THE PRINCIPLE OF PERMANENCE IN A CONSUMER SOCIETY

• Main Author: A. N. Il’in
• Format: Article
• Language: Russian
• Published: Publishing House of Lomonosov Moscow State University 2017-10-01
• Series: Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta: Seriâ 18, Sociologiâ i Politologiâ
• Subjects: the principle of permanence; consumer culture; consumer society; ecology.
• Online Access: https://vestnik.socio.msu.ru/jour/article/view/291
• ISSN: 1029-3736; 2541-8769

In a consumer society dominated by the imperative that requires permanent update personal system of things (the permanence principle). The production serves not just the needs and growth needs. It focuses on production of a growing number of including the  minimum useful things, but having a prestigious status and a symbolic completeness. A comparative analysis of the companies of production and the consumer society on the basis of the dominant attitude to things. Disclosed two forms of things aging: physical deterioration and moral obsolescence. Many things advertised specially created low-quality for quick change by the user. Or the infrastructure of the fashion and advertising calls for to constantly buy new things to be always in trend, be fashionable, to emphasize their social status. The concept of modernity encompasses extremely short period of time. Today the luxury of tomorrow is becoming the norm, and novelty – archaic. There is an effect of accelerating history. Even if the needs are met, the infrastructure “discovers” new needs. Builds a causal chain: growing production and advertising production speed – creates new needs – a person consumes produce results and thus contributing to its further increase. Symbolism – not a stable characteristic of a particular product. The symbol of the fashion elite goes from one generation to the other things, none of them, not finding a permanent place of localization. Therefore, the symbolic “shelf life” of things to expire soon their physical expiration date. In terms the rapid development of technology and the emergence of new generations of products emphasizing the status is possible through the permanent acquisition of the newest gadgets. Self-presentation – a process based on the permanent use of marketable novelty. This concluded the effect of corporeal gerontophobia. Formed permanence phenomenon, which can be defined as a culture inspired by the desire to use to update the range of available consumer items in accordance with changing fashion and constantly emerging commercial offers new models of things. Fictitious commitment to consumer redefining itself lies in the fact that: 1) it is just the thing (fetish-infantile) the nature, 2) it is fundamentally not satisfied because the modern economy creates for each new desire satisfied, which also demands satisfaction. There is a senseless chain of fictitious, which maintains the gap between the new requirement and satisfaction. Falling into dependence on the proprietary permanence, consumer stresses its independence, what is one of the paradoxes of consumerism. The article also discusses the destructive influence of the principle of permanence on the environment.