Islam is often associated with anti-consumerism. This study, suggests that a new elite with explicitly Islamist dispositions is being constructed in Turkey and aims to provide evidence that these elites build their identity through consumption that reflects its newfound status which leads to impulsive buying. This paper investigates the relationship of materialism to impulsive buying and the mediating role of status consumption on this association. To analyse whether the new elites differ from the general (...) public in their consumption preferences, two sets of data were collected from a judgmental sample of 267 individuals with explicit Islamist dispositions and a stratified random sample of 413. The results provide empirical evidence to suggest that motivated by materialistic values, the explicitly Islamist individuals with high status consumption tendencies are likely to buy products/services impulsively. (shrink)

Social media plays a vital role in consumers’ purchasing decision making. There are still gaps in existing research on the relationship between divided dimensions of social media use and impulse buying, as well as the mediating and moderating effects therein. This study explored the mediation and moderation effects in the relationship between different social media usage patterns, emotional responses, and consumer impulse buying. Data from 479 college students who were social media users in China were analyzed (...) using structural equation modeling. The results showed that active and passive social media use were significantly and positively associated with users’ enjoyment, whereas passive social media use significantly increased depression. Both enjoyment and depression were significantly and positively associated with users’ impulse buying. Materialism positively moderated the relationship between enjoyment and impulsive consumption, while self-control significantly reduced the effect of depression on impulse buying. These findings that emotion mediated and personality traits moderated relationships between social media use and impulse buying expand impulsive purchase literature and provide insights for guiding college students’ healthy use of social media and rational consumption. (shrink)

This study contributes to the emerging literature on the negative effects over consumption that social media users may develop as a consequence of being engaged on social media platforms. The authors tested materialism’s direct and indirect impacts on compulsive, conspicuous, and impulsive buying, adding two novel mediators: attitudes toward social media content and social media intensity. The study uses a convenience sample of 400 Thai social media users analyzed using structural equation modeling. The (...) results confirmed the well-established positive relationships between materialism and each of the three-negative consumption behaviors also in the social media domain. A novel finding showed the important role played by SMI which was found to be a strong predictor of each of the three negative consumption behaviors and it was also found to significantly mediate the relationship between materialism and the three-negative consumption behaviors. An additional contribution of the study was found on the role of attitudes which, contrary to what is commonly believed, were often not significant in predicting any negative behavior. (shrink)

Prior research has shown the relationship between objective economic inequality and searching for positional goods. It also investigated the relationship between social class and low income with conspicuous consumption. However, the causal relationship between economic inequality has been less explored. Furthermore, there are also few studies looking for the psychological mechanisms that underlie these effects. The current research’s main goal is to analyze the consequences of perceived economic inequality on conspicuous and status consumption and the (...) possible psychological mechanisms that could explain its effects. Furthermore, the current research aims to examine whether there is a causal relationship between PEI and materialism preferences and attitudes toward indebtedness. This work includes two preregister experimental studies. In the Study 1, we manipulated PEI and its legitimacy through a 2 × 2 between-participants experiment. Results showed a main effect of PEI on status consumption, status seeking, status anxiety, materialism, and attitude toward indebtedness. No interaction effect between legitimacy and inequality was found. In the Study 2, we manipulated the PEI through the Bimboola Paradigm. We replicated the effect of PEI on status consumption, status seeking, and materialism and found that status seeking mediated the relationship between PEI and status and conspicuous consumption. Economic inequality affects consumer behavior and favors consumption preferences for products that provide desirable symbolic values associated with status. These results could have important implications in the interpersonal and intergroup processes, including those related to consumption and purchase. (shrink)

From the seventh to the fourteenth century, the Muslim world’s key actors were free peasants working limited and scattered cultivated areas, whose communities paid heavy taxes. A distinct nomadic mode of production dominated the arid lands and their warlike pastoral tribes. Wealthy merchants and artisans controlled urban ideological production, living next to actual ruling classes, who drew exceptional material privileges from their proximity to the state. Since the latter’s status contradicted the contractual community’s values, political power was socially alienated (...) and needed support from paid soldiers and often co-opted religious notables. The author describes Islamic social formations as real flesh-and-blood beings who developed original features on the same tributary mode of production’s skeleton. He shows that comparable dialectical oppositions enlivened them, stemming from uneven and combined development processes. Thus, their states and villages, barren lands and city markets, contractual ideology and monarchical powers were permanently in conflictual interaction. (shrink)

Although social scientists have identified diverse behavioral patterns among children from dissimilarly structured families, marketing scholars have progressed little in relating family structure to consumption-related decisions. In particular, the roles played by members of single-mother families—which may include live-in grandparents, mother’s unmarried partner, and step-father with or without step-sibling(s)—may affect children’s influence on consumption-related decisions. For example, to offset a parental authority dynamic introduced by a new stepfather, the work-related constraints imposed on a breadwinning mother, or the (...) imposition of adult-level household responsibilities on children, single-mother families may attend more to their children’s product preferences. -/- Without a profile that includes socio-economic, behavioral, and psychological aspects, efficient and socially responsible marketing to single-mother households is compromised. Relative to dual-parent families, single-mother families tend to have fewer resources and less buying power, children who consume more materialistic and compulsively, and children who more strongly influence decision making for both own-use and family-use products. Timely research would ensure that these and other tendencies now differentiate single-mother from dual-parent families in ways that marketers should address. Hence, our threefold goal is (1) to consolidate and highlight gaps in existing theory applied to studying children’s influence on consumption-related decision making in single-mother families, and (2) to propose a hybrid framework that merges two theories conducive to such research, and (3) to identify promising research propositions for future research. (shrink)

This research delved into the dynamics between pride, sustainability detectability, and product consciousness through three experimental studies conducted among Chinese millennials focusing on lavish brand. Grounded in the positive emotions theory, this study sought to discern the circumstances in which individuals with materialistic tendencies exhibit willingness to engage with sustainable luxury brands. The results of this meticulous experimental design indicate a positive relationship between materialism and the intention to purchase sustainable luxury brands, with pride identified as a mediating factor, and (...) discussed the involvement of high conspicuousness of the product in the context of detectability of the brand's sustainability. Furthermore, this study offers insights through the positive emotion theory and examining the impact of self-conscious emotions on buyer preferences regarding sustainable luxury brands. The findings from this theoretical research provide valuable insights for brand managers, scholars, and policymakers aiming to develop sustainable brands that resonate with the sentiments and values of conscientious consumers. (shrink)

Turkey has passed the import substitution economic model to a new model of the economy called open out since 1980. Along with the neoliberal policies implemented, the process of integration with the global economy has begun. The incomes of the religious people who cannot be excluded from the effects of this articulation also increased and their consumption behaviors has changed. On the other hand, some transport elements, especially the media, have enabled consumption codes to reach different segments. The (...) new values emerged in this process also caused transformations in individual consumption trends. In this study, the "Scale of Consumption Dynamics" (SCD) was developed in order to identify the trends of consumption of devotees and to find out how they changed. Quantitative research approach was adopted in the study and the datas were collected by face-to-face survey technique. The individuals included in our sample were selected by quota sampling. In this study, an expression pool was created as a result of literature review, expert opinion consultation, brainstorming with academicians and observations. The validity and reliability analysis of the scale was made using different statistics through the SPSS program. As a result of these steps, the dimensions of the scale consisting of 16 items and 3 dimensions are called "showy consumption", "wasteful consumption" and "religious priority consumption". Summary: The first studies on consumption history and sociology belong to Marx, Weber, Veblen and Simmel. In these studies consumption is examined as a part of production process and consumption forms were investigated as a social class aspect. Consumption phenomenon was later studied under critical approach (Frankfurt School) with Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse and Erich Fromm’s theories. Theorists at Frankfurt School study how social structure steers individuals to consumption. After the 1970’s, the meaning of consumption phenomenon has changed. There are studies by Jean Baudrillard, Mike Featherstone, George Ritzer, and Zygmunt Bauman on changing phenomenon of consumption. It is widely believed that modern consumption phenomenon was originated in the USA after the World War II. After the war Keynesian economic policies and Fordist consumption forms later influenced other Western nations. After 1950’s and 1960’s mass consumption was initiated in the USA and except very poor sections of the nations, other social classes, it started to spread out in Europe, the USA, and other countries. In 1970’s and 1980’s, it has merged with individuals’ identity definitions. After 1980’s in Turkey a new economic policy instead of import substitution was adopted. In application along with neo liberal policies, Turkey started to integrate to the rest of the World. Religious people as well influenced these changes and their incomes have increased along with their consumption habits. In addition to media, some other forms of communication channels have carried new consumption habits to other sections of the society. With the increased effects of mass communication media, new social sections have emerged and their cultural characteristics have become the norms of the whole society. A new values created in this process also transformed the consumption habits. In this article, in order to assess consumption habits of religious people as it is now and to understand which direction these habits evolve, Consumption Dynamics Scale (CDS) has been developed. Scales are widely used when a researcher tries to identify and measure respondents’ feelings and ideas on a subject matter. There are different scales used in social sciences such as Thurstone, Likert, Guttman, and Bogardus that are among the most widely used ones. A Likert Type scale has been used in this study. In the first phase of the study and pilot study 5 point Likert scale and in the second phase of the study 10 point Likert scales was used to collect the data. We could not come across with any study in the literature on investigating consumption characteristics Dynamics of individuals with a formal religious education. In the study, quantitative research method has been adopted and the research data has been collected with face to face administration of the survey instrument. The scale development phase lasted about 6 months from August, 2016. Based on 3% error rate, we determined to sufficient sample size as 516, yet we reached 600 individuals and end up with 563 usable responses. Sample has been determined with quota sampling methodology. We formed a pool of statements based on literature review, expert opinion, brain storming with academicians. 49 questions have been selected from the question pool where 93 questions were found, then they are merged, some questions are changed or totally eliminated and final 30 questioned questionnaires made ready for pilot study. Two pilot studies have been carried out. In the first pilot study, 47 people are reached and 30 questions with Likert scales have been administered. In the second phase of the study, 10 point Likert scales with 57 questions has been given to 54 individuals. After pilot studies, data was analyzed with SPSS 20 version and 32 questioned final survey instrument has been formed. In order to check sufficiency of data set for Factor Analysis Kaisser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) test and the relationships among variables Bartlett test were used. Sample composed of 563 responses revealed significant results (3358,808, p=0,000) and KMO test revealed (KMO=0,812) value. After expletory factor analysis, factor loading less than 0,40 were deleted from the scale. Hence the final structure is composed of 29 questions with 8 different factors. The reliability of scales were calculated with Cronbach Alfa analysis separately for each dimension. After reliability analysis, items with 0,60 and less reliability score were taken out from the scales. Finally 16 items were made up 3 dimensions namely “ostentatious consumption”, “wasteful consumption”, and “religious priority consumption”. The items in Factor 1 are related with luxury, fashion and statue, in Factor 2 desire to make more shopping, purchase without need, advertisement and showcase, and factor 3 religious sensitive reference focus and religion first purchasing are decided as appropriate names. Based on the analysis, measurement was decided valid and sound. Therefore, this study is believed to contribute significantly to the existing literature. (shrink)

