The role of social axiologization of consumption in the formation of the world outlook of modern man

Gurbanov Abdulla Gadzhievich Postgraduate student, Department of Philosophy, Astrakhan State University named after V.N. Tatishchev 414056, Russia, Astrakhan region, Astrakhan, Tatishcheva str., 20a, room 409 stars678@rambler.ru Other publications by this author

Modern social reality acts as an urgent environment for the constant evolution of the problem of human consumption, and during this process, this problem requires increased attention to the axiological guidelines of this process. Emphasizing the close relationship between culture, man and society, we especially note the increasing embeddability of the phenomenon of "consumerism" into the fabric of the human life world, starting from the turn of the XX-XXI centuries. Following this, the transformation of the value milestones of public consciousness begins, the catalyst of which is the object of this study – consumption as a value-significant action.

The relevance of the problem is determined by the totality of consumption, which covers all large segments of human social existence and turns his life world into a field of consumption not only of goods and services, but also of meanings, symbols, ideological dominants. By interacting with each other, they make the world of modern man more pragmatic, rigid, and "materialized".

However, such changes do not seem to be accidental. Since the second half of the 20th century, the class structure has been eroding, income, free time and the general level of human well-being have been growing. All this gradually transforms the consumption pattern, filling it with new meanings. It is difficult to disagree with O.E. Alpatova, who argues that, unlike abundance "standing out from the mass", redundancy standardizes ^{[1, p. 1199]}. Therefore, in the process of consuming material goods in society, the desire space is relatively autonomously formed. The problem here is that in reality, a space of possibilities is not created in order to satisfy these desires.

As a result of what has been said, the meaning of consumption is changing, which now cannot be considered a purely physical assimilation; since the end of the XX century, it is rather an idealistic practice of "consuming signs". And this, according to Alpatova, no longer allows the modern consumer to fit into the "pyramid of needs" of A. Maslow. At the same time, hyperproduction actively and extensively reproduces new productive forces, which gradually forms a new value system, while the process of pipelining practically merges with ethics and mentality, the so-called "everyday ideology", which penetrates into all spheres of social interaction.

We agree with M. Imai, the author of the concept of "Kaizen", that the quality of products has a significant impact on consumption, and "the verdict on quality is passed by the consumer" ^{[2, p. 227]}. Developing this idea, the Japanese top manager states that all the efforts of the company's management are reduced to customer satisfaction, and any work is useless if it does not lead to the achievement of this goal. Thus, the Land of the Rising Sun, in our opinion, is a very successful example of a well-thought-out system of embedding quality, which has a certain influence on the formation of the axiology of consumption, not only in Japan, but also in many other countries.

The situation is similar in Russia. According to S.A. Khrapov, "... the values of consumption, fixed at all levels of public consciousness, encourage a person to follow them," because "... otherwise, he is in danger of exclusion from ... society as a whole, because consumer orientation is the criterion for identification with him" ^{[3, p. 104]}.

A rather interesting trend in the formation of consumer values is also noticed by the German sociologist G. Marcuse. "In fact," he says, –we observe the opposite trend: the apparatus imposes its economic and political demands for protection and expansion on both working and free time, both material and intellectual culture" ^{[4, p. 226]}. There is no doubt that such an ideology contributes to the spread of consumer culture, not only by rooting specific standards in the public consciousness, but also by forming specific consumption values.

Among them, one of the main places is given to the totality of consumption. Its presence allows us to speak about the predominance of consumer ideology in the public consciousness, which unites all strata of society. In addition, consumption is also being universalized, forming new value constants within the economic consciousness of the inhabitants of the Russian Federation. Unfortunately, as R.I. Khakhiashvili states, such an economic consciousness "ignores the highest values, absolutizing everyday ones, conditioned by the desire of people to live better, more comfortable, richer" ^{[5, pp. 111-112]}. A social psychologist argues that the desire to consume is gradually becoming dominant, becoming the most important value and, moreover, a person's life goal. This is also facilitated by mass communication, which fixes in the public consciousness certain patterns of consumption, in the absence of which a person's life would seem incomplete, and he would be deprived of a decent existence.

