ABSTRACT
One of the unique features of a consumer culture is the way it propagates within individuals the constant demand for more – more products, more stimulation, more experiences – yet while the late modern subject might initially find solace through participation in the multiplicity of consumption practices associated with the consumer society, these are ‘escape routes’ (compare Cohen and Taylor 1976) that are ultimately futile. Taken as promises, the fantasies and aspirations propagated within the individual by a consumer culture can never be fully realised. Thus, feelings of frustration, social strain and futility abound, a point Celia Lury expresses clearly:
Consumption expresses the romantic longing to become an other, however, whatever one becomes is not what one wants to be. This is because the actual consumption or use of goods becomes a disillusioning experience. The actuality of consumption fails to live up to the dream of fantasy thus we continue to consume endlessly. In the material world, it seems that one’s desires can never be exhausted. (1996: 73)
Such sentiments obviously echo the classical ‘strain theory’ of Robert Merton (1938). However, as Wayne Morrison has pointed out, ‘Instead ...of the cultural message being the accumulation of money, the message now is taking control of our destiny. Modernity gives us a series of expectations as to self-realization and personal growth ... but actual human beings have not fully escaped being defined by their location in situations of enablement and restraint’ (1995: 301, emphasis added). This is an important point for it challenges us to reconsider those early strain models in light of pronounced cultural and economic transformations and fluctuations. We must develop more sophisticated analyses of the emotional states, the feelings and the contingencies associated with the concept of strain. In particular, we need to look at the way the self is being assailed by the various and competing cultural messages ushered in by the onset of late modernity. Only when this task has been completed can we begin to understand the processes and motivations that contribute to much contemporary criminality. In a passage that I consider to be of great importance, Morrison begins to explain this line of thought:
To become self-defining is the fate that the social structure of late-modernity imposes upon its socially created individuality. The individual is called into action; actions which are meant to express his/her self and enable the individual’s destiny to be created out of the contingencies of his/her past ... And while resources differ, all are subjected to variations of a similar pressure as modernity moves into postmodernism, namely that of the overburdening of the self as the self becomes the ultimate source of security. The tasks asked of the late-modern person require high degrees of social and technical skills. To control the self and guide it through the disequilibrium of the journeys of late modernity is the task imposed upon the late-modern person, but what if the life experiences of the individual have not fitted him/her with this power? ... much crime is an attempt of the self to create sacred moments of control, to find ways in which the self can exercise control and power in situations where power and control are all too clearly lodged outside the self. (1995: iv)