Karl Marx, the revolutionist philosopher, interpreted history as a world view which is the dimension of social development. His dialectic effort and materialistic conception are intended to preserve the rights of social being particularly of the working people who are repeatedly being oppressed. Class struggle is the ultimate solution of distinctions among classes through which there will be no class and the existing working class will revolt against capitalist economy and, as a result, they will (...) control means of production which will create the situation of the dictatorship of the working people. These class distinctions will be removed through the establishment of scientific communism referred by Marx. This article shows how Marx’s life and thought changed the course of history and how he influenced society to make a better place for living. I intend to show the reasons behind the worldwide acceptance of Marxism theoretically. My aim is to show how his theories and ideas are significant in socio-political aspects of philosophy. Philosophy and Progress, Vol#73-74; No#1-2; Jan-Dec 2023 P 259-279. (shrink)

Identifying Consumption illustrates how an individual’s buying habits are shaped by the dynamics of the consumer marketplace—and thus how consumption and identity inform each other. Robert Dunn brings together the various theories of spending and develops a mode of analysis concentrating on the individual subjectivity of consumption. By doing so, he addresses how we spend and its relationship with status and lifestyle. Dunn provides a comprehensive guide to the study of modern consumer behavior before summarizing and (...) critiquing the major theories of consumption. At this juncture, he proposes a method of analysis that focuses on the significance of status and lifestyle in social relations that can help explain how the consumer marketplace is shaped. He concludes by raising issues about different ways of consuming and the relationship between consumption and identity. (shrink)

Islamic environmentalism is an intellectual movement whose representatives discuss contemporary environmental problems in the language of Islamic theology. This field includes Shariah-based environmental law, environmental activism, and environmental philosophy. This article is an overview of the genealogy of this philosophical trend: key names will be listed and their contributions to the development of this movement will be analyzed. For example, the legacy of Sayyid Hossein Nasr, considered the founding father of Islamic environmentalism, will be examined in detail. The religious and (...) ethical program of this philosophical movement will be analyzed in detail. The categorical apparatus to which Islamic eco-activists, philosophers, and ulema turned as the Islamic environmental agenda expanded will also be examined, such as how the concepts of khalifa, hima, and misan were conceptualized. Philosophers whose writings we will turn to include Iraqi philosopher and jurist Mawil Izzi Dien, British eco-activist Fazlun Khalid, Egyptian Grand Mufti Ali Jumaa, and representatives of so-called “Western Islam” Ziauddin Sardar and Tariq Ramadan. The example of Indonesia will be used to examine how Islamic eco-theology has formed the basis of a multilevel environmental policy. The thesis of the fundamental contradiction underlying Islamic environm entalism is put forward. On the one hand, this movement in its present form genetically dates back to the European protest movements of the 1960s and 70s, which opposed the culture of mass consumption, impersonal materialism, and overproduction. On the other hand, an equally important part of the rhetoric of a number of Islamic modernists, including on ecology, is the emphasis on the break with Western neoliberal values. The special role of social media in the promotion of Islamic eco-activism is noted separately. (shrink)

Globalization has consequences for the religious sphere, but it does not constitute a break with the previous situation. It constitutes rather an acceleration of a process begun with the birth of nation-states. The impact of the values of modernity is general, since even those in power, whatever their tendency, invoke values of democracy, progress, freedom and justice, whereas submission is what was required of subjects. Nevertheless, people today look to religion for fixed reference points, because of the brutal transition from (...) the Middle Ages to the 20th and 21st centuries, and because modernity is not a endogenous phenomenon. Islam then is playing the role of bulwark against western hegemony. It is also instrumentalized both by the powers that be and by the oppositions, all of whom give themselves over to displays of one-upmanship over fidelity to Islam. Does Islam then maintain its relevance in the context of globalization? The fact is that the bases on which social relations are now founded no longer permit discrimination on the ground of sex or religion, and that there is a loosening of the grip of traditional ritualism and that more and more Muslims are looking for an understanding of the faith that is freed from old-fashioned dogmas. These new givens are being demonstrated particularly when it comes to the exercise of power and the condition of women. As a result, traditional conceptions are destined to evolve, particularly concerning the status of the Koran, the growing awareness of the historical process that made the Koran into a juridical code, the archetype that has been stuck to the person of the Prophet, and the alienation that consists in the sacralization of every human act. (shrink)

The theory of historical materialism is the core commitment of Marx’s social theory. More than his views on markets, philosophical methods, the state and social institutions, it is this theory which sets Marx’s views apart from alternative traditions in political philosophy. Marx believes that there is a tendency for societies to make moral and material progress. The point of Marx’s theory of historical materialism is to offer a theory of the mechanisms which produce this tendency. However, in Marx’s (...) own formulation, the precise nature of these mechanisms remains obscure. In The German Ideology, Marx emphasizes the growth of human productive powers as the fundamental cause of historical change and progress: social forms change in order to adapt to the requirements of further productive development. By contrast, in The Communist Manifesto and the Grundrisse, Marx emphasizes the desires and interests of classes as fundamental to explaining social change. Here, it is class struggles which determine not only when an old social form will be replaced by a new one, but also the nature of the new social form itself. Marx never specifies the connection between these two explanations of historical change, between the development of human productive powers and class struggles. In particular, Marx is not explicit as to whether there are two distinct mechanisms at work in the production of historical progress, or only one. (shrink)

Food prices are a daily concern in many households’ decision-making, especially when people want to have healthier diets. Employing Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics on a dataset of 710 Indonesian citizens, we found that people from wealthier households are less likely to have concerns about food prices. However, the degree of health considerations in food consumption was found to moderate against the above association. In other words, people of higher income-based social classes may worry more about food prices (...) if they care more about the health impacts of their food choices. These findings provide more insights for policymakers on the psychological aspects of promoting the balance between finance and health in food consumption. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has seriously disrupted the individual buying habits along with their consumption patterns. Previous studies indicated that anxiety and depression were related to impulse buying. However, no research has explored the mechanism possibly underlying the association between anxiety, depression, and impulse buying. Based on the regulatory focus theory and the emotion-cognition-behavior loop, this study aimed to examine the impacts of negative emotions on impulse buying and the mediating role of cognitive characteristics during the COVID-19 pandemic. In April (...) 2021, 734 Chinese undergraduates were recruited by cluster sampling and they completed self-report measures of anxiety, depression, intolerance of uncertainty, cognitive flexibility, and impulse buying. Results showed that impulse buying was positively associated with anxiety, depression, and intolerance of uncertainty, while it was negatively associated with cognitive flexibility. Cognitive flexibility fully mediated the effects of anxiety and depression on cognitive facet of impulse buying. Meanwhile, intolerance of uncertainty fully mediated the effects of anxiety and depression on affective facet of impulse buying. Overall, this study shows that different pathways can explain how anxiety and depression exacerbate two aspects of impulse buying, and it highlights the importance of cognitive characteristics for the link between negative emotions and impulse buying. Intervention programs should focus on increasing cognitive flexibility and tolerance to uncertainty of high-risk individuals, so as to strengthen their adaptive purchase behaviors. (shrink)

This is the thirty-first volume in Religion and Public Life, formerly This World, a series on religion and public affairs. This ongoing series seeks to provide a wide-ranging forum for differing views on religious and ethical considerations. The essays grouped together in Culture and Consumption discuss the phenomenon of consumption, an identifiable and pervasive feature of American culture that distinguishes it from other national cultures. The lead article provides an insight into the long-standing pattern of consumption that (...) has been progressively elevated into social policy in America. This is a balanced analysis of the history of the consumption cultural ethos beginning with the undermining of the Native American Culture and ending with Wilsonian Liberal-Internationalism and the demise of the moral authority of organized labor. This commercialization of culture has always competed with the funding vision of a dispassionate social order in which custom, deferential politics, and continuation of traditional hierarchal values would be the constitutional agenda. Another contributor argues that the emergence of the democratic-consumer state in America was anticipated in de Tocqueville's observation that "in democracies nothing has brighter luster than commercea." Other contributor essays treat issues such as the New Class and the consumer state; technology's triumph at the expense of the social and natural worlds; and argue against the materialist perspective in addiction. Culture and Consumption includes the following major contributions: "The Dialectic of Consumption: Materialism and Social Control" by David Brown; "Religion, Social Science and the Ironies of Parasitic Modernity" by Guy Alchon; The Dilemma of Hypermodernity" by Mark Wegierski; "Toward an Epistemology of Addiction" by Leonard Kaplan and Vince Rinella. Also included are book reviews by Martha Davis and Conrad Kanagy. In a concluding essay, Gabriel Ricci reviews Jerome Bruner's The Culture of Education. Culture and Consumption is part of an annual survey of religion and public life that provides relevant information and ideas about significant issues of the day. (shrink)

