowledge of illusory nature of such an object our consciousness keeps on fluctuating between an imaging intention and a perceptual one. Unlike Husserl neither J.-P. Sartre nor M. Richir draws a distinction between an image and an illusion. Sartre considers the imaginary in its radical form to be a world of schizophrenic. As for Richir, he supposes the imaginary to be a mass-consumption product being used for ideological manipulations. He follows Plato’s intellectual strategy and characterizes an image as εἴδωλον which represents the reality instead of reaching it. Being saturated by visible an image lacks any gap that would give an impulse to a work of imagination. At the same time, Richir admits that simulacre does relate to art, whereas an artefact doesn’t. An artefact is made by technical device which imitates not reality but consciousness. Thus, an artefact in its turn is not a reality illusion but an illusion of a reality illusion. Its hallucinatory effect makes us believe that we look into a mirror of reality as if a technical agent had better access to it than a human eye does. (shrink)

With the development of mobile network communication technology, online shopping has further become the mainstream way of mass consumption. To this end, this article attempts to start from the innovation of e-commerce platform, uses today’s Internet of Things, collects relevant information, and collects relevant data through smart sensors, to establish a mobile e-commerce platform and analyze and explore the impact of e-commerce logistics customer satisfaction of factors revolve around e-commerce logistics. This article uses smart sensor technology to mine (...) and analyze e-commerce information data and then design and build a new mobile e-commerce platform. Taking the two major e-commerce platforms of Jingdong and Taobao as examples, through online evaluation surveys, the importance of factors affecting logistics service quality and customer satisfaction under different logistics distribution models was explored and analyzed. Under JD’s selfoperated logistics distribution model, users pay the most attention to the integrity of the delivered goods, the accuracy of the delivery time, and the service attitude of the delivery personnel. The importance is ranked second, first, and third, reaching 48.36%, 50.36%, and 61.64%, respectively. Under the third-party logistics distribution model of Taobao, the main influencing factors are the integrity of the delivered goods, the accuracy of the delivery time, the importance of outer packaging, and the importance of product integrity, reaching 37.52%, 41.1%, and 24.29 %, respectively. (shrink)

I recall an old man selling Paul Lafargue’s Right to be Lazy on a busy street in the Latin Quarter in the 1980s. At the time, I was writing then my first book on the history of work time and leisure and felt by seeing this strange and grumpy man so energetically promoting the nearly forgotten work of Marx’s son-in-law somehow vindicated in my efforts. Paul Lafargue’s pamphlet makes an interesting assumption: The “natural” state of human being was relaxation and (...) that only a century or so of propaganda convinced the naïve worker and labor movement to embrace the doctrine of the “right” to work. The industrial revolution had produced the craziness of workers’ overproduction and legions of savants and servants for the small utterly unbusy rich. Once freed from the illusion of the right to work, machines, Lafargue insisted, would liberate us all from the drudgery of labor and let us live as the ancient Greek philosophers had dreamed—but without the dependence upon slaves. Lafargue’s view was hardly unique for its day. Many in the late nineteenth century believed that overwork caused production gluts and the irrational excesses of the rich. Busyness was a false doctrine of modern capitalism that was devoted to endlessly extending and intensifying work. Before and after him, many fought to win freedom from busyness with the reduction of worktime. But Lafargue’s dream that mechanical progress would liberate humanity from labor hardly happened. Instead, the “overproduction” that ceaseless toil created was “absorbed” by mass consumption. Even the “wastefulness” of the rich and their minions came to be seen merely as indifferent contributions to the Gross Domestic Product. So what happened? (shrink)

The transformations that have affected the character of paid work for at least the last three decades under the impact of the “third industrial revolution,” along with the associated processes of globalization, demand that we rethink both the idea of work and the idea of leisure. It is necessary to move beyond the specific opposition between work time and time “free” of work as it was defined and established by the character of work in the twentieth century. The post-Fordist form (...) of work allows us to glimpse a previously unsuspected degree of freedom, responsability, and personal creativity that can be related in a positive and reciprocal manner with the notion of leisure, here understood in terms of intellectual and cultural enhancement rather than simply in terms of diversion, entertainment or mass consumption. In this sense, leisure can become one of the purposes of work and not merely a flight from the sphere of work. (shrink)

