The Trouble with Consumption

I wrote down the basics and my thoughts on Alternative Hedonism.

Soper, Kate. The Trouble with Consumption. Places Journal. Retrieved 26 December 2020, from https://placesjournal.org/article/alternative-hedonism-and-the-trouble-with-consumption/

Extracted Annotations

“Another sign of popular resistance is increasing disenchantment with the consumer lifestyle itself: other conceptions of the”good life” are gaining hold, and affluence is now commonly seen as compromised by 3 stress, time-scarcity, air pollution, traffic congestion, obesity, and general ill health. In other words, consumerism is now questioned not only because of its ethical and environmental consequences, but also because of its negative impact on affluent consumers themselves, and the ways in which it compromises both sensual pleasure and more spiritual forms of well-being. This questioning underlies the many laments for what has gone missing from our lives under the pressure of neoliberal economic policies, and also the frequent expressions of interest in less tangible goods such as more free time, better personal relationships, and a slower pace of life.” (Soper :2)

“In other words, a counter-consumerist ethic and politics should appeal not only to altruistic compassion and environmental concern (as in the case of Fair Trade and ethical shopping), but also to the selfregarding gratifications of living and consuming differently. It can seek democratic anchorage and legitimation in the already existing resistance to consumer culture. At a time when some economic 4 theorists predict a terminal decline in capitalism’s powers of accumulation, and when the environmental obstacles to growth appear insuperable, it becomes urgent to renew an earlier tradition of positive thinking on the liberation from work, and in this way to strengthen an alternative hedonist defense of the pleasures of a less harried and acquisitive way of living.” (Soper :4)

“a sense of a world too cluttered and encumbered by material objects and sunk in waste, of priorities skewed through the focus on ever-more extensive acquisition of stuff.” (Soper :5)

“. A good part of our collective productivity is devoted to servicing a material culture of ever-faster turnovers and built-in obsolescence, which preempts more enjoyable and enduring forms of human fulfillment.” (Soper :7)

“Many social theorists, including some who take a pretty positive view of consumerism, doubt the directness of its gratifications, and analyze it instead as compensation or substitution for other losses. They see it, in other words, as reconciling us to deprivation and alienation rather than as intrinsically satisfying — a view echoed in the less erudite recommendations of shopping as 8”retail therapy.”” (Soper :8)

“Sustainable alternatives would also have to provide for distinctively human forms of need, and meet our appetite for novelty, excitement, distraction, self-expression, and the gratifications of what 10 Rousseau called amour propre, the esteem and approval of others we respect. Indeed, the alternative hedonist critique is directed more against the limited rein given to such appetites in our materialistic society than against the culture of desire as such.” (Soper :9)

“in none of these cases are they understood to be responsible agents who are accountable to the world beyond their immediate personal concerns” (Soper :10)

“However, the alternative hedonist approach resists the paternalism of earlier leftist opposition to commodification. My main focus is neither on consumption as a bid for personal distinction, nor on consumption as a relatively unconscious”form of life,” but instead on the ways in which a range of contemporary consumerist practices, more or less everyday and identityoriented, are being brought into question because of their environmental consequences, their impact on health, and their constraints on sensual enjoyment and more spiritual forms of well-being.” (Soper :12)

“might, for example, decide to cycle or walk whenever possible in order to reduce pollution, noise, and congestion. The hedonist aspect of this shift does not lie exclusively in the wish to decrease the unpleasant by-products of affluence, but also in the intrinsic personal pleasures of consuming differently. The cyclist or walker enjoys sensual experiences, including those of greeting other cyclists and walkers, that the insulated motorist cannot. But these different pleasures themselves require and thrive not only on alternative hedonist self-policing in car use but also on support for policies that restrain it.” (Soper :12)

“To defend the progressive dimension of this resistance to what passes for progress is not to recommend a more ascetic existence. On the contrary, it is to insist on the sensually impoverishing and irrational aspects of contemporary consumer culture. It is to speak for the forms of happiness that people might be able to enjoy were they to opt for an alternative economic order. It is to open up a new political imaginary.” (Soper :14)

“It is also important to recognize that people are”conditional co-operators” who are much likelier to take action to combat climate change impacts and conserve resources if assured, by democratic voting, that their fellow citizens will do the same.” (Soper :15)

“Democracy, it seems, very considerably enhances the prospects for 19 reciprocal cooperation.” (Soper :15)

“Here the importance of revising our thinking on consumption and its dependence on popular approval combine to justify an alternative hedonist approach to the cultural politics of transition” (Soper :16)

“Antiand counter-consumerist pressures such as these remain insignificant compared to the mandates for policing consumption that will be needed to advance genuine global sustainability. But the model of democratic procedure that they instantiate — whereby proactive green initiatives encourage emerging structures of feeling by providing for alternative experiences — can help us envisage the larger-scale shifts that will be essential in any transition to a sustainable economic order.” (Soper :17)

“We can thus see the importance of rendering explicit the desires and concerns now implicit in current expressions of consumer anxiety. Indeed, this implicit alternative transcends and exposes the Janus-faced response of governments that ask the public to adopt energy-saving measures and more healthful lifestyles, all the while promoting economic policies that support the expansion of consumerism. New kinds of individual experience — involving new ideas about the aesthetics of material culture and the satisfactions it provides, and heightened awareness of the potential political power of consumption, or non-consumption — might not only hasten the introduction of specific policies but also press governments to confront their contradictory stance on the growth economy. And anything that helps to promote such changes within affluent societies will possess wider global relevance, since the disproportionately high levels of consumption by the rich is a major factor in the deprivations of the world’s poor.” (Soper :19)