It has been found in many cases that consumers are prone to exhibit impulsive buying behavior that is manifested as being immediate, emotional, and irresponsible especially under short video scenario. Supported by the customer inspiration theory, this study explores the psychological mechanism underlying impulse purchase in short videos that differentiates the traditional web shopping by the strong sense of presence in short video marketing. On the basis of a questionnaire survey and three laboratory experiments, this study examines the relationship (...) among presence, customer inspiration, and impulse purchase intention. The empirical results point to the fact that social presence, co-presence, and physical presence have significant positive effects on impulse purchase intention, and customer inspiration mediates the effect of social presence, physical presence, and co-presence on impulse purchase intention. Furthermore, it is indicated that social and co-presence have stronger influences on impulse purchase intention than physical presence, thus proving a stronger effect of social factors on impulse purchase intention than physical factors in short video environment. The research results testify the impact of presence on consumer behavior in the upgrading short video marketing and provide valuable reference for marketing strategies to shorten consumers' decision-making time in short video purchase. (shrink)

How did meat emerge to become such an important feature in Western society? In both popular and academic literatures, biophysical and political-economic factors are often cited as the reason for meat’s preeminent status. In this paper, we perform a comprehensive investigation of these claims by reviewing the available evidence on the political-economic and biophysical features of meat over the long arc of Western history. We specifically focus on nine critical epochs: the Paleolithic, early to late Neolithic, antiquity, ancient Israel (...) and early Christian societies, medieval Europe, early modern Europe, colonial America, the American frontier, and the modern industrial era. We find that except under conditions of environmental scarcity, the meaning and value of meat cannot be attributed to intrinsic biophysical value or to the political-economic actors who materially benefit from it. Rather, meat’s status reflects the myriad cultural contexts in which it is socially constructed in people’s everyday lives, particularly with respect to religious, gender, communal, racial, national, and class identity. By deconstructing the normalized/naturalized materialist assumptions circling around meat consumption, this paper clears a space for a more nuanced appreciation of the role that culture has played in the legitimation of meat, and by extension, the possibility of change. (shrink)

As philanthropic sales via live-streaming shopping have played an important role in alleviating the huge backlog of agricultural products during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper aims to study how online interaction in philanthropic marketing exerts influence on consumer impulse buying behaviors. We empirically explore four major dimensions of online interactions in philanthropic live-streaming sales, i.e., the live streamers’ image, the herd effect of consumers, the responsiveness of sellers, and the mutual trust between consumers. The results reveal that (...) the herd effect of consumers and the responsiveness of sellers could promote consumers’ empathy ability toward the growers of the products sold lively, whereas the live streamers’ image and the mutual trust between consumers have little effect on empathy promotions. Meanwhile, both the consumers’ empathy ability and the live streamers’ image positively affect consumers’ impulse buying behavior, which suggests a partial moderating role of consumers’ empathy ability. Lastly, by taking both social and business perspectives, we provide managerial implications for improving the effectiveness and efficiency of philanthropic live-streaming sales to alleviate social and economic pressure in emergencies. (shrink)

This research aims to determine which dimensions of online convenience influence generation z consumers’ cognitive and affective attitudes and online impulsive buying behavior. The moderating effect of social media celebrity is also investigated to examine the attitude-behavior gap. A total of 348 responses from Chinese users who followed digital celebrities were received using purposive sampling. Data analysis and hypothesis testing were carried out using SmartPLS, version 3. The results indicated that relationship convenience, possession convenience, post possession conveniences, transaction (...) convenience, and evaluation convenience have a crucial impact on cognitive and affective attitudes. Similarly, cognitive and affective attitudes are significant and positive predictors of generation z consumers’ online impulsive buying behavior. Moreover, empirical results supported the moderating role of social media celebrities that aid marketers in selecting a product endorser. The implications for marketers and policymakers are discussed based on the above research findings. Moreover, future research directions are suggested. (shrink)

In the context of the main principles, modernity has affected the relationship of individuals with society in two ways; either by promoting a comprehensive individualization or by paradoxically surrendering individual freedoms to new relations due to the many risks it carries. In the modernization process, religion has been affected not only in the context of traditional and everyday patterns; but also, it has been significantly influenced in terms of its dimensions corresponding to the public space. This study examined the relationship (...) between religion and modernization in the sample of Theology Faculty at Sivas Cumhuriyet University which is an organized and official field of religion. The aim of the research is to understand and explain the aspects of modernization in theology faculties that look at individual identity through some concepts such as religion and world designs, pluralism, perspectives on lifestyles, attitudes towards gender, and consumption. In line with these goals, the article problematizes the relations between the attitudes and behaviors of the participants due to modernization and the religious theory of orthodox Islam, political secularism, globalization, and socioeconomic and cultural environments. Within a qualitative method, the research was planned as a "single event" study. With the help of semi-structured interview questions, the data obtained from a sample group consisting of male and female students from different classes by techniques such as "problem-centered interview", "narrative", "participated observation" were theoretically analyzed from interactionist, ethnomethodological, and phenomenological perspectives. Considering its sources, theology in Turkey was shaped under the intense influence of Jacobin and elitist political secularism during the first three quarters of the Republic. In the last quarter of its century-old history, it can be said that a conservative, Islamist secularism was effective there. In this context, the status accorded to religion by the political institution in its authoritarian structure in Turkey, on the one hand, makes sense in terms of the shape and direction of religion and society relations, on the other hand, it gives an idea about the general situation of theology as an official educational institution and the contents of the roles and functions expected from it. For this reason, it is understood that the future of theology in Turkey will be shaped depending on the politics, religion, human, and society paradigms of the political bureaucracy for now, whether in terms of human resources and public visibility or within the scope of the relations of institutional religion with society. All these are related to the social realities as well as the central position and character of politics in the society in Turkey. Besides, these realities strongly show the close relationship of theology with Turkish modernization. For this reason, in this study, political secularism has been seen as an important component of religion and modernization relations in theology. However, this relationship is not with a one-sided point of view that secularism affects theology; from the perspective that theology also affects the direction and forms of modernization and secularization in Turkey, it is discussed in a mutual way. As a matter of fact, as it can be seen, while theology was functionalized for the construction of the nation-state and a secular society paradigm in most of the history of the republic, it also produced an alternative, Islamic secularization related to a postmodern ethics by approaching the ontological, epistemological, and aesthetic designs of religion and world of environmental movements in more modern periods. Today, theology students, like every student, are faced with fluidizing all the artificial and natural boundaries of modernity and their traditional environments outside their own borders, and at the same time being a member of a wider world without borders. These developments, which clearly point to a change in attitude and attitude towards the secular field, are not only for theology students to reach new values in religion and world relations; it has also been important in the context of their entering into very important conflicts and tensions in the context of their individual identities. Finally, when it was associated with “orthodox Islam”, it was seen that this new socialization environment and the tension created by these created a series of alienation in theology in the context of gender, lifestyles, leisure activities, and consumption. (shrink)

The first part of this book contains a selection of Leszek Nowak’s (1943-2009) works on non-Marxian historical materialism, which are published here in English for the first time. In these papers, Nowak constructs a dynamic model of religious community, reconstructs historiosophical assumptions of liberalism and considers the methodological status of prognosis of totalitarization of capitalist society. In the second part of the book, new contributions to non-Marxian historical materialism are presented. Their authors analyze mechanisms of the oligarchization of liberal (...) democracy, the democratization of real socialism, and the development of early modern Ottoman and post-war Chinese societies. The volume will be of interest to graduate and undergraduate students, as well as specialists who deal with the development of capitalist society, philosophy of history, the philosophy of social sciences and the political philosophy of liberalism. (shrink)

The 21st century, in which science and technology developed with great acceleration, made the physical and social distances between people more permeable with the effect of globalization inherited from the previous century. In such an age where everybody is aware of everything, not only positive developments but also all kinds of information, beliefs and actions that may be considered negative for humanity can instantly spread and become widespread all over the world. For example, the adoption of attitudes and behaviors (...) that do not correspond to human values such as consumption, selfishness, narcissism, vanity, arrogance, humiliation, mockery, especially among young people, is worrisome. It is a fact that the generation Z, who was born in the lap of technology, is vulnerable to technology and more susceptible to its damages. In today's world, which is also defined as the age of technology and information, young people can be exposed to all kinds of written and visual information pollution via the internet. Moreover, this situation paves the way for negative attitudes and behaviors such as waste of time and energy, consumption habits, addiction, estrangement from values, alienation, problem of belonging, dissatisfaction among young people. For this reason, this age is polluting the young people not only mentally but also spiritually. Not only the individual themself but also societies have to pay the bill for the inability to satisfy the material and spiritual dimension of the human in a healthy and appropriate manner. For this reason, the education of the new generation is a duty on the family, educators, non-governmental organizations and society as a whole. One of the first and most important steps to be taken in order to protect young people from all these adverse developments and to ensure their participation in the society as a healthy individual is undoubtedly their upbringing with moral values. Because values are the preconditions for a young person to exist as an adult with personality, morality, responsibility, sensitivity to the other and their environment, and who has discovered their own meaning and importance in the world. Therefore, knowing the spiritual-humanistic values of young people, who are the guarantors of the future, will give adults an idea about predicting today and the future and taking necessary measures. The aim of this study is; to determine the spiritual-humanistic value tendencies of high school students. The research was conducted on a total of 450 students studying at different types of high schools in the province of Sinop in the 2019-2020 academic year. The research data was collected through questionnaires and scales from quantitative research methods were analyzed according to age, gender, class, economic status, perception of success, family structure, family attitude perception, duration of social media use and social media usage purpose variables. According to the results of the research, the students got the highest average score (4.28) from moral values and the lowest average score (3.19) from respect value. There is a positive correlation between all dimensions of the spiritual-humanistic values disposition scale. Mann Witney U-Test and Kruskal Wallis H-Test, which are non-parametric tests, were used in the analysis of the scale that did not show normal distribution. According to the test results, there was no relationship between the sub-dimensions of the scale; moral values, love, respect and sensitivity mean scale score and gender, age, perception of success, family attitude perception, duration of social media use and social media use purpose variables, because p> 0.05. However, there was a significant correlation between the point average of moral tendency of the sample group and school type, mother education and father education; between the average score of love value and the school type variable; respect value average score and class, school type, perceived economic situation and mother education; between the mean score of sensitivity value and the variable of family structure (p <0.05). (shrink)