Globalization is often seen as the final stage in the transition towards a market economy. It is argued that a side-effect of globalization is cultural homogeneity and loss of life world, or ‘McDonaldization’. McDonaldization represents the rationalization of society in the quest for extreme efficiency. More recently, Meštrović has argued that the rationalization of emotions has also occurred and that Western societies are entering a postemotional phase. In postemotional societies there has been a separation of emotion from action. The result (...) is synthetic, manufactured emotions manipulated and standardized for mass consumption. In this paper I explore what it means to nurse in a ‘postemotional society’ and what impact this dulling of the emotions has had on a profession that locates ‘care’ as its central defining concept. My aim is to generate critical discussion of the shape and direction of contemporary society and the role of nursing within it. (shrink)

The article shows that Russian philosophical community is very sensitive towards the history and the current state of philosophy of science and of science studies, which are a subject matter of special interest by virtue of a dedicated space in the university education system. This status is also supported by its proximity to the international philosophical mainstream of the 20th century and its specific object, its connection with science. Philosophy of science at the same time retains some neutrality in relation (...) to the dominant political ideology and proposes claims for an objective knowledge. History of philosophy of science, therefore, serves largely as a history of philosophical rationalism, and its prospects are determined by the strengthening of the role of science in modern culture. However, the modern existence of philosophy of science is undergoing substantial change and experiences a series of challenges. Among them there are the humiliation of intellectuals and scientists in society political voluntarism, mass consumption and the cult of mysticism. Under these conditions, a philosophical study of science and technology is forced to take on the challenges of social criticism and shape special civil institutions for self-preservation. Thus philosophy of science integrates the political, ethical and even social engineering components that allow for treating it as a hard core of interdisciplinary interaction of all socio-humanitarian disciplines. (shrink)

In 1904-5, Max Weber famously argued that Calvinism had supplied early capitalism with a "spirit" (Geist) without which such capitalist virtues as methodical devotion to task would not have developed. More recently Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello in Le Nouvel Espirit de Capitalisme have argued that capitalism always has an esprit, and have traced in outline the history of the spirit of capitalism for the last one hundred years. In my paper I will modify their work to argue that psychoanalysis (...) made a crucial contribution to the spirit of the second industrial revolution (mass production and mass consumption), a contribution that helped reorient modern capitalism toward its contemporary, consumerist direction. This reorientation, I suggest, reflected a fundamental change in the character of the family: the rise of modern personal life. This change, moreover, cannot be understood through sociological means alone since it involved unconscious or depth psychological changes in modern character structure. Highly ambiguous, we are still grappling with its implications. (shrink)

A primary contribution of this essay is to provide a survey of the human and environmental impacts of livestock production. We will find that the mass consumption of animals is a primary reason why humans are hungry, fat, or sick and is a leading cause behind the depletion and pollution of waterways, the degradation and deforestation of the land, the extinction of species, and the warming of the planet. Recognizing these harms, this essay will consider various solutions being (...) proposed to “shrink” livestock’s long shadow, including proposed “technical” or “market” solutions, a transition to “new agrarian” methods, and a vegetarian or vegan diet. Though important and morally relevant qualitative differences exist between industrial and non-industrial methods, this essay will conclude that, given the present and projected size of the human population, the morality and sustainability of one’s diet are inversely related to the proportion of animals and animal products one consumes. (shrink)

This wide-ranging introduction to the special issue on Automobilities examines various dimensions of the automobile system and car cultures. In its broadest sense we can think of many automobilities - modes of autonomous, self-directed movement. It can be argued that there are many different car cultures and autoscapes which operate around the world, which cannot be seen as making driving a uniform experience of movement in a controlled 'no-place' space. Yet, there clearly is an increasingly globalizing car system, conceptualized as (...) a powerful socio-economic and technological complex which sustains the car as a key object of mass production and mass consumption, which has impacted on spatial organization through roads, city layout, suburban housing and shopping malls and demands new forms of social life, sociability and time-space flexibility. This automobile system currently accounts for some 1.2 million deaths through traffic accidents a year world-wide, with the reversal of the long normalization of this form of 'mass murder,' now seen as a key topic for public health authorities. At the same time while it is potentially possible to subject cars to greater surveillance and systemic control through information technology, this in itself may not automatically lead to a reduction of accidents. In recent years the car has become a complex communicative platform for multi-tasking, a command centre for telephone, television, Internet etc., a place of work and instrumental tasking; but also a place of dwelling and refuge, a comfort zone for emotional decontrol via the sound system. Something which requires a more flexible driving habitus in which the senses are reconfigured and extended through the technology, as driving increasingly depends on the software as we move to intelligent cars and roads. Yet this is also something which generates an expanding set of new risks. The logic is for the driver to become the auto pilot and the automobile to become a sort of datasuit wrap. Yet it is not surprising that this view of the controlled safe car should also summon up its opposite: the car as dangerous and powerful, as a vehicle for excitement and speed. Especially so given that car racing practically originated alongside the birth of the automobile and is now itself a massive global industry whose imagery is central to the marketing of many types of cars. (shrink)

