Consumer culture and the crisis of socialization

A new historical socialization type is becoming firmly established in modern society, which is characteristicfor the society of mass consumption. The culture of consumerism supplants the person-oriented culture or levels its values. Sincethis supplanting is approved and even stimulated, encouraged and praised by the society, a person finds it difficult to act counter tothe social norms and "go beyond" the actuality. In modern classless society, under the influence of post-modern culture to a greatextent, consumption develops from a material practice into a socio-cultural one. It starts to dominate other aspects of human life andsocial spheres. In this case, consumption becomes a certain vital strategy of a person, a habit determining the world outlook priorities.Consumed goods and services get represented as symbols of success and social status. They become the main factors of successfulnessand life satisfaction. Socialization of a modern person is realized more through the consumer culture and the consumerpractices (practices of momentary joys and pleasures). Being uniform (homogeneous), these practices are characterized by superficialand hedonistic attitude towards reality, as well as by effortlessness and, therefore, subjectlessness, while socialization by definitionis aimed at developing subjectness in a person since the program of subject's activity takes the central place in it. Tendencies insocialization processes are changing dramatically as well. Social relations traditionally formed by the synergic development of aperson and society are actually substituted by the mechanistic relations of a "production - consumption" type. Social mobility isreduced to consumer mobility in most cases. Consumed goods and services become the centre of social relations, a condition forentering certain social strata, and signs of successful socialization. As a result, consumer mobility becomes a condition for socialmobility objectivation. A person still considers him-/herself as a subject, but the growing objectness of a person in the consumersociety is getting more obvious. The ability to consume becomes the only source and the main substance of subjectness (pseudosubjectness).Being a universal criterion of subjectness, this source in fact destroys it. The hedonism of consumer culture causesspiritual and moral reduction of subjectness since any subject manifests him-/herself only via self-activity. That type of sociality thatis formed in the consumer society does not contribute to the revealing and upbringing of subjective reality. Subjectivation as a person's setting of him-/herself into the world as a subject is substituted here for the "acquisition" of subjectness by searching for supportfor the self in the consumed goods and services as the symbols of social status. The development of the new historical type ofsocialization, which is characteristic for the society of mass consumption, leads to the reduction and neutralization of subjectness.This particular socialization brings a variety of socialization effects to just one - the ability to show consumer (and, therefore, social)activity.

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