E-commerce has led to a significant increase in internet purchases. The marketing sector is very competitive these days, and marketers have a difficult task: understanding the behavior of their customers. Strategic marketing planning relies heavily on consumer behavior since the consumer acts as the user, buyer, and payer in that process. Consumers’ behavior changes in response to shifts in the factors that influence it. The purpose of this research is to show how Internet usage influence on consumer impulsive buying (...) behavior of agriculture products through moderating role personality traits and emotional intelligence in China organic market. The data gathered in three months from January to March 2022, due to COVID-19 pandemic data was gathered through an online survey questionnaire sent by Chinese social media platforms including WeChat and an email address. The PLS-SEM technique and the SmartPLS software version 3.2.8 were used for data analyses. The result revealed that internet usage positively and significantly influences consumer impulsive buying behavior. Also, both moderator personality trait and emotional intelligence positively and significantly moderate the relationship between internet usage and consumer impulsive buying behavior. Lastly, theoretical and practical implications, and future directions were discussed. (shrink)

Sunnah is considered the second of the main sources of Islam. The reports, which are considered the carrier of the sunnah, have been conveyed by narrators at different levels. The reasons for the difference between the conveying narration levels were handled mainly as a subject of research and discussion by theologians and Muʿtazila scholars as well. One of these subjects is the factors affecting the conveying of the narration and what is preventing it from being conveyed. Qāḍī Abd Al-Jābbār (d. (...) 415/1025) is one of the scholars who has a different account on this subject. He developed a philosophical perspective on the Islamic narrative case, acting in line with the rationalist sectarian approach. Accordingly, the frequency of conveying narration, whether the report is religious, its effect on the interlocutor, it's becoming ordinary. Therefore, ın this study, the factors which affect conveying of the khabar are emphasized in line with the opinions of Qāḍī Abd Al-Jābbār. In other words, the factors that ensure that a report is voiced and repeated by the members of the society and the reasons that prevent the transfer of a word are emphasized. Qāḍī Abd Al-Jābbār dealt with the factors affecting the conveying or repetition of khabar with the social, psychological and belief aspects of human and tried to exemplify. These factors have a two-way effect. Some of factors require the conveying of the khabar, while others are considered to prevent and weaken it. Although these factors are related to the psychological aspect of the person in terms of source, they differ from the process of action. The first of these factors that require the conveying of the khabar was named by Qāḍī Abd Al-Jābbār as الداعي. The second one is the factors that prevent the communication of the khabar, and it was named as الصوارف. The “dāʿi” for doing or not taking an action can be more than one and also different in strength. The action of the person towards the conveying of the khabar is directly proportional to the force of the “dāʿi”. Strong actions motivate the person to perform it more, whereas the weakest influence lead less people to perform the action. Therefore, two khabar with the same “dāʿi” should be conveyed at the same rate. Because the main factor is named “dāʿi” that provides their conveying has the same force. Accordingly, it is not correct whether one of the two khabar items that share the same situation and are in the same time period is not posted and the other is. In other words, the transfer of something is devāʿī / الدواعي and in accordance with the strength of the need within the framework of the custom / العادة law. The conveying of the khabar status depends on the tendency to post it or the issues that prevent it. Among these factors, the issues that enable the conveying of the khabar and motivate people in this regard are also expressed in terms of issues and elements that prevent people from conveying. These are closely related to the psychological situation of the person who conveyed the khabar, the ordinariness of the khabar, the need for the khabar, the distance to the time of the khabar, the religious quality of the khabar and whether there is a fear situation surrounding the conveying. According to this, if there is a “dāʿi / motive” and " devāī / motives" related to the khabar, it is conveyed but if there is any "sārif/ inhibitor" about it, it is not conveyed. The “dā’i / motive” and "sārif/ inhibitor" of the khabar do not have the same strength. Accordingly, to obtain neccecity in knowledge, the correctnes of khabar depends on the “dāʿi” in the khabar. Therefore, since the “dāʿi” owned by the “khabar from single persons / ahad khaber” are weaker than the “dāʿi” owned by the mutawatir khabar. Therefore, it cannot be expected to be transmitted at the same level. (shrink)

This well chosen collection of essays written by recognized scholars addresses many of the intriguing aspects concerning the controversy over meat consumption. These aspects include not only eating meat, but also hunting animals, breeding, feeding, killing, and shredding them for our use, buying meat, the economics of the meat industry, the understanding of predation and food webs in ecology, and the significance of animals for issues about nutrition, gender, wealth, and cultural autonomy. Dombrowski rightly notes that the contemporary debate (...) regarding philosophical vegetarianism has been profoundly shaped by the historical figures who have rejected or embraced the anthropocentrism entrenched in Western thought. Three anthropological-medical essays compare meat with vegetarian diets. Eight essays treat the recent philosophical debate over the moral status of animals and whether vegetarianism is obligatory. Several essays discuss religious views on meat-eating and vegetarianism. Three essays explore meat, patriarchy, and the exploitation of nature and animals with respect to race, gender, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic class. The last four essays debate how to understand predation, environmental ethics, and animal protection. This collection is a fine entrée for all readers of this journal, since the debate over meat must by now figure into every thinking person’s diet. (shrink)

Over last half of the twentieth century, a silent revolution in post-material values made significant advances around the world. The formation of post-material values also resulted in expanded participation in post-material experiences such as joining voluntary groups, pursuing creativity and independence in the world of work, and engaging in political actions—experiences that go beyond a strict focus on accumulating economic wealth and material possessions. Because social class position matters for being a post-materialist, a class divide exists between (...) middle-class post-materialists and working-class materialists who occupy the lower end of the social class spectrum. This article will show that such a divide occurs, first for participation in post-material experiences and second for the attainment of life satisfaction. Using data from the World Values Survey, evidence will be provided in this article showing that members of the working class participate less in post-material experiences than others and, as a consequence, enjoy lower life satisfaction than others, especially post-materialists. In light of working-class-supported right-wing populism’s recent emergence in the USA and Europe, this social class divide takes on a special significance in explaining shifting trends in politics and public policy. (shrink)

Being poor can influence how one makes ethical decisions in various fields. Nepotism is one such area, emerging as kinship-based favoritism in the job market. People can be poor on at least three levels: one can live in a poor country, be poor compared to others around them, or feel poor in their given situation. We assumed that these levels can simultaneously influence nepotistic hiring decisions among Hungarian and US participants. Prior cross-cultural, non-experimental studies demonstrated that nepotism is more prevalent (...) in poorer countries such as Hungary than in richer countries such as the United States. However, contrary to our expectations, in our non-representative, preliminary study, US participants showed stronger nepotistic behavioral tendencies than Hungarians. Furthermore, people with lower socioeconomic status had less nepotistic intentions than richer people. When participants were asked to imagine themselves as a poor person, they tended to be more nepotistic than had they imagined themselves to be rich. Finally, nepotistic hiring intentions were in general stronger than non-nepotistic hiring intentions. These seemingly paradoxical results were interpreted in the light of the COVID-19 job market context and were explained by the mechanisms described by research on wealth and immoral behaviors, as well as the presence of risk aversion. (shrink)

The chapter deals with the contrast between defining aspects of religious rigidity, a socio-historically derived counter-narrative, and anti-consumerism in Rastafarian philosophy and culture on one hand and the universal message and commercial success of the music on the other. After discussing the status of the genre as part of Jamaican national culture, the inherent socio-political claim of Reggae and Rastafarian culture are put in context with the conflicting claims of superiority and non-partiality that can frequently be found in the (...) music. Along the lines of religious doctrines in Rastafarian culture and the attempted spiritual transcendence of racism the chapter closes with an exploration of the genre's signature tropes of social justice and anti-materialism, also considering the less strictly defined identity-constructions of recent artists linked to the Reggae Revival movement. "Martin A. M. Gansinger's study of Reggae and class employs Rastafarianism as a key ingredient of both concepts. Gansinger contends that Rastafarianism offers a "spirituality-based consciousness" that lends itself to an egalitarian-driven social consciousness. Reggae's strong social, political and culture capital as a philosophy of liberation owes much to Rastafarianism, which, for all its contradictions, embodied in categories such as the "righteous" and the "wicked", as well as its segregationalist and patriarchal past, offers a means through which the music advances a socially transformative spirituality that may play a part in the rediscovery of a truly social consciousness." (Ian Peddie, Introduction to The Bloomsbury Handbook of Popular Music and Social Class). (shrink)

This article argues that dominant social thought is rooted in the material interests of the capitalist class, taking serious Marx’s maxim that “the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas.” The article identifies three broad tendencies within dominant thought, namely: centrist liberalism, postmodern leftism, and neo-fascist reactionary thought. The article goes on to identify the correlation between each of these tendencies’ inherent anti-Marxism with the ruling class location of each tendency’s primary (...) proponents. In so doing, the article also offers an elucidation of the basic philosophical and political program of the Marxist tradition, highlighting why dialectical materialism remains applicable, convincing, and alluring today. (shrink)

Marxism is a materialist theory that centers economic life in its analysis of the human social world. This materialist orientation manifests in explanations that take economic class to play a fundamental causal role in determining the emergence, character, and development of race-and sex-based oppression—indeed, of all forms of identity-based oppression within class societies. To say that labor is mediated by class in a class-based society is to say that, in such societies, the class-based division (...) of that activity which produces and reproduces the human species is the definite form in which labor appears, and that the human life which is the product of that self-making activity bears its stamp. Marxism’s emphasis on economic factors as central in the constitution and development of human life has been seized upon as evidence of its alleged “class reductionism”—its supposed tendency to think of all aspects of human life as direct and simple expressions of a class relation. No such thing follows; quite the opposite, a correct understanding of the relationships among capitalism, racism, and sexism only further highlights how central the struggle against each is to the struggles against any of the others. (shrink)

