Abstract: Abstract In this article I offer an unfashionably ideological critique. I argue that, in the USA, ideology now appears in the form of the narratives that capitalism tells itself about itself, in particular at sites of commodity consumption. I examine three everyday sites in which capitalism constructs an Imaginary version of itself as it exhorts contemporary consumers to consume ethically: during a visit to a Target Superstore; on an overnight stay in a hotel room; and while purchasing a bag of fair trade coffee. In these moments and at these sites, corporations instruct us in the 'ethical' use of their commodities, and obeying those instructions promotes us to the rank of 'consumer activist'. This article attempts to explain how this 'ethical consumption' – a form of what I call 'micro-ethics' – has displaced more social, or 'macro', forms of ethical action. To make my case, I argue that globalized capitalism denies many of us the social coordinates, or handholds, that are necessary if we are to feel that we can act meaningfully within the Symbolic Order, or social reality itself. This 'deworlding' effect, as Alain Badiou calls it, encourages us to reject social forms of ethical and political life and to retreat to a careful policing of the Imaginary boundaries of our 'inner selves' instead. In other words, global capitalism logically produces, as its own ideological support and supplement, a micro-ethics that attends only to what the single person can do, and only within the realm of consumption. We participate in this fantasy version of 'eco-capitalism' that advertising, publicity and other discourses establish to the extent that we accept consumption as the ultimate horizon of our ability to intervene in problems of ecological depredation and the exploitation of labour in the First and Third Worlds. Keywords: ethicsanti-consumerismcapitalismideologycritique Notes 1. To see this idea worked through, refer to Fukuyama (2006 Fukuyama, F. 2006. The End of History and the New Man, New York: Free Press. [Google Scholar]). 2. For recent considerations of what communism might mean in the present, refer to Douzinas and Žižek (2010 Douzinas , C. & Žižek S. 2010 The Idea of Communism , London , Verso , p. 136 . [Google Scholar]). 3. This slogan ('Versatile Solutions') is Tyler Durden's ironic description of Ikea's philosophy in the film Fight Club (1999 Fight Club 1999 Dir. David Fincher, Twentieth Century Fox . [Google Scholar]). 4. See, for example, the special issue of Cultural Studies devoted to anti-consumerism: Cultural Studies, vol. 22, no. 5, September 2008, as well as Kim Humphrey (2010), Soper et al. (2009 Soper , K. , Ryle , M. & Thomas , L. 2009 Consuming Differently , Basingstoke , Palgrave MacMillan . [Google Scholar]), Schwartz (2010 Schwartz, D. 2010. Consuming Choices: Ethics in a Global Consumer Age, Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. [Google Scholar]), Princen et al. (2002 Princen , T. , Maniates , M. & Conca , K. 2002 Confronting Consumption , Cambridge , MIT Press , 1 – 20 .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), among others. 5. I understand the differences between the Real, the Symbolic Order, the Imaginary, and 'reality' as one of Lacan's translators, Alan Sheridan, describes them. He writes: 'This Lacanian concept of the 'real' is not to be confused with reality, which is perfectly knowable' (x). He adds that the Real is 'that which is lacking in the symbolic order, the ineliminable residue of all articulation, the foreclosed element, which may be approached but never grasped' (x). Unlike the Real, reality coincides with Lacan's notion of the Symbolic Order. See Sheridan (1977 Sheridan , A. 1977 Translator's Note , Écrits by Jacques Lacan, trans. Alan Sheridan , New York , W.W. Norton & Co . [Google Scholar]). 6. For an interesting analysis of how improving the efficiency of consumption leads to more, not less consumption, see Princen et al. (2002 Princen , T. , Maniates , M. & Conca , K. 2002 Confronting Consumption , Cambridge , MIT Press , 1 – 20 .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) and Jack Manno (2002 Manno, J. 2002. "Commoditization: consumption efficiency and an economy of care and connection". In Confronting Consumption, Edited by: Princen, T., Maniates, M. and Conca, K. 67–100. Cambridge: MIT Press. [Google Scholar]).
Publication Year: 2012
Publication Date: 2012-11-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 29
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