The loss of authentic being in the context of the consumer paradigm

The Complexity of Authenticity in Religious Innovation: “Alternative Worship” and Its Appropriation as “Fresh Expressions”

The thesis consists of four chapters. Chapter one introduces the author and the purpose of the study by providing a critical viewpoint to examine Salman Rushdie’s novel, Fury, from the perspective of sign operations and consumerism. Chapter two employs Jean Baudrillard’s social theory of sign, consumer culture, body/medium as message, the notion of authorship and the reader response as the main structure to illustrate the social context of the novel. Chapter three focuses on the literary analysis on Fury, discussing how Malik Solanka’s identities as a father, a lover, and an author in a consumer society influence his life and how his creations, Little Brain and The Puppet Kings, serve as commodities to influence, instead of as artifacts. Chapter four concludes that simulation through sign operations arouses sensual satisfactions but even problematizes the formation of identities. The readings by the readers and the consumers reframe the formation of authorship in the sign-dominated society. Multiple interpretations inflame fury and inspire creations. In this case, Rushdie writes the novel as the postmodern portraiture of metropolitan life.

At its core, this is a project about the contemporary crisis of authenticity. Using minimalism discourse as a site to explore this crisis, my research into the minimalist lifestyle and its critique of consumerism is guided by two questions. First, how is the concept of authenticity mobilized within minimalism discourse? And second, how does the notion of authenticity contribute to governing the minimalist lifestyle and shaping the minimalist subject? To explore these questions a selection of self-help texts, or pedagogical lifestyle resources, are used. The discursive sites explored herein include guru books, Reddit forums, a documentary, Instagram posts, TED talks, and media coverage on the minimalist lifestyle. These diverse data sites are analyzed using mixed- methods including discourse analysis, frame analysis, and elements of grounded theory, and are shaped by a governmentality approach to theory and methodology. The notion of authenticity is used to help naturalize governmentality and consumer culture. Minimalism, while offering a critique of consumerism, mobilizes authenticity in much the same way. The use of the rhetoric of authenticity within minimalism discourse takes the form of critique in three primary ways: (1) minimalists often express nostalgia for a pre-consumerism past, (2) minimalists tend to prioritize experiences over objects and (3), minimalists tend to distinguish between needs and consumer culture-created artificial wants in such a way that wants are deemed superfluous to living a fulfilling and meaningful life. What can be seen in minimalism discourse is a complex lifestyle oriented around highly intentional consumption practices and critical of individual participation in mass-consumption. Within this discourse, the rhetoric of authenticity is used as both a critique of consumerism and a justification for a highly regimented and responsibilized way of life that is, I argue, an example of governmentality in action at the level of the individual. It is my contention that through the incorporation of the rhetoric of authenticity, contemporary minimalism embodies neoliberal ways of thinking about the self as a project requiring continuous work.

Playing digital games can nurture wellbeing by helping players recover from daily stressors, cope with life's challenges, practice emotion regulation, and engage in meaningful social interaction; however, this same leisure activity can also result in problematic gaming (i.e., harmful play at the expense of healthy behaviors), and social isolation that damages wellbeing. Research consistently demonstrates that the value or harm of gaming on wellbeing cannot be determined solely from whether and how much people play, but rather depends on contingent factors related to the player, the game, and the gaming context. In this paper, we aim to model contingent factors that differentiate between beneficial and harmful outcomes within players of the same massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG). We model how passion for gaming—defined as a strong desire to engage in a beloved activity that is enjoyed and valued, in which time and energy is invested, and that ultimately integrates into a person's identity—affects loneliness and wellbeing. We employ the dualistic model that divides passion into harmonious passion (HP)—characterized by a balanced and authentic relationship with the beloved activity, and obsessive passion (OP)—characterized by preoccupation and inflexible persistence toward the loved activity. We sampled 300 frequent World of Warcraft (WoW) players, recruited from online forums, and used structural equation modeling (SEM) to investigate the effects of their passion for playing WoW on in-game social capital, loneliness, and wellbeing. We demonstrate that HP for playing WoW facilitates in-game social capital (both bridging and bonding), combats loneliness, and increases wellbeing, whereas OP also builds social capital, but these social ties do not combat loneliness, and OP is directly associated with increased loneliness. Further, the positive effect of HP on wellbeing is mediated through an increase in bonding social capital and a resulting decrease in loneliness. Our findings highlight that passion orientation is important for characterizing the relationship between gaming and wellbeing. We contribute to the conversation on combating problematic gaming, while also promoting digital gaming as an appealing leisure activity that provides enjoyment, recovery, and meaningful social interaction for the millions of gamers who benefit from its captivation.