Drawing on the narratives of young lower-middle-class women employed in cafés, call centers, shopping malls, and offices in Delhi, India, in this paper I identify malleability or “plasticity” of the body as an important feature of contemporary service work. As neophyte service professionals, young women mold themselves to the middle-/upper-class milieu of their workplaces through clothes, makeup, and body language. Such body plasticity can be experienced as enabling: Identifying with the image of the “New Indian Woman,” young women (...) enter the bourgeoning service economy. However, they also experience this body plasticity as threatening; bodily changes to meet the requirements of work can, at times, feel inauthentic as well as be read as promiscuous by others. I draw attention to how women appraise plastic bodies as both generative of change and a site of labor discipline, thus offering insights into the relationship among bodies, social inequalities, and contemporary service work. (shrink)

On one hand, Chinese consumers are well known for conspicuous consumption and the adoption of luxury products and named brands. On the other hand, they also have a bad reputation for buying counterfeit products. Their simultaneous preferences for two contrasting types of product present a paradox that has not been addressed in the literature. This study attempts to present an explanation of this paradox by examining the effects of traditional Chinese cultural values and consumer values on consumers’ deontological judgment (...) of pirated CDs and the amount of social benefits they perceive they gain from them. We interviewed 300 Hong Kong Chinese consumers, and found that face consciousness increased materialism and risk aversion, thereby producing a favorable deontological judgment of pirated CDs. Face consciousness also has a direct effect on the amount of social benefits perceived in pirated CDs. Both favorable deontological judgment and perceived social benefits contributed to a strong intention to buy pirated CDs. The results are discussed in a cultural perspective. (shrink)

In Bangladesh, due to economic growth and greater access to education, more girls and women are veiling, even as they are also more likely to be in school or employed. Some scholars identify this trend of women appearing both “more modern” and “more religious” as paradoxical. On the basis of 114 in-depth interviews with Bangladeshi migrant workers in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Singapore, and South Korea and their wives in rural Bangladesh, I claim that Muslim women in middle-class Bengali families (...) who veil are cultivating symbolic boundaries guided by an accountability structure of middle-class religiosity and gender conservatism. The increasing tendency of middle-class Muslim women to appear both “more modern” and “more religious” can be explained by examining the role that veiling plays in signaling class status through conspicuous consumption, moral superiority, and respectable femininity, differentiating them from lower class women. I conclude that “doing gender” through veiling must be understood as also “doing middle-class difference” in Bengali Muslim families in rural Bangladesh. (shrink)

Consumers’ inclinations towards materialism and compulsive buying are influenced by a variety of factors. Materialistic consumers face maladies that cause stress and lower subjective well-being and are unable to control their buying behaviour that in turn leads to social and financial issues. This paper aims to investigate the effect of emotional intelligence training on consumers’ materialism and compulsive buying. The experimental design involves 36 respondents across both groups. Findings confirm the hypothesis that ability-based training programmes can help consumers improve (...) their emotional intelligence whilst also lowering their levels of materialism and compulsive buying. In sum, the results extend the existing literature on consumer materialism by providing an explanation on how specific emotional ability-based training can diminish materialistic and excessive buying inclinations. The development of emotional intelligence skills-based training programmes contributes to more sustainable consumer behaviour, mitigating the vulnerability to materialism and related addictive behavioural consequences. (shrink)

Seafood consumption is crucial for global nutrition, but the decline of wild marine fisheries necessitates aquaculture to meet the rising demand. Nevertheless, the pervasive preference for wild seafood among Chinese consumers, especially in Qingdao, has not been comprehensively explored. This study investigates the preference for wild seafood in Qingdao, China, challenging the notion of wildness as a mere characteristic and revealing its active role in influencing consumer behavior. Employing the relational perspective of new materialism, the study unravels the dynamic (...) interactions between humans and non-human actors, providing a comprehensive understanding of the multifaceted nature of food. The research uncovers how wild seafood is entangled within the social fabric, labor relations, and consumer choices. It demonstrates that wildness is not a static social fact but rather is constantly emerging and transforming through interactions among seafood, people, places, nature, and technology. By examining the affective and subjective dimensions of seafood consumption, the findings indicate that the subjectivity of wild seafood impacts consumers’ physical and emotional states. The study also highlights the importance of social relations in food systems and calls for increased transparency and consumer education to promote sustainable consumption practices. (shrink)

Conspicuous consumption was first identified and discussed by Thorstein Veblen in his classic text on The Theory of the Leisure Class published in 1899. Since that time, business organisations have encouraged and exploited the demand for status goods and today the supply of products which serve as social symbols is highly organised and profitable. This paper looks at the ways in which manufacturers, advertisers and retailers have combined to promote status-seeking as an acceptable form of (...) consumer behaviour and at how the market for status goods has been expanded by corporate strategies geared to securing rapid rates of social obsolescence in the conspicuous goods and services on offer. The ethical arguments for and against such business activity are then examined in detail. (shrink)

The objective of the study was to investigate the relationship between childhood IQ of parents and characteristics of their adult offspring. It was a prospective family cohort study linked to a mental ability survey of the parents and set in Renfrew and Paisley in Scotland. Participants were 1921-born men and women who took part in the Scottish Mental Survey in 1932 and the Renfrew/Paisley study in the 1970s, and whose offspring took part in the Midspan Family study in 1996. There (...) were 286 offspring from 179 families. Parental IQ was related to some, but not all characteristics of offspring. Greater parental IQ was associated with taller offspring. Parental IQ was inversely related to number of cigarettes smoked by offspring. Higher parental IQ was associated with better education, offspring social class and offspring deprivation category. There were no significant relationships between parental IQ and offspring systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose, lung function, weight, body mass index, waist hip ratio, housing, alcohol consumption, marital status, car use and exercise. Structural equation modelling showed parental IQ associated with offspring education directly and mediated via parental social class. Offspring education was associated with offspring smoking and social class. The smoking finding may have implications for targeting of health education. (shrink)

‘Fair trade’, ‘ethical’ and ‘sustainable’ consumption emerged in response to rising concerns about the destructive effects of hedonic models of consumption that are typical of late capitalist societies. Advocates of these ‘markets for virtue’ sought to supplant the insatiable hedonic impulse with a morally restrained, self-disciplining disposition to consumption. With moral markets currently losing their appeal, we respond to the tendency to view hedonism as an inhibitor of moral market behaviour, and view it instead as a potential (...) enabler. Drawing upon the concept of ‘alternative hedonism’ (Soper, J Consum Cult 7:205–229, 2007; Cult Stud 22(5):567–587, 2008; Ethics and morality in consumption: interdisciplinary perspectives, Routledge, London, 2016; A new hedonism: a post-consumerism vision, the next system project, 2017), we illustrate how consumers experience both morality and pleasure concurrently; show how they attempt to reconcile these aspects of the experience and elucidate the implications of doing so. Using the moral market for ethical tourism as an exemplar of ‘alternative hedonism’, we identify three ‘self-managing strategies’—moderating, abiding and levelling—that re-structure the moral order of consumption in meaningful ways and with profound outcomes. In the context of anxieties about personal, social and ecological consequences of consumption, we show empirically how self-managing strategies reify a less contradictory framing of consumption by tapping into alternative cultural discourses on morality. We discuss the consequences of these strategies, highlighting how they may legitimise and sustain consumption via moral markets despite the reproduction of social inequality and ecological threats. (shrink)

The status of the child in the context of contemporary socio-cultural processes that are reflected in the market is the main issue discussed in this paper. It may be surprising to concentrate on children and the market, while the sphere of economic exchange is the scene of such actions as work, production and consumption which seem to be reserved to adult members of the society. Although there are issues – such as kids advertisement and its consequences, and children’s (...) participation in the process of buying – that are discussed, the range of problems that deserve consideration is far wider. The questions analyzed in this paper concentrate on two aspects. First of them is the influence of the market sphere on the life of children as members of the families and the society. The question that should be asked here is whether a child can and should be regarded as any other consumer, or should be protected – e.g. against controversial marketing practices. The second group of problems is connected with the objective way of treating children which leads to formation of something that can be called the markets of children”. Both these sets of issues are the stimulus to analyze the way of understanding a child and its status in the society. It is also done through taking into consideration such issues as current concepts of socialization, antipedagogy, infantilisation and adultisation that influence and shape market processes. Finally the analysis undertaken in this paper leads to an attempt to answer the question whether in the current context children are seen as persons or resources. (shrink)

