The Production of Consumers and the Formation of Desire

The Production of Consumers and the Formation of Desire PDF Author: Christine Darr
Publisher: Fortress Academic
ISBN: 9781978707054
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
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.

The Production of Consumers and the Formation of Desire

The Production of Consumers and the Formation of Desire PDF Author: Christine Darr
Publisher: Fortress Academic
ISBN: 9781978707054
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
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.

The Production of Consumers and the Formation of Desire

The Production of Consumers and the Formation of Desire PDF Author: Christine Darr
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1978707061
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 179

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Book Description
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.

David Foster Wallace and "The Long Thing"

David Foster Wallace and Author: Marshall Boswell
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1628920637
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
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 PDF Author: Dennis Denisoff
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 9780754661566
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
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

Consumer Expectations

Consumer Expectations PDF Author: Richard Thomas Curtin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107004691
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 365

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Book Description
Proposes a new comprehensive theory about how expectations are formed and how they shape the macro economy.

Consuming Desires

Consuming Desires PDF Author: Roger Rosenblatt
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 9781610913874
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
Consider this paradox: Ecologists estimate that it would take three planets Earth to provide an American standard of living to the entire world. Yet it is that standard of living to which the whole world aspires.In Consuming Desires, award-winning writer and social commentator Roger Rosenblatt brings together a brilliant collection of thinkers and writers to shed light on the triumphs and tragedies of that disturbing paradox. The book represents a captivating salon, offering a rich and varied dialogue on the underlying roots of consumer culture and its pervasive impact on ourselves and the world around us. Each author offers a unique perspective, their layers of thoughts and insights building together to create a striking, multifaceted picture of our society and culture.Jane Smiley probes the roots of consumerism in the emancipation of women from household drudgery afforded by labor-saving devices and technological innovation; Alex Kotlowitz describes the mutual reinforcement of fashion trends as poor inner-city kids and rich suburban kids strive to imitate each other; Bill McKibben discusses the significance, and the irony, of defining yourself not by what you buy, but by what you don't buy.The essays range widely, but two ideas are central to nearly all of them: that consumption is driven by yearning and desire -- often unspoken, seemingly insatiable -- and that what prevents us from keeping our consumptive impulse in check is the western concept of self, the solitary and restless self, entitled to all it can pay for.As Rosenblatt explains in his insightful introduction: "Individualism and desire are what makes us great and what makes us small. Freedom is our dream and our enemy. The essays touch on these paradoxes, and while all are too nuanced and graceful to preach easy reform, they give an idea of what reform means, where it is possible, and, in some cases, where it may not be as desirable as it appears."

Consumerism in World History

Consumerism in World History PDF Author: Peter N. Stearns
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 0415244080
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
The desire to acquire luxury goods and leisure services is a basic force in modern life. This work explores both the historical origins and world-wide appeal of this relatively modern phenomenon.

An Introduction to Capitalism

An Introduction to Capitalism PDF Author: Paul Swanson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136230750
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
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.

Capitalism and Desire

Capitalism and Desire PDF Author: Todd McGowan
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231542216
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
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.

Key Topics in Consumer Behavior

Key Topics in Consumer Behavior PDF Author: Springer Behavioral & Health Sciences
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031199103
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 106

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Book Description
This volume features cutting-edge and impactful articles from across Springer's diverse journals publishing program. In this curated collection, our editorial team has brought together highly-cited and downloaded articles on the topic of Consumer Behavior into one single resource. Moreover, this book enables readers to review a broad spectrum of quality research on a specialized topic, which we hope facilitates interdisciplinary and critical discussions of the topic at hand. As part of the Key Topics in Behavioral Sciences book series, this volume aims to serve as a quick reference for readers when writing or researching new topics or subject areas. Other topics in the series will include Psychological Research Methods, Health and Behavior, Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Sports Psychology, and Consumer Behavior. In the first section of the volume, articles focus on such topics as College Students, Financial Stress, Relative Income Hypothesis, Construal Level, Luxury Consumption, Luxury Consumption Tendency, Luxury Consumption Tendency Scale, and Scale Development. Next, the second section features research on Longitudinal Study, Materialism, Self-Esteem, Socioeconomic Status, Cvq-96, Mpai, Prevention, Social Media, Smartphone Use, Smartphone Addiction, University Students, Higher Education, and Virtues. Lastly in the final section of this collection, Electronic Word Of Mouth, Information-Task-Fit, Purchase Intention, Website Quality, Egoism, Evolution, Evolutionary Altruism, Mechanisms, Psychological Altruism, Meta-Analysis, Mturk, Online Panel Data, and Study Response are discussed.