Off Late i have been thinking a lot about Choice and whether or not it really exists in the large expanses of meaninglessness which is life.
I don't know how much to attribute to Choice and how much to circumstance for what I have become. I don't even know if Choice is a truth for most people in the world.
To me it seems impossible to see life while living within it and from time to time every single one of us would have had the desire of stepping outside.
I often think if my life straightens out to be as simple as pouring a green liquid in a test tube and if i choose it to be that way, I hope it makes me happy day after day after day.
Friday, May 28, 2010
The Lowest Common Denominator
For not very Long ago were we a largely frugal society, the trend had swung pendulum-like from Gandhi to the Capitalist. The question that i often ponder about is whether 'conspicuous consumption' is so much of a sin? do we need to be bothered about it as much as the environment, the politics or the economy?
"what one forgets is that socialism created a foraging economy centred on the ration shop. Now middle-class India has moved to a different world, where desire dominates and consumption has become but a site for reflection and identity building."--- quoted from a rather interesting article featured in The Times of India newspaper.
A Lot of thinkers and social scientists are of the opinion that having a varied shopping ethos and especially the availability of fake equivalents of established brands speaks more about Democracy than lofty political ideologies do. At the end of the day who decides what's worth what price?
Why should there remain such a major class divide on the basis of affordability? If the price barrier is removed, there may be no such differences. Its like professing that ' in our kingdom, we are all king'
In that case could it be concluded that the 'fake' phenomenon works in its own twisted logic of defiance, towards bridging gaps and not necessarily increasing them?
To my understanding, there could be more than one perspective to it. I think that we also need to analyze is what we lose in the bargain of such kind of Equality (if at all there is any).
Consumerism is a post liberalized, post globalized urban phenomenon in our country and the popularity of fake brands and products appears as one of its numerous consequences. What is important to note is what it reflects about
the emerging working class of this country and their aspirations. Their borrowed notions of quality, affluence and Luxury and their eternal striving towards attaining them. and in that process 'all is fair'. So if a premium class (specially international) product is a reality then its fake replica at a cheaper price is a reality of another kind.
The classic argument that be put up to justify would that everyone dreams and also every one would want their dreams to fit their pockets and nothing's wrong in that.
But what concerns me is more on the ideological level. that this perfect dissonance between what is aspirational and what is not, is it in many ways not morphing our ambitions into something else?
Wherein we live in our own glib dream worlds leveraged by aggressive Marketing and Advertising and fail to recognize the darker truths lying below.
That all kinds of disparity be it oppression of labor, exploitative expansion of brands, environmental damage etc could all be linked to one another and that our very conspicuous consumption serves as a melting pot for it.
By Reema Bhattacharya
For not very Long ago were we a largely frugal society, the trend had swung pendulum-like from Gandhi to the Capitalist. The question that i often ponder about is whether 'conspicuous consumption' is so much of a sin? do we need to be bothered about it as much as the environment, the politics or the economy?
"what one forgets is that socialism created a foraging economy centred on the ration shop. Now middle-class India has moved to a different world, where desire dominates and consumption has become but a site for reflection and identity building."--- quoted from a rather interesting article featured in The Times of India newspaper.
A Lot of thinkers and social scientists are of the opinion that having a varied shopping ethos and especially the availability of fake equivalents of established brands speaks more about Democracy than lofty political ideologies do. At the end of the day who decides what's worth what price?
Why should there remain such a major class divide on the basis of affordability? If the price barrier is removed, there may be no such differences. Its like professing that ' in our kingdom, we are all king'
In that case could it be concluded that the 'fake' phenomenon works in its own twisted logic of defiance, towards bridging gaps and not necessarily increasing them?
To my understanding, there could be more than one perspective to it. I think that we also need to analyze is what we lose in the bargain of such kind of Equality (if at all there is any).
Consumerism is a post liberalized, post globalized urban phenomenon in our country and the popularity of fake brands and products appears as one of its numerous consequences. What is important to note is what it reflects about
the emerging working class of this country and their aspirations. Their borrowed notions of quality, affluence and Luxury and their eternal striving towards attaining them. and in that process 'all is fair'. So if a premium class (specially international) product is a reality then its fake replica at a cheaper price is a reality of another kind.
The classic argument that be put up to justify would that everyone dreams and also every one would want their dreams to fit their pockets and nothing's wrong in that.
But what concerns me is more on the ideological level. that this perfect dissonance between what is aspirational and what is not, is it in many ways not morphing our ambitions into something else?
Wherein we live in our own glib dream worlds leveraged by aggressive Marketing and Advertising and fail to recognize the darker truths lying below.
That all kinds of disparity be it oppression of labor, exploitative expansion of brands, environmental damage etc could all be linked to one another and that our very conspicuous consumption serves as a melting pot for it.
By Reema Bhattacharya
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
