"Shagreen skin" of the consumer society
Nowadays, certain watches do not just show the time - they are a sign of belonging to a certain circle of people. No wonder they say: “Rolex does not rule the world, it is controlled by people who wear Rolex” …
Soon the time will come that
it will be already who will win.
The world will enter into such a dimension of
its historical being
that these old categories
will no longer be applicable.
N. A. Berdyaev, 1918
Two decades have passed, and no, no, yes, we will mentally return to a time when suddenly thrown out of their usual, albeit not the most prosperous life, found themselves in the completely unpredictable hard times of the 90s. Perhaps this was the most memorable time for everyone who had the (not) happiness to survive those years. Now we are again trying to assess the past and understand what was more in that time - drama, tragedy or fantastic absurdity.
I came, saw, consumed …
Consumption is one of the fundamental human needs. In the USSR, no emphasis was placed on the consumption of goods; in accordance with Marxist political economy, it was assumed that the entire product produced would be consumed. The price of a product, roughly speaking, included raw materials and labor expended - nothing else. But this was the case only in the Soviet Union. In the world, from which Stalin's armor separated us before Khrushchev, and after that - a fairly strong ideological shell, everything has long been different.
Slightly recovering from the wounds of World War II, the world hastened to a new era, when the commodity took a dominant position in the “food chain” of the economy and turned from an object into a subject of action called Consumption. You can read special literature on this exciting topic, but here we will try to consider difficult economic processes in the light of their influence on the consciousness of people and find the dependence of visible social processes on invisible movements of the hidden unconscious. The system-vector psychology of Yuri Burlan will help in this, which explains the paradoxes of history through obvious systemic constructions.
Any system works the same at different levels of complexity. Aspects of the psychic in a person correspond to completely certain relations in a couple, society, as well as at the level of social formations and mentalities. Today we live in the cutaneous phase of the development of society, the main values of which, as well as for an individual person with a cutaneous vector, are benefit and benefit. Examination of the skin phase is the most interesting from the psychoanalytic point of view, not only because it occurs here and now, but also because it is in this phase that the production of material goods (goods) increasingly takes possession of public consciousness and leaves its imprint on the value attitudes of everyone person.
Skin man, society, mentality
To make it clear why we call the current social structure skin, let's try to consider the characteristics of the skin vector in relation to a person and society in comparison.
So. The dermal man is flexible, fast, possessing a high degree of adaptability, whose species role is to extract and save food, and is complementary to the dermal social formation, where speed and flexibility in production and sales are the main conditions for survival in a competitive environment. Even time in the cutaneous phase flows differently than in the anal one that precedes it. Economists point to a certain indicator - the reduction of Kondratyev's long wave cycle from 70 to 35-40 years (Ovsyannikov A. A.). This refers to the periodic cycles of the modern world economy, in which the expansion of production is replaced by crisis phenomena leading to the restructuring of social and economic relations.
You can read about the relationship with time of people of different vectors here. On my own behalf, I will add that it is in the modern skin phase of the development of society that the expression "Time is money" has acquired a direct meaning. Nowadays, certain watches (the brainchild of leather inventors) do not just show the time - they are a sign of belonging to a certain circle of persons. No wonder they say: “Rolex does not rule the world, it is controlled by people who wear Rolex”. The watch becomes a symbol of power and is attractive just like power. Below I will return to this amazing product property.
"One's shirt is closer to the body" - say (or at least think) the carriers of the skin vector. The consumer society expresses this by the ever-increasing alienation of people from each other. Individualism becomes paramount as a guarantee of success and advancement. Be a leader, become more successful, overtake, circle, beat your neighbor - and you will be happy. Leather workers fulfill all these requirements with passion, often sacrificing personal life and relationships with loved ones to this game. Money = success! Gape a little - and someone else is ahead, you just have to be content with the discount collections of the last season.
The second-hand shirt did not fit the leather worker, he seeks to confirm his rank with the appropriate clothing. And shoes. And a car. And at home … The race for compliance with a given standard of consumption does not stop for a minute, I just stopped moving - and you won't knock down the butter, you will drown in skimmed milk, no one will remember, because the skin society is only interested in what is relevant, fashionable, what makes the news, the consumer is ready to pay only for fresh goods.
“Discipline yourself and discipline others” is not a problem for a developed skinner. He senses the rhythm of time with his skin, managing to do several things at the same time, often at the expense of quality, but always with an obvious benefit for himself. If earlier, in the anal phase of development, for example, a baby stroller could serve for ten or more years, now it is only enough for a year, but the consumer is forced to buy a new one, which is very beneficial for the manufacturer of strollers.
In times of war, skin people are the best warriors. What is happening now in the market for goods and services can be called a war without much exaggeration. Wars of competitiveness have engulfed not only the sphere of material production, but also science, technology, culture, ideals and values. There is a war for investment, tourist attraction, world resources; advertising brands are fighting for a place in the consumer's mind. Information wars for world public opinion are becoming more and more fierce and sophisticated, because the sphere of influence, which means new profits, depends on victory or defeat in them.
The human body itself becomes a liquid commodity in a society of universal consumption. The whole industry is in the service of the body, the cult of the body is brought to a fetish, people insure, sell and buy the body and its individual parts. The body as an asset and an additional chance to win in the general exchange market is the prerogative of not only women, but also men. We see the same in the relationship of skin pairs. Skin marriages are based on calculation or not at all. What for? The change of impressions, and hence of partners, is very important for the skin libido. It turns out that only what is relevant, young, and the further, the younger is in demand here. The consumer attitude towards love is expressed by the search for new and new sexual contacts.
From a reasonable limitation to the absurdity of a "voracious consumer"
On the physical level, the skin separates a person from the environment, limiting the human body, giving shape. We see the same thing at the mental level: it was with the cutaneous vector that man first separated his mental from the animal, regulated his behavior, limiting the primary urge to sex and kill.
Consumption inside has limits, it is impossible to cram an unlimited amount into a limited volume, no matter how modern society tries to do it, artificially creating an “insatiable consumer”. Humanity is out of hunger management and consumer desires are growing exponentially. When fulfilled, the desire doubles: I bought a Zhiguli, I was happy, I got used to it, I wanted a Volga, etc. But this is not enough!
It is impossible not to notice how consumption from a way of maintaining life becomes life itself. The person himself becomes depersonalized and devalued. He acquires the face and the price together with the goods he purchases. The border between goods and people is being erased. A commodity is humanized, a person becomes a commodity. The question "How much are you worth?" no one is surprised any more, the expression “To be able to sell oneself” has become a common use, a person buys not a car, but status, belonging to those who drive cars of this brand.
Producers not only follow the growing desires of the consumer, they create new, previously unseen needs, strive to make the process of consumption eternal and endless. Contrary to the law of nature, according to which only returns are unlimited, modern society demonstrates a growing imbalance between giving and consumption in favor of the latter. This is expressed by the systemic crisis of the economies of all countries, but these processes are especially difficult in Russia.
We often ask ourselves why the reforms written off from the West are doomed on our soil or turn into their opposite? The answer is obvious - the difference in mentality. The mentality of Western countries is skin-like, it is formed by the skin majority and is based on the values of the skin vector. The Russian mentality is urethral-muscular. We will dwell on how the skin phase of the development of society in our country, Russia, or the former USSR, manifests itself in more detail in the article "How can we not destroy Russia, which we have not lost."
