« Top Ten Issues Facing Families Today | Blog Home | A slow thought.... »
For people without wealth in pre-industrialised society, personal identity was derived from their daily activities, from their occupations. Family names such as Smith, Fletcher, Farmer and Cutler remind us of this. Today this is no longer true: in consumer society people attempt to create an identity not from what they produce but from what they consume. We do not expect that people will take to naming themselves "John Sports Utility" or "Barbara Georgian Mansion", yet in consumer society we behave in ways which are only marginally less obtuse. In the words of one of the world's largest producers of consumer products:
... the brand defines the consumer. We are what we wear, what we eat, what we drive. Each of us in this room is a walking compendium of brands. The collection of brands we choose to assemble around us have become amongst the most direct expressions of our individuality - or more preciselh, our deep psychological need to identify ourselves with others.
- Clive Hamilton, Growth Fetish, p 70
Posted by gary at May 7, 2006 09:36 PM
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |||
| 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
| 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |