The Production of Consumers and the Formation of Desire

The Production of Consumers and the Formation of Desire
Author: Christine Darr
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 179
Release: 2022-12-13
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1978707061

We live in a society surrounded by stuff and bombarded with advertisements that try to convince us that shopping will improve our lives. Sometimes our lives do improve, yet our purchases are more often motivated by an impulse to satisfy immediate desires rather than reflective deliberation about how our purchasing choices enable us to live the lives we want. Christian moral reflection often criticizes this conundrum as “mindless consumerism,” arguing that it pulls Christians away from loving God above all things. While such critiques often encourage Christians to focus their desire on God rather than material goods, we might still wonder how we can exercise such control over our desires. By attending to desire itself ─ how it arises, how it is shaped by social context, and its role in cultivating a virtuous life ─ we can learn how to desire and then act in ways that are more consonant with our conception of what it means to live well. Within the Christian tradition, Thomas Aquinas offers a compelling model of human desire that, when juxtaposed with Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of social practices, can help us make more considered judgments about how to navigate the consumer society in which we live.

Capitalism and Desire

Capitalism and Desire
Author: Todd McGowan
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2016-09-20
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0231542216

Despite creating vast inequalities and propping up reactionary world regimes, capitalism has many passionate defenders—but not because of what it withholds from some and gives to others. Capitalism dominates, Todd McGowan argues, because it mimics the structure of our desire while hiding the trauma that the system inflicts upon it. People from all backgrounds enjoy what capitalism provides, but at the same time are told more and better is yet to come. Capitalism traps us through an incomplete satisfaction that compels us after the new, the better, and the more. Capitalism's parasitic relationship to our desires gives it the illusion of corresponding to our natural impulses, which is how capitalism's defenders characterize it. By understanding this psychic strategy, McGowan hopes to divest us of our addiction to capitalist enrichment and help us rediscover enjoyment as we actually experienced it. By locating it in the present, McGowan frees us from our attachment to a better future and the belief that capitalism is an essential outgrowth of human nature. From this perspective, our economic, social, and political worlds open up to real political change. Eloquent and enlivened by examples from film, television, consumer culture, and everyday life, Capitalism and Desire brings a new, psychoanalytically grounded approach to political and social theory.

The Production of Consumers and the Formation of Desire

The Production of Consumers and the Formation of Desire
Author: Christine Darr
Publisher: Fortress Academic
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2023-02-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9781978707054

Many critiques of consumerism inadequately consider the complex interactions between individuals, their desires, and their social practices. Christine Darr provides an analysis of desire within consumer culture by integrating insights from moral theology and sociology and offers intellectual resources for more deliberate decision-making.

David Foster Wallace and "The Long Thing"

David Foster Wallace and
Author: Marshall Boswell
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2014-07-31
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 162892800X

Of the twelve books David Foster Wallace published both during his lifetime and posthumously, only three were novels. Nevertheless, Wallace always thought of himself primarily as a novelist. From his college years at Amherst, when he wrote his first novel as part of a creative honors thesis, to his final days, Wallace was buried in a novel project, which he often referred to as "the Long Thing." Meanwhile, the short stories and journalistic assignments he worked on during those years he characterized as "playing hooky from a certain Larger Thing." Wallace was also a specific kind of novelist, devoted to producing a specific kind of novel, namely the omnivorous, culture-consuming "encyclopedic" novel, as described in 1976 by Edward Mendelson in a ground-breaking essay on Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. David Foster Wallace and "The Long Thing" is a state-of-the art guide through Wallace's three major works, including the generation-defining Infinite Jest. These essays provide fresh new readings of each of Wallace's novels as well as thematic essays that trace out patterns and connections across the three works. Most importantly, the collection includes six chapters on Wallace's unfinished novel, The Pale King, which will prove to be foundational for future scholars of this important text.

The Nineteenth-century Child and Consumer Culture

The Nineteenth-century Child and Consumer Culture
Author: Dennis Denisoff
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2008
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780754661566

This diverse collection addresses not only the roles assigned to children in the context of nineteenth-century consumer culture, but also children themselves as agents in the formation of that culture. Topics include child performers on the Victorian stag

An Introduction to Capitalism

An Introduction to Capitalism
Author: Paul Swanson
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 393
Release: 2012-12-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1136230750

Embedded in an historical account of the development of U.S. capitalism up to the present day, this book gives the reader a thorough description of the major aspects of the U.S. economy, as well as a theoretical understanding of the overall economy. A particular focus of this book is how free markets work in capitalism and the interrelationship between markets and the government. Of particular interest in the current economic situation is the question of what can the government do to get the economy going again. Underlying the standard economics text today is the fundamental belief that leaving markets as free as possible will lead to the ideal economy. Directly opposing this approach, this book takes a critical stance toward free markets. Rather than viewing markets as the ideal solution to almost all economic problems, this book argues that markets are not always the answer. On the contrary, they are often the problem, and must be corrected by government action. Related to this critical stance, and in a further departure from current economics texts, this book takes an explicitly Keynesian approach to the macro-economy. Rejecting the free market approach which dominates both micro- and macro-economics today, this book offers a fresh perspective on economics and the economy today.

