ABSTRACT
So far we have outlined two competing views of the consumer. Firstly, the consumer as rational agent who crafts their sense of personal identity, positioning themselves within a social group through the use, abuse and
display of certain commodities. The second view is the relatively mindless consumer, unwittingly compelled by the mass media to buy goods incessantly. The same dialectical tension, between our assumed freedom of expression and the manipulation and control of the mass culture industry, we have previously referred to as the ‘consumer paradox’ (after Miles 1998). We have also characterised consumption as a ‘using up’, a destruction (consumere) while simultaneously being a bringing to completion, a fulfilment, a creation (consumare). These are tensions that have persisted throughout the book so far, and can be characterised for the purposes of this chapter in a simpler way: are we savvy, knowing consumers, or suckers to the marketing and advertising industries? If the economy relies to such a large extent on consumers buying things they don’t actually need, are we being manipulated for the larger purpose of the economy and existing power structures, or does the importance of our choice and identity render the situation otherwise? The debate between rational agent and consumer pawn reaches back into the historical context of the Frankfurt School, and then to the theorists of the creativity and power of everyday life, such as Henri Lefebvre and Michel de Certeau.
