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

1 comment:

  1. Hii Reema,

    Me and some of my frnds have started an e magazine called Reader's Quotient, it is totally for a noble cause of funding education to needy children. I came across ur blog in my quest to search talented writers and felt worth to inquire if you shall be interested to come along with us.
    If yes pls contact us at sangeeta.goswami@readersquotient.com or sangeetag169@gmail.com

    Waiting for your revert

    Regds/Sangeeta
    www.readersquotient.com

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