Introduction There is, as Andrew Rowan dubs it, a “constant paradox” in the way we treat, relate to, and consume animals in our everyday lives (Arluke and Sanders 4). This paper examines this paradox in relation to the rise of vegetarianism as a new taste and consumer culture in the West. The first part of the paper, drawing upon Bourdieu, argues that vegetarian “taste” is fundamentally a social practice linked to class and gender. It then offers a preliminary theoretical sketch of the sociological drivers and consequences of vegetarianism in late-modernity, drawing on social theory. Having established the theoretical framework, the second part of the paper turns to an empirical analysis of the moral motivations and experiences of a selection of Australian bloggers. The key argument is that the bloggers narrate vegetarianism as a taste practice that entangles self-care with a larger assemblage of non-human responsibility that works to re-enchant a demoralised consumer modernity. Vegetarianism as Taste Practice “Taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier”, Pierre Bourdieu famously claimed (xxix). Bourdieu demonstrated the classificatory power of taste not only in relation to music, home décor, and art but also in relation to food. Taste, for Bourdieu, is a social process by which people actively communicate social position through classification of the judgements and preferences of both themselves and others. For example, he highlighted how the working-class dislike for fish was part of a wider class system of dispositions where the middle-class favour “the light, the refined and the delicate” defined in negation of working-class taste for “the heavy, the fat and the coarse” (182–83). How then do we read vegetarianism as a taste practice? First, we need to take Bourdieu’s point that vegetarianism is not simply an expression of personal preference, but is a social practice that articulates identity, group membership, and systems of cultural distinction. Bourdieu, while not writing about vegetarianism, did link meat eating to masculine and working-class displays of embodied strength and power—“warrior food”, as Nietzsche called it (Bennett 141). Meat, Bourdieu wrote, was “nourishing food par excellence, strong and strong-making, giving vigour, blood, and health is the dish for men” (190). On this reading, meat avoidance can be located as part of a middle-class taste for the “light” and the “healthy” but also a rejection of working-class and masculine food taste practices. Vegetarianism, like buying fair-trade, organic, and eco-friendly, might be theorised as a symbolic device for enacting middle-class displays of cultural distinction based on claims to moral purity and virtue. On the gender front, female vegetarians conform to taste trends for middle-class women—light, not fattening, and healthy—whereas for men, vegetarianism is linked to the rejection of “hegemonic” masculinity and patriarchy (Bourdieu; Connell). Empirical research partially lends support to this depiction, showing that vegetarianism is predominantly practiced by female, middle-class, university-qualified professionals working in service-sector or white-collar occupations (RealEat; Keane and Willetts). This kind of Bourdieuian analysis is important in drawing attention to the social configurations of vegetarianism as a taste practice. It, however, misses the ethical substance of vegetarianism and the wider social and cultural changes that are driving its growth in the West. The following section addresses this gap. Theorising Vegetarianism Adrian Franklin explains the growth of vegetarianism in the last part of the 20th century as part of a process of “de-centring” human-animal relations in conditions of late-modernity. Franklin suggests that vegetarianism is part of a wider social and cultural shift where animals make new types of moral claims on humans as they form closer and more intimate emotional bonds. He argues that in the context of widespread feelings of moral decline and disorder, animals are constructed as morally pure and innocent, and humans morally blameworthy and destructive (Franklin 196). From this perspective, vegetarianism is less about an ethical regards for animals but more about what animals reveal about human moral worlds: the reflections are less about an ethical consideration of the “Other” and more about a moral consideration of “ourselves” (Franklin 196). A sticker plastered on the door of my local vegetarian café encapsulates this perspective: it reads, “humans are the real pests.” Unlike Bourdieu and Franklin, Tester is important in moving from a narrow focus on what humans “do” with animals as symbolic or communicative acts to the ethical significance of vegetarianism. Tester makes a critical distinction between the “ethical” and “lifestyle” vegetarian. In Tester’s terms, the “lifestyle” vegetarian avoids meat for health and well-being reasons while the “ethical” vegetarian is concerned for the ethical treatment of animals. The “lifestyle” vegetarian is problematic for Tester due to “the being of the ethical conduct of life” being substituted for “the doing of the consumer” (218). Vegetarianism becomes emptied of moral meaning as it turns into big business marked by the growth of a multi-billion dollar faux meat industry, trendy vegetarian restaurants, lifestyle converts, and celebrity endorsements. In “lifestyle” mode, Tester argues, vegetarian concern for animal cruelty, slaughter, and death is colonised by a narcissistic concern for slimming, youth, and health—for the promotion of a contented consumer self (Humphery). Although Tester highlights the ethical substance of vegetarianism and the challenges it faces in a consumer world, like the rest of the accounts, it tends to be anthropocentric. Animals tend to speak solely to human worlds, ignoring the vitality and “distributed agency” (Bennett 38) of the non-human. The non-human animal tends to be construed as a passive and inert resource existing solely for human intentionality, rather than acknowledging their “vital power” and “liveliness” outside human agendas (133). Bennett claims that eating highlights the inseparability of humans and edible matter, and the capacity for both human and nonhuman bodies to effect social and political change. She proposes that through a greater sense of ourselves as entwined with, and part of, nature as physical entities, we can enchant the world and become energised as co-participants. Here vegetarianism can be understood as part of recognition of the “assemblage” of human and non-human actions, where self, body, nature and planet become mutually constituting and supportive. Vegetarian taste is not just about middle-class concerns for distinction, but an ethics of the non-human. What does vegetarianism as an ethical taste practice look like “on the ground”? What are the moral motivations for becoming vegetarian, and how is this understood and experienced? What roles do lifestyle and ethical motivations play in vegetarian eating behaviours? In the following section, I turn to a selection of Australian bloggers to make a modest contribution to understanding these questions in the contemporary Australian context. The bloggers are taken from a wider study that analysed 44 urban Australian blogs as part of a project on everyday Australian moralities. The blogs were sampled from the blog hosting website LiveJournal (LJ) between 2006 and 2007. Blog usernames used have been fictionalised to maintain anonymity. Specifically, I focus on a selection of three blog case studies: Universal_cloak, a 32-year-old female artistic designer from Melbourne, Starbright, a 28-year-old female student from Brisbane, and Snig, a 25-year-old male paramedic from Melbourne. The bloggers are a representative selection from a wider sample of blog writing on vegetarianism and human-animal relations. The blog narratives complicate Tester’s simplistic distinction between the “ethical” and “lifestyle” vegetarian, articulating vegetarianism as form of ethical practice that works to morally enchant the world in a dialogue between self-improvement, personal well-being, and ethical relationships with animals and the planet (Taylor). Vegetarianism in Practice: “Positive for Me, Positive for Others” Universal_cloak writes how “being hippy—wearing hippy clothes, eating healthy organic food and being full of positive energy” makes her “feel healthier […] like I’m doing a better thing for the world (society in particular) […] like I’m doing something good”. Being “authentic” to a “hippy” identity—“being true to herself”—is connected for Universal_cloak to a wider concern for the non-human—for animals, nature, and the planet. An important component of this link between self-fulfilment and “doing a better thing for the world” is not eating the “corpses of animals.” Universal_cloak describes this in detail, at the same time underlining the environmental dimensions of her vegetarianism: I feel sick to my stomach to think that an animal dies so I can eat. Why is it any different to feel the same way that people are abused, tortured and killed, that eco-systems are ravaged and torn up and irreversibly damaged, just so I can have the choice of four kinds of marinated tuna in a can? So I can have two newsagents to choose from? So I can have Alice Cooper iron-on patches, miniature plastic bowling pins, disposable cameras, instant oats, microwavable popcorn, extra-soft, quilted and fucking fragranced toilet paper? McDonalds fucking everywhere [...] ugh, I can't take it. I need to go to bed. No wonder depression is on the rise—we have a kingdom of putrid revulsion to look down upon. Vegetarianism figures for Universal_cloak as a form of ethical consumption that enables resistance to feelings of modern demoralisation, to the feeling of being “swallowed up by the great hulky polluted monster, with ads and consu