Since 2008 I have been closely following the conceptual/performance/video work of Daniel Peltz. Gently rendered through media installation, ethnographic, and performance strategies, Peltz’s work reverently and warmly engages the inner workings of social systems, leaving elegant rips and tears in any given socio/cultural quilt. He engages readymades (of social and media constructions) and uses what are identified as interruptionist/interventionist strategies to disrupt parts of an existing social system, thus allowing for something other to emerge. Like the stereoscope (...) that requires two identical images to create an illusion of a three-dimensional image, Peltz sometimes visualizes two separate elements to create an object or moment that requires space and depth to focus on its varied layers. They say your brain has to process and make meaningful sense out of all that visual information before it can accept the illusion. I say your brain has to do a similar thing when looking and seeing the divine, magical, and faithful (social) art making of Daniel Peltz. Daniel Peltz is Associate Professor of Film/Animation/Video at RISD. He divides his time between Rhode Island and Sweden and is currently at work on an exhibition at Botkyrka Konsthall, Stockholm opening February 2013 and a new project to be included in the IASKA: Spaced Biennial (Australia) in 2014. This interview took place on Skype and is part one of a two-part interview. Feliz Lucia Molina: Are you in Providence, RI? Daniel Peltz: I’m at my house in Providence. I’ve been back for six days teaching winter session at RISD and doing this workshop series—these investors’ drum circles with a group of wealth managers. a client of the firm, 2013, photo Shirin Adhami FLM: The wealth managers were all drumming together? DP: They were all drumming in response to the performance of their retirement portfolios. FLM: Is this part of the “Unrealized Gain/Loss” piece? DP: Yes, it’s part of a show I’m working on in Sweden. I can show you because it was just today. I’ll show you some of this. Lets see—share screen [click, click, click]. This is the room. I’ve been using the camera system that’s already installed in the conference rooms to record them. So the video is being recorded directly by the wealth management office’s tech staff. These are the people I worked with in the last workshop. This conference table is less wondrous. They’ve been learning to drum in response to their retirement portfolios. I started by bringing in my little bit of wealth for them to propose a management strategy, I came to the follow-up meeting with a counter proposal, which was this workshop. So they agreed to do this series of workshops instead of managing my wealth. FLM: Does everybody in the room manage your wealth? That’s kind of a lot of people. DP: That woman in the back there and Craig —they handle new client business. So when you come there with your wealth, they sit down with you and suggest to you how they would manage it. They’re very nice, responsible people. FLM: And where is this? DP: This is in Providence and the one I was showing you is in Waltham, where I was today. Then I’m going to Newport for the last one on Friday. So I will have done four of them. This is the group in Waltham that I just played with today. I played directly with the two groups in Providence and I’m working with an ethnomusicologist at Brown, Asha Tamarisa, who is facilitating the last two. She’s helped develop the workshop in terms of figuring out how to train a group to do this and thinking about the compositional challenges of working in response to retirement portfolio data. FLM: Screensharing helps me to figure out tiny bits here and there about the project. DP: I might even be able to play you a little of the audio I’ve also been working with a group of professional percussionists on what will become a quarterly public investors’ drum circle event. Their stuff was really nice, but I want you to hear what we sounded like in the workshops. They’ve all been recorded by the a/v system in the offices. We use a simple structure where the drummer investors interpret the sensation of gain or loss as embellishments to a base heartbeat rhythm. The group holds the heartbeat and, as each person experiences gain or loss, they embellish that rhythm. "Screensharing helps me to figure out tiny bits here and there about the project" FLM: Is the process all very spontaneous? DP: Its actually quite structured. We produce a custom stock ticker that shows the performance of their collective portfolios. In advance of the workshop each participant submits assets in their retirement portfolio. Then we make a stock ticker that shows the real-time performance of their assets so that they can respond to almost live data. FLM: Are they reading the stock ticker projected up on the screen in the room? Do people drum in correspondence to the visual live data of the performance of their assets? DP: Exactly. They’re looking at the stock ticker as opposed to each other, so it’s a slightly shifted drum circle. They’re looking at the ticker but they’re listening to each other—that’s what we’re practicing. For example, NVO—the price is 172.08 but it’s down -1.16 and as that moves across the screen, the person who’s retirement is invested in that asset starts to embellish when that arrow first appears, based on their experience of loss. They stop when it exits the screen and return to the heartbeat. You could have one ticker for each retirement portfolio, but the way the workshop is constructed is that we just isolate one asset from each person’s portfolio so that everyone in the group is represented in a single ticker. So they’re drumming and looking at the ticker, but they’re hearing each other experience gain and loss. We’ve removed direct visual engagement from the social structure of a drum circle but the oral engagement is still there. FLM: So they had their own sound interpretation of gain and loss? DP: Yeah and that part is quite spontaneous as you were saying. In some of the preparatory exercises we’ve been working to give the participants more strategies for interpreting the sensations of gain and loss. We’re trying to develop their capacity to embellish a heartbeat or base rhythm but I’m not invested in having a melodious result. I’m quite curious about what this kind of structure will result in without any desire for a particular result. FLM: For context, can you talk about the project you did a couple years ago in Bali, “Unrealized Gain/Loss” in relation to this current wealth management project? DP: The workshops I’ve been doing use a similar strategy to the other components in this project. It started in Indonesia on my sabbatical and I was really trying to understand where I was physically and where I was being on sabbatical—this kind of strange jubilee structure where every seventh year you’re supposed to renew your self. And it was around the time of the global financial crisis. I was on sabbatical for the global financial crisis. I remember watching my father, in particular, respond to the financial crisis by monitoring his retirement portfolio and trying to make sense of it. I realized on a visit to their home that he checked his retirement portfolio every single day and I was really struck by that because in some way our parents are mysteries to us as children, especially their moods. We know how important their moods are but we don’t know what governs them. And somehow it was like I’d figured it out, it’s the performance of the DOW! So I think there was something in that. Then I was in Indonesia and I had been drawn there by an interest in their highly ritualized Hindu culture, where so much of life is driven by a ceremonial calendar. I was interested in Bali as this predominantly Hindu pocket within a predominantly Islamic country and life there being organized by this ritual calendar functioning as a kind of resistance to the dominant global religion of free-market capitalism. So I started to explore that correlation between the ways in which this culture that I was living in was sort of “living for the afterlife” and this idea within certain segments of American society of “living for the afterwork life”. The idea that your wellbeing in the “afterwork life” is tied to forces that are unseen and largely beyond your control has strong similarities to many religious understandings of the universe. So I started to explore that and the crafts and materials that were around me were primarily Batik and percussion. Percussion is a huge part of daily life in Bali. These gamelan troupes were everywhere. And I also happened to be there for Nyepi, the day of silence, which is preceded by a very elaborate procession and construction of demonic statues. These were the things that were around me and I started studying Batik with one of the Batik artists there and also started a conversation with two master Batik artists, one who is American and her Indonesian husband. I developed these patterns that were based on symbols from the performance of my retirement portfolio and worked with the batik artists to produce two sarongs. d. peltz - 2012 In producing the designs, I treated the performance of my retirement portfolio since my arrival at RISD [7 years] as a significant interval and then I looked at the ways in which decisions are made within retirement portfolios as having an extension outwards from the individual assets that underlie the retirement portfolio, which are kind of like the base elements of the retirement world. Then there’s the allocation of your assets, which is a global way of understanding an individual according to typologies, which are often referred to in terms of risk—this notion of a ‘risk profile’. What type of ‘person’ you are is determined by your attitude towards risk, or potentiality, and I found that to be a really fascinating way of understanding the universe. I remember looking at the tabs in my retirement portfolio and finding this one for viewing ‘Unrealized Gain/Loss’ and that’s often how I work—is just going through the Cambridge Parking Code, for example, and finding this section of the code that was called ‘Crossing Non-Signalized Locations’ and just feeling “I can’t do any better than that,” you know? That’s what I was talking about in terms of ready-mades that exist in the social sphere. So I found that tab, actually, a long time ago, and I pulled it out of a journal when I was there [in Bali] working on these pieces and I wound up making these two sarongs and later on a series of porcelain vessels for holding one’s unrealized gains and losses. At the time, I knew that I wanted a performance to come out of them, but I wasn’t sure what it was. I was inspired very much by this sort of thing: Pulls out a TIAA-CREF brochure with a man in a suit seated at a table. This guy is probably an actor, and [the brochure] says “TIAA-Cref announces “Individual counseling sessions at the Rhode Island School of Design. Individual counseling sessions at no additional cost to you. You can discuss your personal financial situation with an experienced TIAA consultant on a confidential basis. We are available to help you discuss how to achieve your financial goals by investing in financial solutions such as mutual funds, brokerage, life insurance, and annuities...etc....What retirement benefits best fits your situation?” Often I encounter this and I think O.K., this is one way to prepare for the after-work life and it seems inadequate to me. But, I also find it really inspiring. I really like the visual language of it. I kind of want to be that man. I’d like to see if I could maybe buy his clothes. FLM: What it is about the man on the brochure that interests you? DP: He’s offering personalized objective advice and a detailed evaluation of everything you need to know and do. Who wouldn’t want that? But he’s also something of a contemporary priest or priestess, mediating between the unseen all-powerful universe of global capitalism and the common worker. So I started off developing Unrealized Gain/Loss directly from the charts that represent the performance of my retirement portfolio. Then I came home and I wanted to use those. I had this word in my journal “unrealized gain/loss vessel.” I had this notion of vessels that would contain unrealized gains and losses. That felt really important to me that they would have somewhere to go. I had been thinking a lot about altars and making offerings—that somehow this really fickle, massive, difficult-to-comprehend-universe of the financial world—that somehow it might be nice if you could making an offering to it. [In Bali] they made such beautiful elaborate offerings. So I studied offering making as well with one of the women there and she taught me some of the standard forms created by folding leaves and the significance of the floral arrangements. I started working in clay and then moved to porcelain and I made these unrealized gain/loss vessels. I made a few of them, they have holes on either side that you can’t get your fingers in. But something can go in there and something can go out of there. It’s a nice size for putting on an altar. Then I got this commission from Artists in Context who was interested in my doing something for this project “Artists Perspectives for the Nation” project. I proposed initiating these investors’ drum circles as a new public performance form. I’m interested in bringing together those two symbols—the symbol of the djembe and the drum circle. unrealized gain/loss vessel - d.peltz - 2012 FLM: I can imagine the public digital stock ticker performing like a soft fleeting stream of information, a kind of (meaningless) illusory comfort blanket. DP: In some way you have to understand its relevance outside of the obvious, right? Because the obvious is illogical. Nobody is actually using that data to day trade, for example. People aren’t sitting there with their computers watching the market data in Times Square or setting up an outdoor office and being like “OK it’s up 3 points or it’s up 1.56, trade! Ok now buy, Ok now sell!” That would be a kind of a nice performance, actually. But actual day traders would want more up to date data than that. To understand what that data is doing is really important. And that’s something I’ve realized—that I’m interested in a particular kind of data visualization, which is not about what data can tell people, but what data can tell people who are visualizing it. For example, in the Cambridge Project “Crossing Non-Signalized Locations” I was interested in the 10,000 excuses archive of data recording five years worth of excuses for why people thought they shouldn’t have received their parking ticket. I was not interested in making that excuse wall so that