解 视 物 | 第二期 《 消费社会下的深层次讯息 》
JSW | Second Episode《 Deep Information In Our Consumer Society 》

 

解  视  物  |  第二期  文本内容

 

《 消费社会下的深层次讯息 》

 

上期我们对“无性别时装”进行了分析解读,特别是延伸出各种有关的“性”概念。那今天,我们将从更多视角来解构这个现象。

 

我们可以发现,时尚在原来更多的是在塑造女性的身体,但现在也开始对男性的身体提出了一种新的标准。在时尚的历史进程当中,身体一直是时尚最重要的表达媒介。时尚不断地创造出新的身体标准,然后使得个体不断地去适应这个标准。但是这个审美标准其实一直在不断的变化,每个时期美的意识形态一直伴随着一种“自然的”观念。从历史和社会的角度上来说,“自然的”身体一直是一种极其变化无常的实体。比如哥特时代晚期隆起的肚皮:在当时那个时代,一个女性无论腹部有多么大,都不影响她的吸引力。 

 

所以说这个自然的身体形象也是随着美的意识的改变而不断往前推进,不断改变的。现在社会里,个人的认同主要和身体的塑造相关。所以现代社会中“自我”在很大程度上是由身体所构成的,而服装又是身体最直接的一种外延。

 

当黑格尔谈及“身体与服装”二者时,明确地阐述了身体与服装的关系,即服装已经被对象化了,不再是为了主体的需要而存在,也不再是为了身体需要覆盖而存在。例如,川久保玲的设计是将结构主义,立体化,不对称和破碎的元素融合一体,他的服装已经完全不体现人的身材。

 

更进一步的讲,未穿衣服的身体其实一直都是穿着衣服的。“理想化身体”的概念一直都在制约着人们进行身体的改变和对理想化标准的追求。一切身体的技能,比如行走、微笑和社交等身体的技能,都是社会性的的技术性的。身体不仅在行动的时候沉浸于整个社会标准之中,即使在静止的时候也是一样的。

 

因而,裸体常会被理解为一种贫乏或丧失。“时尚”与“自然”之间的差别是可疑的,正如西美尔指出,对于作为社会存在的人而言,时尚的生命形式是自然的。 时尚不断的创造出新的理想化标准,即身体性自我(physical self)的理想状态,也就是所谓的“自然的身体“,但是这个标准其实对每个人来说都是可望而不可及的。在现在消费社会下,人们对身体的改造方式已经从化妆,健身,节食等等,现在已经发展到整形手术的风靡,表现出我们对这个标准所追求的欲望。哲学家鲍德里亚曾经声称,“化妆这种工作一点也不是‘模仿’自然,而是‘超越自然’。

 

我们穿着打扮在如今被看做成一种对“身体性自我”的改造的一种积极的技术,即创造自我。

 

虽然这些看似是我们自由选择的结果,其实并不是毫无限制的自由,而是建立在整个社会标准内在化基础之上的。因此时尚应该被看做理想趣味的一种征候,一种改良自然的持续的尝试。所以消费已经不再是由需求驱动,而是由欲望驱动。想象的对象与真实的对象之间的差异,造成了一种“持续的欲求”,这个欲求产生了消费。时尚的本质就是生产有效的符号,并且让这个符号尽快变得过量而多余,然后它就瞄准下一个新事物,继续创造新的符号。以此创造一种持续增长的经济效益。这个就如福柯所说的:“要永远地创造自我”,或许这个就是作为现代人的我们的一个归宿。 

 

如今,时尚媒体和广告正在教唆个体成为一个“叛逆者”和“个人主义者”,其真正的目的就是在让消费者表达个性的同时产生消费行为。所以,个人主义,反文化,还有亚文化一直都是这些广告的重要基石,这些广告也正是通过这三点来劝诱我们产生更多地消费。正如哲学家大卫·里斯曼所说的:我们现在最重要的,不是机器,不是财富,更不是作品,而是一种个性。所以现今的时尚常用艺术、反文化和亚文化来为其增加文化资本,以减少和缓和其经济色彩,看似远离市场,其实是通过这个策略来增加经济资本。

 

反文化和亚文化比大众文化风格具有更多的符号内涵;它们通常鼓励个性,标明一种态度。但是在这个过程当中,它们会丧失了原本意义。而艺术也是时尚品牌一直要花大力气去靠拢的,比如它们通过赞助博物馆和艺术展等等行为,来获得与艺术世界一种紧密相连,从而这些时尚品牌希望可以分得艺术所包含的巨大的符号价值。 

 

