Inalienability of Taste from the Idea of the Consumer - Essay Example

On Taste Introduction The question of taste has long been examined by intellectuals and alike. While it outwardly seems a simple concept, anindividuals’ preference for a product or song can be shown to have much deeper implications. Indeed, writers such as Karl Marx argued that consumer preference was only the outward manifestation of a much more complex value system. Similarly, Raymond Williams extended this discussion to include the nature of advertising in the capitalist economic framework. Still others, such as Roland Barthes, examined the concept of taste from utilizing concepts of high and low culture. In examining these writers’ perspectives, this essay considers the concept of taste and demonstrates how it cannot be removed from the concept of the consumer. Karl Marx, Production and Consumer Taste In ‘the Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof’ Karl Marx (2005) explores the concept of stuff from the production angle. In this piece Marx links the process of production to the consumer’s festishization of the product, and therefore their taste for it. Marx is noting that this fetishization of the commodity is not directly related to use – it’s ‘use-value’ – and instead indicates that there exists as sort of mystical character that comes to surround these commodities that increases consumer interest. Marx goes on to attempt to describe this mystical commodity fetishism through a number of penetrating insights, however the foundation of his argument is simply that consumer taste is linked to the means of production of the product. In further elucidating this connection between commodity production and taste Marx the traditional economic concept of division of labor. His argument is that the production of a commodity requires separate skill sets and subsequently various individuals to produce the object, so upon its production the object is more transcendent than a mere object of utility, but also constitutes a sort of collective element of society. Marx (2005, Web) writes, “It is only by being exchanged that the products of labour acquire, as values, one uniform social status, distinct from their varied forms of existence as objects of utility.” That is, as Marx notes, the social nature of production makes the commodity and the consumer one in the same, so that taste, festishization, etc. constitutes more than one’s preference or need for a commodity, but on a more fundamental level constitutes a means of social relations. What Marx exactly means by this ‘social relations’ is left somewhat ambiguous. He embarks on a discussion of equality achieved through exchange -- of which religion currently fills the void created by an unequal distribution of social wealth --and then deliberates on the difference between utility and value. Ultimately what Marx gets at in these regards is simply that there is a difference between the use-value of an object and the exchange-value, the latter of which generally is related to the amount of labor required to procure or produce it, but is more accurately understood as an element that is conditioned gradually through the process of exchange. In these regards, taste is merely a product of the exchange value of an object, and is connected to the consumer through the exchange or market process and through its means of production. Raymond Williams’ Magic System While Marx examines the concept of consumer taste for the foundational level of commodity production, Raymond Williams examines this concept through the prism of advertising. It’s notable that Williams and Marx perspectives on taste are not necessarily in opposition; whereas Marx examines the foundational level of commodity production and abstractly addresses the process by which commodities ultimately gain their value, through his examination of advertising Williams extends the Marxist examination of value and consumer taste. While the common cliché is that society is too materialist driven, Williams (1960, pg. 172) states, “it seems to me that in this respect our society is quite evidently not materialist enough, and that this, paradoxically, is the result of a failure in social meanings, values, and ideals.” In these regards, Williams is arguing that advertising plays a crucial role in the process of consumer taste and product acquisition because of a diversity of ideals within society that are held sway to its persuasive power, as well as because he believes advertising functions to supplement the material good. It is this supplementary quality of advertising that must add to the consumer product that Williams deems ‘the magic system’. Williams understands the magic system of advertising as a necessary element of society’s current stage of economic development. In these regards, human taste is a product of the masses socially conditioned position in the social order, with advertising functioning as a sort of modern day magic, or religious system. In this system the commodities use-value is differentiated from other similar use-values through mystical pronouncements that imply the