According to S.A. Khrapov, "the problem of the consumer orientation of a person and public consciousness is not just a problem of the hedonistic attitude of worship of the "golden calf"" ^{[3, p. 105]}. It seems to us that this is also a consequence of the transformation of culture and public consciousness, including under the influence of positivism and pragmatism. These ideologies have established the rationality of consumption in modern society as its main value and even a worldview principle.

The so-called "consumer illusions" are formed latently in the human mind. They form certain ideas about how it is necessary to "live beautifully" from the standpoint of hyperindividualism – the predominance of individuality over the value of social community. And this imperceptibly, gradually, forms quasi-values, for example, personal atomization and selfishness. Unfortunately, all this is happening against the background of deculturization – a critical decline in the cultural and educational level of the population.

Among the values of mass consciousness, there is almost no place for the values of individual culture, which often provokes paradoxical situations when a person is "ashamed" of his education and culture. This directly indicates that a person's new consumer strategies will significantly transform his value orientations, among which rationality, selfishness, and utilitarianism will prevail. Often these values reveal an irreversible character at the moment.

We emphasize that qualitative changes in the trade sector have a significant impact on the development of consumer values. Among them, it is worth highlighting consolidation, specialization and industrialization, as well as an increase in the diversity, types and forms of trade. All this contributed to the formation of the consumer base and the process of unlimited consumption among a fairly large number of consumers. As A. Durning calculated, the average inhabitant of the planet today is about 4.5 times richer than his ancestors who lived a century or a little more ago ^[6]. This circumstance contributes to the fact that the market of goods and services is constantly, and in most cases uncontrollably, replenished, and this fully corresponds to an artificially created increase in demand. In addition, the consumer of the early 21st century has a much larger reserve of free time than people of the previous generation, which he can allocate directly to the process of acquiring something. However, even if there is not enough time in this case, the consumer can easily use the delivery services.

It has become possible to talk about the implantation of consumer values into the human life world due to the profound transformation of socio-economic systems that are influenced by informatization, computerization and globalization. In their interrelation, these processes have given rise to a fundamentally new model of social development, which in recent years has rebuilt the entire body of social and industrial relations.

It is worth noting another feature of the socio-economic development of the present time – the informatization of the economy, which is characterized by the speed of information dissemination, which is already several times faster than the speed of movement in the space of goods and services. And this is the essence of the "consumer society", characterized by such trends as the expansion of the boundaries of exchange and related relationships, the strengthening of ties between consumers, as well as a significant compression of time and space. All this, both directly and indirectly, forms the axiological meanings of modernity, because through a sufficient amount of money, accessibility and wide possibilities of consumption, the very freedom of consumption opens up, which is already deprived of even practical meaning ^{[7, p. 196]}.

In addition, an important influence on these processes is also exerted by the high level of urbanization, which has seriously "condensed" the urban population today. This transformation, which reduces the number of villagers, also reduces the popularity of the rural lifestyle, on the contrary, increasing the popularity of the urban one ^{[8, p. 118]}. This is not surprising, since some researchers believe that the "consumer society" is based precisely on urban consumer practices that are more mobile and provide greater consumer demand.

As long as the number of citizens grows, there will be a factor that provokes corporations and small firms to increase production, develop industry and lure potential customers into their "networks" in the literal and figurative sense.

The thesis defended by modern scientists that large and largest cities are an indispensable link for the successful development of the country's economy since the beginning of the XXI century is practically not disputed by anyone. According to a number of researchers, megacities not only concentrate the social, geo–economic, informational, and sometimes ethical potential of states, but also act as "catalysts" and an essential support for innovative processes. Moreover, the larger the city, the higher the concentration of the post–industrial economy in it, more human capital, and modernization is taking place at a faster pace, which, together, irreversibly changes the way of life of a person ^{[9, p. 6]}.