In recent years, at least in the so-called western societies, a clear trend has been established to consume products that aim to promote a state of nostalgia in the consumer: fashion, cinema, television... everything that concerns mass consumption, in its aesthetics, it dresses with elements that try to evoke part of its target's past, and it works. In this article we will analyse, understanding consumption only as the most obvious expression, what motivates us to seek stimuli that (...) evoke the past, what pushes us to it and how much does the state of anguish to which the type of circumstance draws us have to do with it that we live. We will try to demonstrate how nostalgia, beyond topics, is offered as the most accessible and effective refuge to temporarily mask that anguish caused by a medium perceived as inhospitable and fragmented, and without the need to renounce itself. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Spirit of Settler Colonialism and the City Streets:A Response to Mishuana GoemanErin C. Tarveri want thank dr. goeman for her excellent paper and for introducing us to these extraordinary artists. Their work is beautiful and important, and I am grateful for the opportunity to witness it and think about it and to consider in particular in its relation to its setting in Los Angeles.In what follows, I want (...) to consider that setting—a city, as Dr. Goeman notes, containing some of "the most expensive real estate properties in the United States," commercial areas officially defined by "colonial encompassing property logics," and marked by "noise and [the] reverberation of mass consumerism" ("Caring for Landscapes 57). My interest will be in putting Dr. Goeman's analysis of these works and the Indigenous artist-activists who create them in dialogue with Jane Addams's diagnosis of the problems of early twentieth-century American urban life in her book The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets. I will suggest that Dr. Goeman's paper illuminates the limitations of Addams's approach to responding to the alienation of modern urban life—which, while rightly critical of the harms of mass consumer culture and the reduction of city life to economic productivity in conditions of industrialization, does not grapple with its own implication in settler colonialism and dispossession, and therefore cannot care for the land or its inhabitants as these artists invite us to do. I will also invite her to reflect on whether Addams's suggestion that play and recreation are essential components of urban human flourishing is borne out in the work of these artists.Jane Addams, in 1909, discussed the problems of urban life in post-Industrial Revolution Chicago in similar terms to those Dr. Goeman uses to describe the contemporary landscape of Los Angeles. The contemporary city, Addams writes, in forgoing spaces for public play, art, creativity, and non-production, has "entered upon a most difficult and dangerous experiment … at the very moment when the city has become distinctly industrial, [End Page 71] and daily labor is continually more monotonous and subdivided" (4–5). In this context, young people are increasingly alienated and isolated, valued solely for the products of their labor, and desperate for social connection. The playfulness and creativity of youth cannot be entirely stifled, yet without clear public spaces or institutions for outlets, young people become easy targets for capitalists who promise pleasure and self-actualization through consumption—of liquor, of fashion, of music, and so on. Lamenting the impoverished state that the city of mass consumption leaves us in, Addams writes:The spontaneous joy, the clamor for pleasure, the desire of the young people to appear finer and better and altogether more lovely than they really are, the idealization not only of each other but of the whole earth which they regard but as a theater for their noble exploits, the unworldly ambitions, the romantic hopes, the make-believe world in which they live, if properly utilized, what might they not do to make our sordid cities more beautiful, more companionable? And yet at the present moment every city is full of young people who are utterly bewildered and uninstructed in regard to the basic experience which must inevitably come to them, and which has varied, remote and indirect expressions.(15–16)There is, for Addams, a basic human need for play, creativity, and connection—to a community and to the natural world itself—whose unsatisfaction in a city devoted entirely to industry is nothing short of dehumanizing. So basic are these needs that they cry out for fulfillment in the most unexpected moments. She quotes a young man who describes his experience thusly:I never had a chance to go into the country when I was a kid, but I remember one day when I had to deliver a package way out on the west side, that I saw a flock of sheep in Douglas Park. I had never thought that a sheep could be anywhere but in a picture, and when I saw those big white spots on the green grass beginning to move and to turn into sheep, I... (shrink)