Consumer Culture Theory

Consumer Culture Theory
Author: Eric J. Arnould
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 425
Release: 2018-06-30
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1526452111

Outlining the key themes, concepts and theoretical areas in the field, this book draws on contributions from prominent researchers to unravel the complexities of consumer culture by looking at how it affects personal identity, social interactions and the consuming human being. A field which is characterised as being theoretically challenging is made accessible through learning features that include case study material, critical reflection, research directions, further reading and a broad mix of the types of consumers and consumption contexts including emerging markets and economies. The structure of the book is designed to help students map the field in the way it is interpreted by researchers and follows the conceptual mapping in the classic Arnould & Thompson 2005 journal article. The book is organised into three parts - the Consumption Identity, Marketplace Cultures and the Socio-Historic Patterning of Consumption. Insight is offered into both the historical roots of consumer culture and the everyday experiences of navigating the contemporary marketplace. The book is supported by a collection of international case studies and real world scenarios, including: How Fashion Bloggers Rule the Fashion World; the Kendall Jenner Pepsi Commercial; Professional Beer Pong, Military Recruiting Campaigns, The World Health Organization and the Corporatization of Education. The go-to text for anyone new to CCT or postgraduate students writing a CCT-related thesis.

Hooked

Hooked
Author: Nir Eyal
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 203
Release: 2014-11-04
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0698190661

Revised and Updated, Featuring a New Case Study How do successful companies create products people can’t put down? Why do some products capture widespread attention while others flop? What makes us engage with certain products out of sheer habit? Is there a pattern underlying how technologies hook us? Nir Eyal answers these questions (and many more) by explaining the Hook Model—a four-step process embedded into the products of many successful companies to subtly encourage customer behavior. Through consecutive “hook cycles,” these products reach their ultimate goal of bringing users back again and again without depending on costly advertising or aggressive messaging. Hooked is based on Eyal’s years of research, consulting, and practical experience. He wrote the book he wished had been available to him as a start-up founder—not abstract theory, but a how-to guide for building better products. Hooked is written for product managers, designers, marketers, start-up founders, and anyone who seeks to understand how products influence our behavior. Eyal provides readers with: • Practical insights to create user habits that stick. • Actionable steps for building products people love. • Fascinating examples from the iPhone to Twitter, Pinterest to the Bible App, and many other habit-forming products.

Consumer Expectations

Consumer Expectations
Author: Richard Thomas Curtin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2019-02-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1108576931

Richard Curtin has directed the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment surveys for more than four decades. His analyses of recent trends in consumer expectations are regularly covered in the worldwide press. In this book, Curtin presents a new theory of expectations. Whereas conventional theories presume that consumers play a passive role in the macro economy, simply reacting to current trends in incomes, prices, and interest rates, Curtin proposes a new empirically consistent theory. He argues that expectations are formed by an automatic process that utilizes conscious and nonconscious processes, passion and reason, information from public and private sources, and social networks. Consumers ultimately reach a decision that serves both the micro decision needs of individuals and reflects the common influence of the macro environment. Drawing on empirical observations, Curtin not only demonstrates the importance of consumer sentiment, but also how it can foreshadow the cyclical turning points in the economy.

Being Consumed

Being Consumed
Author: William T. Cavanaugh
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Total Pages: 116
Release: 2008-03-17
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0802845614

Should Christians be for or against the free market? For or against globalization? How are we to live in a world of scarcity? William Cavanaugh uses Christian resources to incisively address basic economic matters -- the free market, consumer culture, globalization, and scarcity -- arguing that we should not just accept these as givens but should instead change the terms of the debate.Among other things, Cavanaugh discusses how God, in the Eucharist, forms us to consume and be consumed rightly. Examining pathologies of desire in contemporary "free market" economies, Being Consumed puts forth a positive and inspiring vision of how the body of Christ can engage in economic alternatives. At every turn, Cavanaugh illustrates his theological analysis with concrete examples of Christian economic practices.