Deontologization of culture and identity transformation in the context of a consumer society

Abstract

The article substantiates the point that deontologization of culture as a process of collapse of principal value foundations resulted in the absence of stable worldview guidelines and in the establishment of principles of relativism and pluralism. Cultivation of an unlimited choice in the absence of a value-semantic hierarchy, which is characteristic of the Western European culture organized around mass consumption, has led to the inability to create stable identification models. As a result, one of the main problems of contemporary society has become the loss of a stable, holistic identity by a person. The instability of existence, the loss of value-semantic foundations assigned a task of constant self-construction of identity to a person. The principle of consumption as the dominant feature of modern times characterizes an individual lifestyle of a person. In the process of the historical transition to a consumer society, the source of identity formation shifted from the labour sphere to the sphere of consumption, leisure, entertainment. Self-identification of a person is closely related to consumerism. To a large extent, identity began to be determined by the consumer role rather than the class affiliation. As a result, consumption has become one of the main sources of self-identity. In consumer culture, identity is deprived of a fixed centre and appears as an infinitely transformed, mobile thing shifting into the sphere of individual needs and desires; conscious feeling of oneself as a holistic identity becomes unclaimed. The ideology of consumption determines the lifestyle, preferences and character of a person. The media, which are the main identification tools in modern popular culture, offer models and patterns of behaviour that contribute to the formation of a consumer engaged in the search for the quality of his/her individual life.