THE AIMS OF THE PAPER The study joins in the academic discussion that examines the relationship between materialism and personal well-being since the mid 1980s. The aim of the study is to investigate the nature of the relationship between materialism as a mindset and personal well-being. Furthermore it wishes to identify the drawbacks of western consumer society. METHODOLOGY Our analysis was conducted on a sample from a questionnaire survey with 1819 observations, that is concerning demographic characteristics nationally representative. In case of the variables included in our analysis the effect of potential biases arising from questionnaire surveys were managed. We measured the materialism variable, that played a central role in our analysis, as the relative position of wealth and money within the personal value system of respondents, while the life satisfaction and self-esteem variables were calculated as the difference from the sample average. We used OLS-regression for testing the relationship between variables. MOST IMPORTANT RESULTS The individuals who indicated wealth and money as important priorities in their value systems were generally more dissatisfied with their lives and had lower self-esteem compared to the respondents who scored lower on the materialism scale. This correlation was found to be irrespective of their actual financial status. Furthermore, irrespective of whether they felt being judged by their environment based on their possession of material goods or not. We found no significant relationship between materialism and the perceived lack of financial opportunities. RECOMMENDATIONS Prioritizing materialistic values seems irrational as it can correlate to a decreased personal well-being. Although objective and subjective, as well as social and environmental factors form part of well-being, according to our results being materialistic, and following a consumer culture that emphasizes materialistic values could lead to problems at the level of the individual.