the public could see and understand this data. Inevitably the data will be seen by others but I was really interested in what the action of visualizing the data told those who were visualizing it. The parking attendants themselves were writing those excuses on the wall—I was interested in what that kind action of writing the excuses on the wall told them about the data. Similarly, I’m interested in designing a way to allow people to pass this data from the unseen universe of the market, through their own bodies, which happens through the merging of the drum and the stock ticker. I’m interested in those two also as symbols; the drum as this symbol of the earth, the body and a pagan counterculture, and the stock ticker referring to the ethereal world of global markets—bringing those two together and making them dependent. I’m often drawn to conceptual propositions that I become invested in testing in a sincere way—at first they often they sound humorous to others, but I have to remember that there is humor in them. I don’t sit around and laugh about these things. I stop finding them funny at all. I’m interested in the proposition that we could know something about the after-work life by drumming in response to our retirement portfolio. So then I become really interested in how to craft that into a viable performance form for myself and others. FLM: The aspect of using sound in “Unrealized Gain/Loss” as a way of embodying the information to the asset holder is really intriguing—using sound as a means of embodying the asset data. Was sound a medium that made sense to use immediately or were you considering other means of attempting to embody it? DP: Well I do use other mediums within the project like textile, ceramic, and batik patterns. I was first drawn to the history of Batik patterns as a socio-economic stratification system and the vessels as a way of embodying or manifesting this data of unrealized gain and loss. My first approach was to work with meditation actually—a meditation workshop with my colleagues. I was going to offer this “Unrealized Gain/Loss” workshop where you would explore the sensations of gain and loss by adapting the way yogi-nidra brings you into contact with your physical surroundings and stretches your perception. FLM: At Naropa University there are/were business & compassion workshops—a sort of mash-up of business and compassion and how compassion could be incorporated into a business model. This process and engagement of “embodying data” also has to do with “Participatory Democracy and the Future of Karaoke” you created at the DNC in Denver in 2008. DP: That kind of appropriation and instrumentalization of spiritual practice could be disturbing and thus compelling as a strategy. For various reasons, I’ve come to be drawn to both the form of a quarterly public performance and the established performance form of a drum circle. Its something I’ve seen myself do before, that is to mess up a really good functional social system like a drum circle or karaoke. I remember I was developing language for the karaoke project and started calling it “Participatory Democracy and the Future of Karaoke” and one of my assistants on the project, who’s an incredible artist, said, “but don’t you think the future of karaoke is guitar hero?” and I realized that maybe he thought I was trying to improve the form. I’m just trying to get people to have this shifted embodied experience, I need to craft the performance context so that they can do that. In the case of the karaoke project, for example, what did I need in order to be able to do this [a person to stand up in front of a bar and deliver a karaoke speech]? I realized that the body is very vulnerable so I built a podium so that the speaker can feel secure enough to do this, otherwise you couldn’t get to this state achieved by passing these speeches through the body. Then I was, like, well you need to be able to practice the lyrics because you don’t know all the “songs” by heart, which became an insert to the massive track books carried by most karaoke VJs. And then sometimes the crowd in the bar isn’t there with me, so I needed to extract the voice of the crowd cheering from the original venue and I needed the local audience to cheer if they wanted to. I’m interested in both where the form succeeds and fails. In particular, one of the most interesting things is this auditory gap between the space where you are, the reduced scale of applause in your own little bar, and this grand scale of applause at the convention center where the speech was originally delivered. FLM: How did the concept of “Participatory Democracy Karaoke” come about and why did you use karaoke as a means of engaging what was happening at the DNC in 2008? DP: I was looking at a lot of different readymade media infrastructures within the city at the time. I was interested in the emergency broadcast systems and I developed a proposal to repurpose that system and karaoke became an important symbol because it was this populist form that was already engaged in exploring the sensation of celebrity but also visualizing the gap between ourselves and those with more power and influence. So it had this readymade capacity to play with power and celebrity and I felt like the Obama presidential campaign, the first one in particular, had some very curious overlaps with this culture of celebrity. Obama of course rose to power partly based on his oratory abilities and I was interested in how karaoke as a vehicle was so adept at offering people all that was left of authentic expression in a political speech. Managing a politician and constructing their identity is such a developed practice that it becomes, kind of automatically, a metaphor for the way that our own identities are constructed. Of course the Obama campaign was very hip and savvy and deploying this notion of grassroots. It was really pioneering in its use of social media and this deployment of notions of populism. I was interested at that time in the capacity of karaoke to track speech patterns, precise tempos of anyone’s delivery, and that to me was a way of thinking about what might be left of the authentic self. I was interested in karaoke’s capacity to extract that authentic component and offer it to others. So not just to stand up and be them, but to [literally] pass their speech patterns through your own body. A long time ago, it started to strike me as odd that one would make media at all. It struck me as a kind of un-contemporary way of going about making art in an age of media overflow. That logic extended into my thinking on delivery devices and installation as well. Why would one buy a screen or even set one up when there are so many out there? And the way in which these media displays function in karaoke bars and bars in general is very interesting to me. I’m drawn to this passive consumption of media where your primary social interaction is with the bartender or a few other individuals but these screens are around you and your attention is shifting back and forth between these spaces. So much political rhetoric is spoken to a half-listening audience. I was interested in what was happening in the slippage and that karaoke was a kind of slippage amplifier. So if you put people in a bar and they are delivering a Kucinich speech and Kucinich comes up on a screen then your getting a sound bite of Kucinich and an image of Kucinich and your friend is talking to you— FLM: A kind of magic takes place in that incongruency between sound and image and the karaoke participant who’s relaying the speech-text at the same time. DP: Exactly and there’s some kind of truth in that experience of reality. FLM: Yeah, there’s something uncanny about seeing the body close-up like that as though it can’t lie to you in that moment or context. It’s a weird moment of luminous clarity. The work you’ve done and all of what you’re saying about karaoke is so very interesting to me. Growing up, my dad and uncles sang karaoke a lot (and still do) and being first-generation Filipino American is a different cultural subtext entirely. I’m also seeing it from the position of witnessing family members who are carriers of these stories and songs. And seeing them cherish these Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley songs so much, I also see how their bodies are literal vessels of popular music that signifies something greater—it signifies their cultural and socioeconomic place in the world. The way that they cherish these American 1950s and 1960s pop songs is similar to having a certain kind of reverence for their spiritual faith or Catholicism. It’s a similar kind of care, focus, and attention exerted in karaoke and Catholicism—that these two structures and systems give something to focus on. Setsuko, Seiji and Hitoshi in Obama, Japan as Obama in Indiana — d. peltz — 2008 DP: Sure there something about the relationship we have to our candidate or the way we go about choosing a candidate, which is very similar to a deity or idol. I learned a lot about karaoke culture through this project. I’d never done karaoke. I’d never been interested in it as a form and then I travelled to Japan as part of the project when I made “Setsuko, Seiji and Hitoshi in Obama, Japan as Barack Obama in Indiana” and it was quite fascinating because my image of karaoke had always been this very public forum in a karaoke bar and then I discovered there’s this whole other world of karaoke where people even go on their own, they go and rent a room or cubicle and sing, or they go on a date—just the two of them go and sit in a room and do karaoke together. FLM: I’m interested in issues that take place within or as a result of specific karaoke culture(s). In the Philippines within the last several years there’s been occurring the “My Way Killings” phenomenon. Apparently baklas or gay men are employed by karaoke establishments to help “smooth over conflicts over karaoke singing”—these social forms of conduct, or lack thereof that arise out of the infrastructures of this social sport. In this one rural part of the Philippines there’s a village karaoke machine that the whole village shares—the Aeta indigenous people have an appointed “keeper” of the karaoke machine. I also see karaoke as a proxy to the confessional box in Catholicism where one goes to pour out their sins (minus the penance and redemption). The karaoke machine enables one to literally sing out whatever’s going on internally, but through highly saturated popular song lyrics. While karaoke is a public and social sport, it can also be a private one. Karaoke is a means of communion with each other. DP: Right, this preference for this kind of mediated communication. In Japan I was trying to organize people to work on this project and I was talking about throwing a party and they were like, well, we have to rent a karaoke machine because what else are we going to do? And I think its kind of serving that function of surrogacy—emotional surrogacy. FLM: And karaoke tools can be read as ritual tools—the magic mic that holds everything. There’s got to be some overlap at some point—between religious ceremony and devotion to the karaoke machine. DP: The way I designed the piece was so that it could slip right on top of the ready-made karaoke infrastructure. There was a flat-packed podium and it was made of a single sheet of plywood with no fasteners that slotted into itself. Those were sent out to a network of karaoke bars that I invited to become “karaoke convention centers.” The local VJs downloaded our custom-made, speech-extracted tracks that were designed to play on their existing equipment. In this sense the piece is a permanent installation. If you go to Denver today, some of the VJs still have the tracks in their library of offerings, the Ramones and Romney. It was this notion of re-purposing readymade infrastructure to create a distributable populist form. Obama was coming and the convention was in the Pepsi Center and 30,000 people were coming including 10,000 journalists. The impetus behind the larger art project that commissioned international artists to make works in Denver, was that local people weren’t going to have much access to this convention. It was like an invasion, the city was being descended upon, but if you lived a block away from the site, you had the same access as people in Zimbabwe&mash;30 second media bits excerpted from the speeches. So it seemed to me that the fundamental gesture was how do I take that signal, which was travelling out of the convention center, and create a local interruption? FLM: Is that what you mean by ‘intervention’? The term is frequently used to help describe your work. DP: It depends on the day. Around that karaoke project I had a conversation with Krzysztof Wodiczko and he was proposing that maybe rather than intervention, we should consider the word interruption. Because intervention is kind of an overused term in the field of art and it has militaristic and therapeutic associations outside of the art context. Fundamentally, the idea of intervening speaks to the readymade social world as your primary material. So it’s basically suggesting a kind of subtractive process, which gets back to this question: what is the role of the contemporary media artist in a world that’s so saturated with media? You can’t work additively in a saturated field. If you want to make a visible mark you have to work subtractively. That’s what intervention is about to me, just another way of saying “to work subtractively.” FLM: So the interventions or interruptions aren’t necessarily adding or subtracting, but are they putting orange cones there? What are they doing exactly? DP: I think you’re right about that, they’re not really subtracting. They’re adding to the scope of possibility. I’ve been thinking (with this exhibition I’m mounting next month) about the work as explorations and expansions of social possibility. Maybe it’s more insertion. I started calling the pieces ‘insertions’ that I was making in Rejmyre—a small town in Sweden where I’ve been working for six years now. My favorite site to install there is the tourist bureau. I started calling the video pieces that I made for the tourist bureau, video insertions. This idea that you’re inserting something into the readymade media infrastructure of the world resonates with me. Insertion leverages a context, creating a possibility that the inserted object might be naturalized in the process — that someone can encounter my video in Rejmyre as tourist information. And then all of a sudden tourist information can include some American guy prostrating through town and it can include really bad relationship advice. Maybe insertion is a better word. tourist information – d. peltz 2009-present  . (shrink)

