Remember how Caitlyn Jenner was hailed as a hero? How she appeared on magazine covers and TV shows, sharing the details of her battle to overcome the great limitation of not being able to buy nail polish?
In the society of consumers, says Zygmunt Bauman, the only way to position oneself as a valid human being is by demonstrating as actively and flamboyantly as you can that you are ready and willing to consume. You have to be on the lookout for new opportunities to consume and make your consumption conspicuous.
One of the best ways to spur consumption is to effectuate an identity change. A “new you” will need to be outfitted with tons of stuff. It is the opportunity to purchase all this stuff that motivates every new identity change.
The society of consumers hails every successful bid for increased consumption as an act of heroism because that’s the only kind of activity it knows how to value. What can constitute a greater achievement in the eyes of consumers than refashioning yourself entirely to ensure that there is no product left that you won’t be able to buy?
At the same time, whenever the consumption – oriented identity construction is undermined, consumers erupt in rage. Remember Rachel Dolezal? She made consumers doubt that identities have any meaning. And that cast doubt on tons of sweet purchasing opportunities. So consumers freaked out.
Obviously, Bauman doesn’t mention Jenner or Dolezal in his book Consuming Life. The book was published in 2007, well before these events. But Bauman is a philosopher. He describes trends, and he’s really good at it.
In this post, I illustrated a single idea from his book. Bauman, however, packs every page with one such idea after another.
According to Bauman, our only road to success in the society of consumers is to offer ourselves up as an object of consumption on the job market. This product needs to be constantly perfected, marketed and rebranded. Curiously, such a campaign of marketing and rebranding of self is precisely the reason (aside from enjoyment) why I read Bauman’s books.
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