product will grant the individual special powers, such as manliness, intelligence, or versatility. Williams (1960, pg. 174) states, “You do not only buy an object: you buy social respect, discrimination, health, beauty, success, power to control your environment.” Thus, taste is understood as the consumer’s striving towards the achievement of these abstract ideals through product consumption. In these regards, one might consider Marx’s early argument that there is an element of the exchange process that functions in a mystical way to compensate for the fundamental inequality in the capitalist system. Williams then is supplementing this Marxist dialogue with an argument that consumer taste, as conditioned through advertising, is an essential part of being a member of the capitalist social structure. Taste and Pleasure While Karl Marx and Raymond Williams are interested in the concept of taste as it relates to its overarching relation to the capitalist economic structure, and the mystical nature of advertising, Roland Barthes examines taste on a micro-level in terms of the individual’s relation to the text (or consumer product). For Barthes the nature of consumer taste can be understood through a dichotomous division of pleasure. In the Pleasure of the Text (Barthes 1990), he indicates that there are actually different forms of enjoyment: pleasure and bliss. These divisions of enjoyment are further broken down and aligned with the categories of readerly and writerly texts. Barthes indicates that while both texts offer pleasure to the reader, the writerly text is the more important because it more actively engages the reader and challenges their assumptions. As Barthes style is highly challenging and rife with terminology, it is difficult to ascertain the exact distinction between the two divisions of textual pleasure. For instance, consider Barthes (1990, pg. 74) when he writes, “The pleasure of the text is a sudden obliteration of the warrior value, a momentary desquamation of the writer’s hackles, a suspension of the ‘heart’ (of courage).” While such formulations are difficult to understand, they ironically may be an example of exactly what Barthes means by writerly text; ultimately then texts that challenge the reader to go beyond passive consumption will, according to Barthes’, produce this feeling of bliss in the reader, whereas readerly texts that are passively consumed can only produce a less profound feeling of pleasure. While Barthes is specifically referencing the written word, with its linguistic intricacies, the ‘text’ in this sense can also be extended to objects of consumption including films, art, and even household consumer goods. Although Barthes uses challenging terminology and literary prose, the division he is referring to between active and passive consumption has intellectual precedent in discussions of a high and low culture. In these regards, consumer taste is understood through two distinct ideals – one of the intellectual elite and one of the masses. Barthes paradigm is highly influenced by this intellectual perspective. Contemporary perspectives on taste have adopted a post-modern perspective where an individual’s preferences for low-culture are understood to be as intellectual or artistically valid as what was previously considered superior ‘high culture’. While this is the pervading paradigm of contemporary intellectual thought on taste, there remain a number of critics of this perspective. Consider artist Billy Childish (Interview with John Lekay, 2007) who in referring to post-modern art in a recent interview stated, “it’s cheap and nasty and has no regard for human sensibilities. Consumerism is post modernism. post modernism will only die when its root is dead. Could be a week or a century.” Ultimately, this understanding of taste links the individual’s preference for low-culture to their uneducated and passive desire for consumption, versus the high-culture need for intellectual enlightenment. Conclusion As can be seen the concept of taste is highly complex and has implications that reach as deep as the structure of the capitalist economy and the nature of production. Still even within this framework the consumer has freedom of choice that is competed for through advertising and its oftentimes mystical pronouncements. Finally, the concept of taste was deconstructed to show a possible dual nature of whether to actively consume or to passively enjoy the text or product of consumption. Ultimately, it’s the individual’s responsibility to understand these overarching frameworks and take control of their personal taste. References Barthes, R., 1990, The Pleasure of the Text, Oxford. ‘Billy Childish Interview with John LeKay’, Heyoka Magazine, http://www.heyokamagazine.com/HEYOKA.3.PAINT.BILLY%20CHILDISH.htm Retrieved July 24, 2010 Marx, K., 2005, ‘The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof’ (orig. 1867), rpt. in Guins, R. and O. Z. Cruz, eds., 2005, Popular Culture: A Reader, Sage. Williams, R., 1960; 1969, ‘Advertising: The Magic System’, rpt., 1980, Problems in Materialism and Culture, Verso, pp.170-195. Read More