This article analyzes the impact of the visual images of well-being upon interpretation of the concept of well-being in consumer culture. The object of this research is the paintings by postmodern artists, constructivists. and hyperrealists – A. Warhol, R. Rauschenberg, J. Jones, L. Lawler, T. Matin, as well as the posters of advertising constructors of A. Rodchenko. Examination is conducted on the artworks, since the time horizon of paintings is not limited to the “here and now”. The author discusses the images from semiotic and hermeneutical perspectives, which allow revealing the content of meanings expressed in the visual form. Artistic images become the object of research in the field of visual semiotics. The scientific novelty consists in the comprehensive socio-philosophical research of the process of creation, proliferation, and inverting meanings in the visual discourse on well-being. The article employs philosophical, rather than art history discourse. As a result, the author establishes correlation between visual images, social culture, and social conventions. The conclusion is made that the visual images of well-being emphasize the social component of well-being, dictate the logic of public consumption, and manipulate collective consciousness. Visual images become the markers of social well-being, translators of the myths on consumer culture, delicately manipulating the constructed Self.

The genre copy thachin or “copy song” pervades the popular music scene in Myanmar. These songs are akin to cover versions of existing international hits, but with new lyrics in the Burmese language, and performed by Burmese musicians. These songs can have incredible genre—crossing capabilities, from blues to rap, heavy metal to salsa. The current situation for popular music production in Myanmar is connected with the country’s history of military rule and years of censorship and economic difficulties. Advocates for the genre of copy thachin argue that borrowing international songs allowed local artists to learn about global popular music, and the numerous popular musicians and songwriters in Myanmar are testament to this. On the other hand, with the removal of the stringent censorship regime and the increasing contact with international consumer culture, groups of Myanmar music fans are increasingly critical of copy thachin , seeing the practice as derivative and an embarrassment. This article will explore the history of the genre, notions of authenticity, and discuss Myanmar’s changing relationship with the symbolic capital of its own culture industry and its relationship with international popular culture.

The need to locate ways of living that can be both beneficial to personal well-being and ecologically sustainable is becoming increasingly important. Flow experiences show promise for the achievement of personal and ecological well-being. However, it is not yet understood how the materialistic values promoted by our consumer cultures may impact our ability to experience flow. A cross-sectional survey of 451 people demonstrated that materialistic values and an individual’s tendency to experience flow were negatively correlated (Study 1). Next we showed that experimentally priming a materialistic mind-set led to poorer quality flow experiences in a sample of students (Study 2) and British adults (Study 3). Our findings add to current understandings of the detrimental consequences of materialistic values and suggest that it is crucial to challenge the materialistic values present within our consumer societies if we are to provide opportunities for experiencing flow.

According to the development model India has adopted, development is viewed in narrow terms of economic development and, more particularly, GDP growth. This is largely due to our blind imitation of Western philosophy, which is based on materialistic values, and has given birth to current ruling economic ideology of free markets and competition, where earning money and accumulating wealth is considered primary goal of life. In its practical operation, this model creates serious socio-economic problems, such as ecological devastation, economic inequality, culture of consumerism, unemployment and social Darwinism. In India today, most components of social and economic well-being of people, such as education, health, employment and a healthy agricultural and industrial base, are in dismal state, indicating that our existing policy has failed. This calls for a fundamental rethink of our development policy. There is a need to embrace a more human-centric model of development, based on our cultural and civilisational ethos, which is ethico-spiritual and is deeply concerned with the problem of human welfare, social good and well-being of people. There is a need to redefine our development goals as creation of a happy, healthy and prosperous society.

