Question

discuss What Social Logic of Consumption is by Jean Baudrillard's book

Answer 1

Baudrillard's second major work ' The consumer society' offers a greatly expanded treatment of consumption and is certainly his most recognisably sociological work.For Baudrillard consumption is fundamentally , the act of consuming, spanning conscious and unconscious levels, the idea of the self, or as he terms it ' the consumption of consumption'.His social logic of consumption can be better understood With the help of the following points

* According to Baudrillard , consumers are actors with in the social system that is perpetuated by the use of it, no matter for what end.

* consumption and its attendant social system survive as a language which consumers choose to spreak through.

* Therefore consumption assures a certain type of communication in the society. Others will regard the failure to communicate as anti-social.

*Need is an unfulfillable desire for distinction and has nothing to do with pleasure. Needs are like symptoms in hypochondriac, a hysteric.

* When we consume, we never do it of our own.

* so consumption is direct and totally collective.

Baudrillard has also opined that consumption helps to atomise individuals, enhancing social control.He argues that the world of products see consumers as a group in order to classify them into different statuses.

To Baudrillard, consumption isn't the physical act of buying or using an object but the idealistic act of appropriating a signifier,the idea and meaning of the object or message. Its an activity consisting of systematic manipulation of signs.

He even admitted that his ideas concerning the transformation of society into one dominated by sign consumption apply only in limited circumstances.