如今,所有商品都获得了一种“文化”成分,一旦文化成为了商品,那它就会成为“明星商品”。这时,其实真正被销售的是其“文化”的一面,而不是其“物质”的一面。 今天社会被某种非常巨大的同质作用把生产和消费的不同内容,如文化,财富,产品,服务,差异等联系起来,再按照同样的模式把它们生产出来。我们作为消费者,为了能在这个消费社会的社会符号网下确实存在,就要接受这个基本的异化,即:我们的自然性,即本身的独特性就被抹去了。这时就造成了一个奇怪的现象:其实我们每个人对于他人来说,都是一个截然不同的个体,但是我们现在的传媒文化、信息技术,还有广告等所有的社会媒介所制造出来的一个巨大的符号海洋,然后这个海洋就会把我们本身的差异性消除,包括人和产品都开始同质化。即鲍德里亚所提到的:不同社会群体的消费者都被同一种区别的约束和个性化的约束联系到了一起,这就是一种“个人”的价值模式。其实无论我们怎样进行自我区分,都是对某种范例的一种趋同,但我们每个人都能在范例的实现当中,找到自己的个性,即“独特性”。

 

大卫·里斯曼在《孤独的人群》一书当中提到一个新的社会群体——“新穷人”。“新穷人”是指挣钱不少,但花得更多,是因为他们在追求新潮的生活方式和时尚的消费品,不惜将自己沦为“穷人”。他们可以被称为消费社会中最称职的、最卖力的成员。由于”新穷人”的身份认同基础由生产领域转向了消费领域,且越来越多的把个人身份等同于自我呈现于他人的一个形象,这个时候就会造成他们的身份焦虑,也就必然滋生出对消费的过旺需求,以及对自我形象的过度关注。所以我们对个性化的产品消费的背后,是因为我们本身的特质已经不再能直接赋予我们身份,赋予我们身份的,是消费。

 

就如鲍德里亚早就在1968年得时候就提出过,他说:如果消费有什么意义的话,那就是存在于对符号的系统性操作。他将消费就直接定义为符号的消费,即所有的消费都是在消费象征性的符号。我们可以说消费社会就是一个对商品符号价值的关注超过对其的实用价值关注的社会。

 

在消费社会,一些人对符号化商品的一个饥渴症,是因为他个人对自我身份的一个不确定感和焦虑感所引起的。个体越来越由理想化的内容所构成,而这些理想化的内容正在试图取代真正的个人特点与特质。那如果我们想要保留这些最私人化的特点和特质,是需要付出极大的努力,才有可能保持其独特性。

 

消费社会制造了一种自由选择的假象。就如时尚,它最主要的功能就是促成认同的形成。因为时尚的“双重性”,是指:分化和同化作用——“差异性的追求”和“普遍性的追求”。由此引申出的个性化常常和“自我”,“个人主义”以及“自我主义”这些概念概念相混淆。“个人主义”这个词最早是由哲学家萨特系统性的提出,他首先肯定了人的绝对自由,绝对自由的同时带来的是绝对的责任,即个体要对自己负责任。所以个人主义作为一种道德上的、政治的、和社会的哲学,是一个非常积极正面的概念。而“自我主义”是指以自己为中心解释世界和处理事情的,在心理学上,“自私”通常被包含在自我主义里的。所以这两个“主义”是有很大区别的。而“自我”这个词源自弗洛伊德的精神分析学里面对人格结构的分析:本我、超我、还有自我。那这里的“自我”是指理性或正确的判断。

 

所以这些概念在被大量使用的过程中,会与它们原本的原意产生偏差,而变成了一个符号或者说是标语。例如我们常说的“自我”,不能等同于个性,独特性等等。梁文道谈及的互联网时代所造成的自我越来越膨胀,今天我们都在忙着分享自己,都没有时间反省自己,或者是聆听别人的意见。公共文化的基础现如今被媒体文化所侵蚀。那到底我们处在一个什么样的时代呢?

 

可能是一个物质与信息丰沛、思想却匮乏的时代,个人声音轻易的淹没在喧哗的众声中。人们相信体质、资本、统计数字,却不相信个人意志。大部分人要么放弃对个人独特性的坚持,要么躲入到一个封闭、自溺的小世界里。

 

在这个喧嚣的时代里面充斥着各种声音,来试图教导我们如何实现自我,如何找到成就感,还有满足感。这些声音里面,有一些是无用的喃喃自语,有一些是清淡的心灵鸡汤,而有一些背后则潜伏着经济和政治的利益。在这个喧嚣与失语并存的时代里面,我们如何看清楚我们生活中比比皆是的矛盾,如何找到并且保持真正属于自我的平静,是我们必须要试图思考和面对的问题。

 

人总是会被异化,但还是必须时刻警觉这种异化,至少是清醒地,凝视着自己的异化,或许这样可以减少异化的程度。

 

 

刘圆圆 金晶

JSW | Text Content of the Second Episode

《 Deep Information In Our Consumer Society 》

In the previous episode, we analyzed and interpreted the “Agender Fashion” with various concepts about gender involved in our discussion. In today’s program, we will interpret the phenomenon of “Agender Fashion” from multiple aspects.

