Page 269 - Cultural Theory

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••• Nick Stevenson •••

and political culture is currently swamped by synthetic commercialism. The argument
here is that practices of democratic engagement have been replaced by visits to shop-
ping malls, channel hopping and the culture of cool interactivity to be found on the
web. As we shall see, such views have a certain persuasive logic, but remain blind to
the ways in which the practice of citizenship may have changed within contempo-
rary societies. The other view, which I aim to consider here, is that consumerism pro-
vides a new basis for the practice of citizenship largely unappreciated by mainstream
political parties and more traditional frames of analysis. This view would argue that
the popularity of consumerism amongst ‘ordinary people’ speaks of a popular demo-
cratic revolution waiting to happen. Again, such a view opens interesting dimensions
into the debate, while being insufficiently appreciative of the ways in which con-
sumer societies undermine the quest for justice. My argument is that we need not
make a choice between either perspective.
The American social critic Daniel Bell (1976) has identified some of the historical
and cultural transformations and contradictions that led to the emergence of a con-
sumer society. The most evident contradiction within capitalism today being the
division of the economic structure (based upon efficiency and functional rationality)
and the cultural sphere (oriented around the aesthetic point of view and the pursuit
of diverse life-styles). Bell argues that capitalism was built upon a culture of self-
discipline and hard work that became opposed by modernist avant-garde movements
that propagated a desire for the new and anti-bourgeois sentiments more generally.
The culture of modernism was guided by the principles of life-style experimentation
and innovation which sought to critique the restrictive nature of the common cul-
ture of capitalism. For Bell there are clear links between the more expressive culture
originally propagated by artistic movements and what he calls the ‘consumptive
ethic’. Today the culture of the modernist avant-garde, on this reading, constitutes
rather than opposes bourgeois culture. The war between the culture of self-expression
and the conservative disciplines of hard work is over. The ideals of the Protestant
ethic (saving, industriousness and thrift) have been displaced through the operation
of the free market and the celebration of new consumer freedoms. The rise of con-
sumer culture has been built upon the displacement of the forms of self control
exhibited by smaller, less commercially defined communities. The new capitalism,
built upon mass marketing, rising standards of living and the expansion of debt and
credit, destroys the ability to defer gratification and replaces it with hedonism.
The contemporary author who has extended these arguments the furthest is
Zygmunt Bauman. For Bauman (1998), we have moved from a producer to a con-
sumer society. A producer society became defined through capitalism’s requirement
for an ever expanding supply of labour, collective provision, security through the
welfare state, the disciplines of the work ethic and a collective concern for the poor.
Under the rubric of consumer society, however, the duties of citizenship and the dis-
ciplines of work have become undermined by the desire of consumers to make indi-
vidualised choices within the market place. The consumer is easily excitable, quickly
bored, has few substantial commitments, and values individual choice above every-
thing else. The consumer, in terms of citizenship, is guided by aesthetics rather than
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