Acknowledgements We would like to express our gratitude to the following persons
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- The post-modern consumer
PostmodernityBy the late 1960s- early 1970.s, however, the modernist vision of ineluctable progress, scientific achievement and freedom from oppression had begun to pall. The counter-culture movements of this period, cognisant of modernity's less than illustrious legacy ( death camps, nuclear weapons, environmental pollution, neo-colonialism an so on), unshered an era of revolt against the authority, aspirations, assumptions and artefacts of the " establishment. ( Brown 1992). Postmodernity - or post-modernism which has a slight different meaning ( with a focus on art, according to K. Kumar) - is a reaction against modernity and towards the logical reasoning by which the world had made sense to people. The modern society was based on class. The postmodernists see a para-class of cognitariat. The factory has become the office and production has become information processing. Today many people work with information and posses qualities that are not so easy replaceable by the employer. ( W.F. van Raaij 1993) The post-modern expression through art or architecture is probably what most people think of when post-modernism is mentioned. And maybe this is the most illustrative way to present the idea of post-modernism with its important ingredients such as the juxtapositioning of opposites and loss of commitment. Painting and architecture has since the late 1960:s, early 1970:s used forms and expressions that has been branded as post-modern. The term was first used by Joseph Hudnut in the 1940:s ( Smith 1984) but came into widespread use in the mid 1970:s, it has most commonly been employed to describe an eclectic style that uses elements of various periods, especially those of the classical tradition, often with ironic intent. Examples of the post-modern style in architecture are the AT&T building in N.Y.C., built1978-83 by Johnson and Burge. Robert Stern's Piazza di´ Italia in New Orleans is an other example where antique architecture is mixed with a streamlined skyscraper. ( Lampugnani 1986) Les pyramides at the Louvre in Paris and the Excalibur Hotel in Las Vegas are other famous example of post-modern architecture where classical style is mixed with high-tech looking modern materials. In the arts, the distinction between high and low culture has been progressively denuded (opera stars topping the hit parade, museums of the music hall and so on), participation substituted for contemplation ( street art, body art, the happenings of Christo, wrapping famous architecture in white fabric) and linear narratives abandoned for montage, flashback, disorientation and a decentred view of the subject ( the tendency, for example, in contemporary fiction for the narrator to " step aside" the narrative and address the reader directly. (Brown 1992) We feel that the following quote by Andre Gortz summarises our previous discussion: What we are experiencing is not the crises of modernity. We are experiencing the need to modernise the presuppositions upon which modernity is based. The current crisis is not the crises of Reason but that of the ...irrational motives of rationalisation as it have been pursued so far. ( Andre Gorz 1989:1) The post-modern consumerAbove the characteristics of the modern and the post-modern era have been presented. This part will examine the main characteristics of the consumer, specifically within the post-modern society. Off course, since consumption play a big part in peoples life, the consumer does not escape the notion of the post-modern society. She/he changes, to some extent, the pattern of consumption, thus reflecting the state of the world. According to Baudrillard the Post-modern era can be distinguished from earlier eras by the proliferation of communications through mass media, but also by the emergence of the consumer culture consisting of signs and simulations detached from referents. (A. Fuat and Clifford J. Shultz II 1997). Firat and Venkatesh offer the following five conditions of post-modern culture:
(A. Fuat and Clifford J. Shultz II 1997) According to another researcher on post-modernism, Brown, loss of commitment and pluralism can be added to the above mentioned post-modern conditions. (Brown 1993) presents the following three tendencies of the post-modern consumer: 1. Readiness for living a perpetual present. Cultural propensity to experience everything (including the past and future) in the present, ”here and now” 2. Emphasis on form/style. Growing influence of form and style ( as opposed to content) in determining meaning and life 3. Greater acceptance of or resignation to a state of disorder and chaos. Cultural acknowledgement that rather than order, crisis and disequilibria are the common states of existence- and the subsequent acceptance and appreciation of this conditions. The researchers Fuat, Clifford and Schultz has made the perhaps most comprehensive description of the above discussed post-modern conditions. In addition to the already mentioned conditions, they also present two additional ones.
We would like to sum up all the post-modern conditions presented above in the following table. Since these conditions are mentioned and discussed throughout the paper it will be useful to return to this table in order to avoid any misinterpretations. Post-modern conditions Brief descriptions
Table 2.1 Source: (A. Fuat and Clifford J. Shultz II 1997)
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