 

Formerly, fashion was more likely to shape female’s body. However, currently, it actually poses a new kind of requirement to male’s body.Body has always been the most important media to present fashion during the historical progress of fashion.Fashion continuously poses new body standards while the individuals constantly adapt themselves to these newly formed standards. But this aesthetical standards are changed constantly, because the notion of nature involves in the ideology of ideal figure in each period. From the aspects of history and society, natural figure has always been a constantly changing entity. A typical example is the bulging stomach in the late Gothic Age.At that era, a woman’s charm and attraction were not influenced by her bulging stomach.

 

Therefore, the image of natural figure varies and moves forward with the changing of sense of beauty. In today’s society, personally identity mainly relates to body shaping. Thus, in modern society, self-identification, to a large extent, consists of body while clothes are the most direct extension of body.

 

When Hegel talked about body and clothes, he definitely elaborated the relation between the two:Clothes has been objectified and the existence of clothes no longer functions to satisfy the demand of subject or the demand of body to be covered.

 

For example, The well-known designer, Rei Kawakubo, integrates the elements of structuralism, three-dimension, dissymmetry, and crush in his design.Thus, the clothes designed by him never reflect one’s figure.

 

Moreover, the body wearing no clothes actually wears clothes. The concept of ideal body has always constricted human beings’ physical changing and pursuing of ideal standard. All the physical skills, such as walking, smiling, and social contact, are social skills. Our body is constricted by the social standards no matter when it acts or stays static.

 

Therefore, naked body is always interpreted as a kind of tenuity or loss. The difference between fashion and nature is doubted by many people.As pointed out by Simmel, the life form of fashion, for every people as social existence, is natural. Fashion constantly creates new ideal standard: physical self-ideal state, the so-called natural body. However, this standard seems to beyond the reach for every people. In consumer society, the method adopted by current people to reshape their body has evolved from makeup, fitness, and diet to prevailing plastic surgery.It vividly demonstrates our desire to pursue that standard. French philosopher Jean Baudrillard once claimed: “ Makeup is not a kind of work imitating nature but a work surpassing nature.” Our clothing and appearance, at present, is regarded as a kind of positive skill to modify the physical self, namely, self-creation.

 

Although these choices seem to be the result based on free choice, actually speaking, they are built on the basis of the internalization of the overall social standard. Therefore, fashion shall be regarded as the symptom of ideal interest and the continual attempt of modified nature. Thus, consumption is no longer driven by demand but by desire.The difference between imagined object and the real object causes the continual desire and the desire generates consumption. The nature of fashion is to produce effective symbol and make the symbol quickly become unnecessary by excessing the demanded quantity. In consequence, fashion may aim at the next new object to continue producing new symbols. By doing so, the economic benefit with sustainable growth can be created. As Michel Foucault’s saying goes: “We human beings shall constantly implement self-creation.”  This may be the destination of us as modern people.

 

Currently, fashion media and advertisement are instigating each individual to become a betrayer or an individualist. The real objective is to make the consumers to generate consumption behaviors while express personality. Therefore, individualism, subculture, and counterculture have always been the important basis of these advertisements. These advertisements avail the above three strategies to persuade us to conduct more consuming behaviors. Just like philosopher David Riesman’s saying that what we really need today is not the machine, wealth, or works but a kind of individuality. Fashion always uses art, subculture and counterculture as the strategies to increase cultural capital and decrease the economic elements, in nature, increases the economic capital although it may seem to drift fashion from the market.

 

Compared with the mass culture, subculture and counterculture contain more symbolic connotations. They encourages individuality and highlights a certain sort of attitude. However, during this process, these elements (subculture and counterculture) tend to lose the original meaning. Fashion brands also prefers to be interrelated with art in innumerable ways and gain intimate connection with art field by sponsoring museums, exhibitions or something, hoping to get benefits from the countless symbol value that art contains. 