Iran, as a country that has never been colonized, underwent a rapid modernization process, which arose from its internal pressures. Starting from 1945, with the rise of globalism at the end of World War II, a new stage of modernization began in Iran which continued to grow and foster the culture of mass consumption. Globalization also led to the rise of different maternities in the housing sector. Focusing on Tehran, the dominant tendency to create a modern society based (...) on nationalism and modernism values, led to the creation of a very new image of the city, at odds with its introverted urban form till early of the twentieth century. The majority of urban policies were based on the need to create a major change in public life and to revolutionize the socio-political aspects of Iranian society. This chapter has been divided into three chronological periods. The first section Planning the Metropolis aims to focus on the idea of Tehran as a modern capital back in the 1950s and late 1960s with a special focus on class segregation and housing politics. The second part of this chapter Housing as a Revolution has a special focus on the transformation of housing strategies in Iran after the 1978-79 Islamic revolution. The third part Post-Revolution focuses on the current policies for the housing sector and construction economy. As a result of the imposition of US sanctions on the Iranian economy after unilaterally abandoning the Iran nuclear deal, the country’s economy has been hit hard by Tehran’s inability to export oil. Inflation has also hit the housing sector. In general, this chapter aims to bring forward the idea of housing as politics in modern Tehran through a critical and historical perspective. (shrink)

The fast levels of industrialization, urbanization, globalization, and expansion of mass consumption that most countries in the world are experiencing today have led to environmental destruction and climate change, eventually threatening the survival of the Earth and humanity. Especially in the case of South Korea, where per capita greenhouse gas emissions have risen to the third highest in the world, there is an urgent need to raise public awareness of the risks of climate change and initiate a more (...) active societal response. This study examines Korean news media trends related to sustainability and explore suggestions for sustainable measures in the Anthropocene. In this way, a total of 1,203 articles was collected, including material from the news archives of newspapers, broadcasting TV, and Internet news channels. The articles have been analyzed by means of word-count-based analysis and topic modeling. The results of this study suggest that there is a need to develop and activate articles that contain more information about the effectiveness of the social response to sustainability and climate change in the Anthropocene. (shrink)

Recent archaeological theory has show that images of the past have carried a particularly strong resonance within modern social groups. This volume explores the immeasurable impact that the phenomenon of archaeology has had on the representation of the past in the modern world. Modern society’s ‘archaeological imagination’ conceives of archaeology as a producer of images of the past which become representations of modern group identities. If archaeology is utilized by public groups to construct and represent identities, then what are archaeologists (...) to do with that public? The very fact that the public is interested in the past and in archaeological research is an opportunity for archaeology to engage that public. Participation in the public’s modern interest in archaeology, however, puts archaeology at risk. The growing role of archaeology and heritage within the economics of tourism, has led to a commodification of archaeological knowledge and experience for consumption. This volume begins a discourse on the implications of performing archaeology in a world dominated by modern trends of mass production, mass replication and representation of cultural forms and mass consumption of images of the past. The contributors explore to what extent we are experiencing a crisis of representation of the past due to contemporary consumption of mass-produced replicas, simulations, images and experiences of the past. To work through this crisis the contributors in this volume are exploring opportunities for development within archaeological thought and practice. Their arguments illustrate a move towards active, participatory and poetic archaeological thought and practice. Rather than focusing on what is produced through process (artifacts, monuments, interpretive centers, etc.), they are concerned with what they are doing, about taking part, about participating reflexively in the tradition of understanding and expressing understanding of the past. This volume does not conjure up romantic beliefs about the project of archaeology, but rather, it signals a fundamental revision of archaeology - not what it is, but what it can do. (shrink)