This dissertation examines how and why food consumption and nutrition became legitimate public policy issues in Mexico between the 1930s to the 1980s. In the post-revolutionary era, Mexican public officials began to systematically consider diet a social problem that affected not only individual well-being but could influence the economic development of the nation. This belief resulted in the implementation of policies with the goal of improving the quality of the Mexican diet. Several government actors participated in formulating and executing food and nutrition policies. Economic authorities, doctors and nutritional experts became convinced that food consumption could be managed, rationalized and perfected to obtain optimal results both in terms of expenses and health benefits. For economic officials, the primary goal of food policies was to maintain the stability of the factors of production, primarily labor costs, to encourage industrialization. Thus, from the early 1930s, the Mexican government regulated prices and intervened in food markets to control the supply side. Since the 1970s, government officials also sought to influence the demand side through the behavior of consumers. Diet came to be regarded not only as an object of health intervention and macroeconomic policy, but also as a crucial component of the new consumer culture. The Mexican government also promoted the study of food consumption scientifically, looking for ways to optimize food consumption with low wages. This scientific research done at public hospitals helped solidify diets as a legitimate sphere of intervention. Most doctors and nutritional experts agreed that Mexicans in general were malnourished due to the quality of their diets, which lacked animal proteins. Based on the findings of their studies, which indicated that diets had effects on mental development, these experts insisted that malnourishment was the explanation for the poverty and backwardness of Mexican society. Milk production and distribution is presented as a case study of the multiplicity of processes and actors involved in food consumption and nutrition policies in Mexico. For both doctors and economic planners, it was not enough to recommend increased consumption of animal proteins if these products were not available in the market or were not affordable enough for low income consumers to buy them. Government officials implemented policies to increase the production and consumption of the product. This dissertation traces how the milk sector was transformed and how the interactions between local producers, government agencies and transnational companies shaped an incipient industry in the early twentieth century into an important economic sector in several regions of Mexico.

The author argues that if psychologists are to contribute meaningfully to the United Nations’ agenda for sustainable development (SD) 2030, they will need to shift from a model that is biologically based individual model to a holistic, contextual and cultural model. Global media and consumer culture have created unhealthy, social and cultural environments, which are seen as having an adverse effect on psychological health. The article focuses on the culture change coming about due to advancement of technology, changes in values of society and acculturation as the reasons for decrement in mental health (MH) and well-being (WB). Integration of mainstream psychology with indigenous psychology can guide building of environments that sustain physical health and MH as well as societal sustainability.

Mobile Intimacy

This book provides an in-depth analysis of consumerism that draws from a wide range of theoretical, clinical and methodological approaches. Contributors demonstrate that consumerism and the culture that surrounds it exert profound and often undesirable effects on both people's individual lives and on society as a whole. Far from being distant influences, advertising, consumption, materialism and the capitalistic economic system affect personal, social and ecological well-being on many levels. Contributors also provide a variety of potential interventions for counteracting the negative influence of consumerism.

The concept of well-being is now of interest to many disciplines; as a consequence, it presents an increasingly complex and contested territory. We suggest that much current thinking about well-being can be summarized in terms of four main discourses: scientific, popular, critical and environmental. Exponents of the scientific discourse argue that subjective well-being is now static or declining in developed countries: a paradox for economists, as incomes have grown considerably. Psychological observations on the loss of subjective well-being have also entered popular awareness, in simplified form, and conceptions of well-being as happiness are now influencing contemporary political debate and policy-making. These views have not escaped criticism. Philosophers understand well-being as part of a flourishing human life, not just happiness. Some social theorists critique the export of specific cultural concepts of well-being as human universals. Others view well-being as a potentially divisive construct that may contribute to maintaining social inequalities. Environmentalists argue that socio-cultural patterns of over-consumption, within the neo-liberal economies of developed societies, present an impending ecological threat to individual, social and global well-being. As the four discourses carry different implications for action, we conclude by considering their varied utility and applicability for health promotion.