This article has deconstructed the general phenomenon of gentrification in the historic centre of A Coruña in two models. On the one hand, a model based on social class promotion, symbolic capital and economic status in the Cidade Vella. On the other hand, the neighbourhood of Orzán as a transformation process resulting from a phenomenon of commercial gentrification based on two interrelated processes: first, the demand for new places of consumption and entertainment and second, the material (...) devaluation of the neighbourhood. In this regard, this work brings a new dimension to the global debate around commercial gentrification. (shrink)

Iran, as a country that has never been colonized, underwent a rapid modernization process, which arose from its internal pressures. Starting from 1945, with the rise of globalism at the end of World War II, a new stage of modernization began in Iran which continued to grow and foster the culture of mass consumption. Globalization also led to the rise of different maternities in the housing sector. Focusing on Tehran, the dominant tendency to create a modern society based on (...) nationalism and modernism values, led to the creation of a very new image of the city, at odds with its introverted urban form till early of the twentieth century. The majority of urban policies were based on the need to create a major change in public life and to revolutionize the socio-political aspects of Iranian society. This chapter has been divided into three chronological periods. The first section Planning the Metropolis aims to focus on the idea of Tehran as a modern capital back in the 1950s and late 1960s with a special focus on class segregation and housing politics. The second part of this chapter Housing as a Revolution has a special focus on the transformation of housing strategies in Iran after the 1978-79 Islamic revolution. The third part Post-Revolution focuses on the current policies for the housing sector and construction economy. As a result of the imposition of US sanctions on the Iranian economy after unilaterally abandoning the Iran nuclear deal, the country’s economy has been hit hard by Tehran’s inability to export oil. Inflation has also hit the housing sector. In general, this chapter aims to bring forward the idea of housing as politics in modern Tehran through a critical and historical perspective. (shrink)

This paper contributes to business ethics by focusing on consumption that is characterized by normative violence. By drawing on the work of Judith Butler this study of kajer lok—a female subaltern group of Indian domestic service providers—and their higher status clients shows how codes of status-based consumption shaped by markets, class, caste, and patriarchy create a social order that reduces kajer lok to “ungreivable” lives. Our study contributes to business ethics by focusing on exploitation (...) and coercion in consumption rather than in production and of woman rather than of men. It adds to consumer research by revealing how social distinctions not only manifest in status contests in which symbolic power is at stake but also may produce violent exploitation and ungrievable lives. (shrink)

The transition toward sustainability and the adjustment to climate change should involve the reduction of consumption behavior and the need to maintain social practices of frugality. This paper investigates the influences of consciousness for sustainable consumption, materialism, and the consideration of future consequences on frugal behaviors. Four-hundred-and-forty-four individuals responded to an instrument investigating these variables. Results of a structural model revealed that materialism significantly and negatively influenced the three dimensions of CSC: economic, environmental, and social. The (...) consideration of distant future consequences positively and significantly affected the economic dimension of CSC. Frugal behavior received significant and positive influences from the three CSC dimensions and from consideration of distant future consequences. The model explained 46% of variance in frugal behavior, revealing the importance of awareness of the consequences of resource consumption and the CFC has on promoting a moderate consumption of resources. (shrink)

Socially responsible consumption reflects a consumer's political and ethical act. Its measurement is dependent on the socio-economic and cultural context. Consequently, measurement instruments reflecting various behaviour profiles of global consumers have been developed. This study employs a Latin-American-specific measurement instrument to compare socially responsible consumption behaviours in Colombia, Mexico and Peru, countries with the same cultural cluster, that is they reflect a set of values shaped by religion, family, a sense of authority and a nationalist bias in their (...) cultural pattern. The empirical test included confirmatory factorial analysis exercise, factorial invariance analysis and a contrast analysis of variance. The results for the three Latin American countries show the following. (i) The Mexican consumer, compared to the Peruvian and Colombian one, exhibits a stronger tendency to evaluate external practices of corporate social responsibility as a criterion of consumption. (ii) The rationality of the Mexican consumer is better in terms of consumption volume of products, resources and services. Finally, (iii) Peruvian and Mexican consumers (vs. Colombian consumers) exhibit a tendency to assess the responsible practices of companies in labour matters more as a consumption criterion. This study provides empirical evidence of the context-dependent nature of measuring socially responsible consumption. For practitioners, identifying consumer profiles based on the market context enables them to customise goods and services. Moreover, policymakers should implement a sustainable consumption agenda with public policy guidelines tailored to the specific context. (shrink)

The topic of lifestyle has always been present in one way or another in social philosophy and economics. Max Weber and Thorstein Veblen were among the first to introduce the concept of "lifestyle" into the field of science. Weber used lifestyle in the context of social stratification to describe status groups. Veblen introduced the concept in his concept of the "leisure class", showing that consumer lifestyle / conspicuous consumption is an assertion of one's power, symbolic (...) power. That is, goods are purchased not out of need, but as a demonstration of one's class and money. Thus, Weben and Veblen set the tone for subsequent studies of lifestyle. Pierre Bourdieu also believes that different lifestyles show belonging to a particular class. He incorporates the concept into his concept of habitus and shows how a person's lifestyle is manifested in his everyday life. Anthony Giddens transfers the conversation about lifestyle from the class structure of society to the world of modernity, where a person is faced with the task of constructing his own identity, and lifestyle is revealed in existential discourse. In search of his “I” and trying to answer the question “how should I live?”, a modern person turns to all sorts of sources of expert opinion, one of which is social media. But instead of looking for answers to his questions, a person immerses himself in a world of beautiful images, which is filled with “avatars” demonstrating an ideal life. Thus, a person falls into a pseudo-reality created by social media, from which he cannot escape or, perhaps, no longer wants to. After all, this new reality is better, brighter and more beautiful, and most importantly, in it a person can create an ideal self and display it through his pseudo-lifestyle. Half a century ago, Baudrillard already described a person immersed in this “aesthetic” hallucination of reality. And now a modern person faces a new task - to escape from the destructive pseudo-reality and return to the search for his “I”. (shrink)

Against the dynamic background that distinguishes modern social reality, the formation of specific social entities is clearly visible. The basis for their emergence are certain ideas. Such tendency in itself is not historically unusual. And yet it is worth paying attention to the fact that in the age of information technologies, the “ideas” factor in terms of importance has increased significantly. Such a trend should lead to the growth in the influence, social status of those strata, (...) groups, individuals who are related to the social functioning of ideas. However, the peculiarity of the current context is that information technologies affect not only and not so much those who work with an ideal component, but society in all its diversity. Information technologies contribute to democracy and transparency in the social circulation of ideas at the stages of production, distribution and consumption. In the age of the Internet, ideas are under the additional public and individual control of doubt, criticism. Thanks to this, they manage to unite very different people, and at the same time support them in striving for personal independence. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Roman Literary Culture: From Cicero to ApuleiusWilliam S. AndersonElaine Fantham. Roman Literary Culture: From Cicero to Apuleius. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. xv 1 326 pp. Cloth, $39.95.This is a book that needed to be written, in answer to a deep gap in our resources on Latin literature. As our current time and our students keep raising questions along the lines of cultural history, (...) we are obliged to seek answers about the circumstances that conditioned the production and consumption of [End Page 135] poetry and prose. Fantham’s book is a significant start on a project which, I dare predict, others in coming generations will be inspired to continue.Fantham modestly declares at the outset that she is contributing to the search “toward a social history of Latin literature.” If we ask her to elaborate on the extent of her project, she obliges as follows: “I see as important aspects of any literary work its author in his social and political setting, its recipients and their culture, and the medium or nature of its presentation” (2). Fleshing out each of these three aspects (author, audience, and medium of presentation), she devotes most attention to the various circumstances that affect the author. First of all, the author is almost universally male: Sulpicia is a precious exception that proves the rule. But then his social class may vary widely, as will his civil status in Rome. Fantham instances for contrast Cato and Ennius, the first a novus homo and therefore an almost fanatic advocate of Roman values, a thorough politician (consul, censor, senator), a celebrated speaker and a writer of prose (history and treatises on agriculture and education); the second a noncitizen Calabrian who came to Rome and won patronage for his poetry, then citizenship, practicing a variety of genres that looked to the Hellenistic world—a poet, not a politician. (An even greater contrast would have used Terence, a slave brought to Italy from Carthage and eventually freed because of his literary talents.) Fantham does not elaborate on how the different social and civil backgrounds affected the literary culture, except to say that senators and some equestrians did not need to resort to patronage, whereas of course outsiders and equestrians like Horace did. We would expect that social background would often have had decisive and particular influence on writers, but that is an area where we still are groping for reliable methodology. How often did men use their literary presentation to turn their backs on their socially inferior or non-Roman background? How often did they look at Roman culture obliquely from the alien cultural position of their origins?A writer’s education was obviously very important. We have a fair sense of how senatorial sons and wealthy equestrians were educated; Horace’s father, who wasn’t exactly poor, but rather undignified in the way he personally took the boy to and from school, saw to it that Horace was given an education that equaled the training of senatorial sons, both in Rome and later in Athens. Boys were taught Latin grammar, style, and the classics of Latin literature; and they were given a grounding in Greek. The amount of Greek and the relative mastery of that language would vary according to the century and the social and political intentions of the future writer. A young man whose family destined him for a political career and who one day might retire to write history, like Sallust or later Tacitus, would be unlikely to become as thoroughly bilingual and bicultural as a poet like Vergil, Horace, or Ovid, whose entire career was centered on poetry and achieving effective intertextuality with the great poets of Classical Greece and the Hellenistic world. There were men like Cato who ostentatiously [End Page 136] put Greek culture down (while instinctively exploiting it), and men like Catullus, a century later, who idolized the literary culture of Alexandria.As Fantham notes, the word “audience” (auditores) does not fully cover what we today mean by the literary public, but it was accurate to start with. Since the first literary material was tragedy and comedy, it was aimed at the... (shrink)