This is an examination of the significance of Gandhi's social philosophy for development. It is argued that, when seen in light of Gandhi's social philosophy, the concepts of appropriate technology and basic needs take on new meaning. The Gandhian approach can be identified with theoriginal "basic needs" strategy for international development. Gandhi's approach helps to provide greater equity, or "distributive justice," by promoting technology that is appropriate to "basic needs". Gandhi's social philosophy has been neglected by most development specialists, with (...) only a few exceptions. This analysis attempts to draw out some aspects of M.K. Gandhi's background and his thinking aboutswadeshi andswaraj. Gandhi's ideas, which emerged out of an "Indic" meta-cultural background, are based on an emphasis on equity. Gandhi's syncretic Indic background includes a belief in what Bateson, writing about Bali, Indonesia, has called the "steady state." Development activities should be carried out in a phased manner that does not disturb the beneficial aspects of dynamic equilibrium, but that does promote "positive development." A.T. is particularly useful within the context of a basic needs approach to international development because use of A.T. is probably more likely to lead to equitable growth. The "economic growth" strategy, utilizing "advanced technology" exclusively, has caused unemployment and has not led to effective "trickle down," much less "high mass consumption." In many developing countries the poorest 20% of the population are worse off in 1990 than they were in 1980. By making use of the "advantage of backwardness" and viewing development in terms of long-term impacts, a basic needs approach using A.T. is more likely to lead to a positive impact on third world food systems than a pure "economic growth" strategy. (shrink)

This is an examination of the significance of Gandhi's social philosophy for development. It is argued that, when seen in light of Gandhi's social philosophy, the concepts of appropriate technology and basic needs take on new meaning. The Gandhian approach can be identified with theoriginal "basic needs" strategy for international development. Gandhi's approach helps to provide greater equity, or "distributive justice," by promoting technology that is appropriate to "basic needs". Gandhi's social philosophy has been neglected by most development specialists, with (...) only a few exceptions. This analysis attempts to draw out some aspects of M.K. Gandhi's background and his thinking aboutswadeshi andswaraj. Gandhi's ideas, which emerged out of an "Indic" meta-cultural background, are based on an emphasis on equity. Gandhi's syncretic Indic background includes a belief in what Bateson, writing about Bali, Indonesia, has called the "steady state." Development activities should be carried out in a phased manner that does not disturb the beneficial aspects of dynamic equilibrium, but that does promote "positive development." A.T. is particularly useful within the context of a basic needs approach to international development because use of A.T. is probably more likely to lead to equitable growth. The "economic growth" strategy, utilizing "advanced technology" exclusively, has caused unemployment and has not led to effective "trickle down," much less "high mass consumption." In many developing countries the poorest 20% of the population are worse off in 1990 than they were in 1980. By making use of the "advantage of backwardness" and viewing development in terms of long-term impacts, a basic needs approach using A.T. is more likely to lead to a positive impact on third world food systems than a pure "economic growth" strategy. (shrink)

Islamic environmentalism is an intellectual movement whose representatives discuss contemporary environmental problems in the language of Islamic theology. This field includes Shariah-based environmental law, environmental activism, and environmental philosophy. This article is an overview of the genealogy of this philosophical trend: key names will be listed and their contributions to the development of this movement will be analyzed. For example, the legacy of Sayyid Hossein Nasr, considered the founding father of Islamic environmentalism, will be examined in detail. The religious and (...) ethical program of this philosophical movement will be analyzed in detail. The categorical apparatus to which Islamic eco-activists, philosophers, and ulema turned as the Islamic environmental agenda expanded will also be examined, such as how the concepts of khalifa, hima, and misan were conceptualized. Philosophers whose writings we will turn to include Iraqi philosopher and jurist Mawil Izzi Dien, British eco-activist Fazlun Khalid, Egyptian Grand Mufti Ali Jumaa, and representatives of so-called “Western Islam” Ziauddin Sardar and Tariq Ramadan. The example of Indonesia will be used to examine how Islamic eco-theology has formed the basis of a multilevel environmental policy. The thesis of the fundamental contradiction underlying Islamic environm entalism is put forward. On the one hand, this movement in its present form genetically dates back to the European protest movements of the 1960s and 70s, which opposed the culture of mass consumption, impersonal materialism, and overproduction. On the other hand, an equally important part of the rhetoric of a number of Islamic modernists, including on ecology, is the emphasis on the break with Western neoliberal values. The special role of social media in the promotion of Islamic eco-activism is noted separately. (shrink)

Is the classical model of action, damage, and responsibility, which is based on the idea that it is always possible to individuate the direct or indirect damages resulting from a certain individual or collective action, still valid in the case of the environmental consequences of industrial production and mass consumption? We argue that the absence of a classical plaintiff in these cases implies that we have to conceive of the consequences of our individual actions (as consumers of industrial (...) goods for example) in a new manner: the moral and juridical evaluation of our actions and the assessment of individual responsibility is no more bound to a clearly identifiable damage. (shrink)