 

At present, cultural elements have become the necessary part of every commodity. When culture becomes commodity, the commodity is doomed to become star commodity. In that instant, it’s the cultural element instead of the material element that is to be sold.In today’s society, influenced by gigantic homogeneity effect, different contents of production and consumption, such as culture, wealth, product, service, and difference mentioned just now, are closely connected and are produced in the same mode at present. As customers, we have to accept these basic differences if we want to live in this social symbols network in consumer society. That is to say that our nature, everyone’s intrinsic uniqueness, have been erased. At this time, a strange phenomenon may occur: For other people, each of us is an entirely different individual. Whereas, our intrinsic differences is erased by the giant sea of symbols created by all of the social media including media culture, information technology, and advertisement. Even human beings and product start to become homogeneous. Jean Baudrillard once said that consumers belonging to different social groups will be connected together by the same restrictions of difference and personality. This is a kind of personal value mode. Honestly speaking, no matter what we do to distinguish ourselves, we are converging to a certain kind of example.The thing is that each of us can find our own individuality, the uniqueness, during the realization of this example. 

 

The new poor, put forward by David Riesman in his book The Lonely Crowd. The new poor refers to the kind of people who earn a lot of money but spend more because they are willing to descend themselves to be poor people due to the pursuit of cool lifestyle and fashion consumer goods. They can be called the most competent and hardworking member in consumer society. The basis of new poor’s self-identity has transferred to consumption area from production area. Besides, more and more people tend to equal self-identity to the self-presentation of an image of the others. Thus, at this time, they may feel anxious about their identity, which will definitely cause the excessive consumption demand and the excessive concerns on self-image. The reason behind our favor of the consumption of personalized product is that it’s the consumption not our intrinsic nature that directly gives identity to us.

 

In 1968, Jean Baudrillard proposed that if consumption was of some significance, it would be the systematic operation of symbols. He directly defined consumption as the consumption of symbols, namely, all of the consumptions are consuming symbolic symbols. We can say that the consumer society is a society in which more attention is paid to the symbolic value of goods compared with the attention paid to the practical value. Thus, it’s implied that in consumer society, some people’s thirst and hunger for symbolic goods are definitely generated by his own uncertainty and anxiety about personal identity. Besides, the uncertainty and anxiety are closely related to each other. Each individual increasingly tends to be consist of ideal content that are trying replacing the real personal characteristics and traits. Great efforts shall be made to maintain the personal characteristics and traits to keep each individual’s uniqueness.

 

Consumer society creates smoke screens of free selection. Like fashion, the most important function is to promote the formation of identity. The nature of fashion are differentiation and assimilation, refers to the pursuing of diversity and the pursuing of universality. The resulting personalization and is often confused with the concept of “ego”, “individualism”and “egoism”.

 

“individualism” was first proposed by the philosopher Sutter systematically.  His theory primarily affirms human being’s absolute freedom while he emphasizes that absolute freedom is accompanied by absolute responsibility. That is to say each individual shall be responsible for himself. So, “individualism” is a kind of philosophy from the layer of morality, politics, and society, which is a positive concept. But the “egoism” is to interpret the world and deal with things in a self-centered way. From the perspective of psychology, selfishness is always contained in egoism. There are large differences exist between the two concepts. The word, “ego”, originates from Freud’s analysis of personality structure in psychoanalysis. In his opinion, personality structure consists of three layers: id, super-ego and ego. “Ego” here means rationality and correct judgement.

 

When frequently used, these concepts lose the original meaning and then become symbols or slogans. For instance, we often talk about ego, which never equals to personality or uniqueness.

 

Liang Wendao once pointed out that the ego shaped in internet age is increasingly inflated. People nowadays are busy sharing themselves thus they have little time to reflect themselves or listen to others’ opinions. The basis of mass culture is eroded by media culture. What on earth is the era we are living in?

It may be an era with abundant materials and information while with insufficient thoughts. In such an era, personal voice is easy to be submerged in the clamor of numerous sounds. People tend to believe constitution, capital, and statistical figures instead of personal will. For most people, they either give up the perseverance in the individual uniqueness or hide themselves in a close and narcissistic tiny world.

 

In such a blatant ear, there are various voices trying to educate us how to achieve self-realization and how to find sense of achievement or satisfaction. Among these voices, some are useless mumbles, some are insipid chicken soup for the soul, while a few voices are lurked with economic and political benefits. In the era featuring both noisy and aphasia, we should try to reflect and face the problems that how to see clearly the antinomy can be found everywhere in life and how to find and maintain the real tranquility of mind.

 

People are always dissimilated. On the contrary, this kind of dissimilation shall be constantly alarmed by people. At least, we should soberly reflect and gaze at our dissimilation, which may decrease the degree of dissimilation. 

 

By JinJing and LiuYuanYuan