The structure of consumption today is beginning to experience a very serious bias associated with the predominance of costs for durable goods and services in relation to goods of primary necessity. The pre-consumer society cultivated the values of "industrial consumption", but now the values of personal consumption come first. For example, in the USA in the second half of the last century, about 67% of gross domestic product was spent on personal consumption, and in Asian countries – just over 50%.

The importance of the production and consumption of an information product, which represents information and market relations and, at the same time, a kind of good that does not tend to disappear, is another distinctive feature of the axiology of consumption that is undergoing the formation stage. However, without disappearing, information tends to quickly become obsolete, lose its relevance, and the popularization of this product contributes to the transformation of the structure of consumption by household members, since modern information technologies significantly change the lifestyle of most people, reduce costs and provide access to a much greater choice in a variety of goods and services ^{[7, p. 197]}.

It is also necessary to note the appearance of such a term as "sharing economy" in the conceptual and categorical arsenal of social philosophers. In this context, we can talk about the emergence of another value, such as providing access to goods on exactly the same terms that other consumers expect, that is, this is a kind of modern perception of justice. It often generates a process of secularization in consumption. This term appeared a little over 50 years ago, when the process of consumption began to be slowly but surely withdrawn from the field of religious restraint ^{[10, p. 115]}. Of course, it is actively emphasized that commercialism has been condemned and is condemned by all developed religions, from Buddhism to Islam. The ethical views of representatives of these religions are quite unanimous: everyone claims that material well-being, elevated to the highest rank, leads a person to a sad outcome. So, the Bible asks: "What will a person achieve if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul?".

Following religious figures, philosophers turn directly to the problems of the axiological foundations of consumerism. Thus, Democritus argued that "human greed is human," and it is connected, of course, with the desire to consume immoderately. His follower Lucretius said that people no longer want to eat acorns, sleep in the open air and wear hunting skins. The world is becoming more complicated – and this leads to an increase in needs, and this growth affects consumption and its values. Almost two millennia later, L.N. Tolstoy develops this idea: he says that it is worth trying to find both rich and poor people among people – "it will not be easy to choose such a person who would have enough of his earnings for all that he considers necessary for himself" ^{[10, p. 116]}. And if his social and status needs are expressed mainly in a material format, then there will be no limit to such a "desire to consume". But the expression of these needs in a spiritual form, plus a tangible human need for self-development, makes material consumption more moderate with a corresponding change in axiological guidelines. Note, however, that the modern market economy promotes mainly the first direction.

In this regard, E. Duhring offers a very interesting idea: he believes that five new factors play an important role in cultivating "especially greedy appetites": pressure on people from society, the cult of "materialism", advertising, government policy, as well as the unceremonious invasion of the market into the traditional economic sphere ^[6].

It should be noted that axiological changes occur, most often, in parallel with the formation of new social regulators of consumption. Thus, culture, ethics and morality legitimize consumption, which in itself becomes a terminal value, that is, a psychologically ingrained belief or idea of the ultimate goals of existence, for which it is worth surviving. An interesting point here is that consumption is supported by a significant number of related spheres at once: advertising, modern literature, cinema, music and even education. Taken together, they become sources of popularization of some specific socio-ideological cliches and even a style of consumerism among new generations. As a result, producers of tangible and intangible goods, actively using the mechanism of brands and new social attitudes, gain access to all the advantages of mass production, increasing profits and their own incomes. All of the above together supports the interest of potential consumers in materialism, under the brand of which a system of spiritual values is being formed.

Separately, it is worth highlighting such an aspect of the problem as the formation of effective technologies for influencing mass consciousness, which ultimately led to the isolation of consumer consciousness, actualization and administration of the consumption process ^{[8, p. 128]}.

Developing, marketing began to create an effective socio-economic system of unlimited, in fact, consumption, through the development of an almost incalculable corpus of tools for influencing the consciousness of a potential consumer. As we emphasized above, the Internet plays a significant role in spreading value-based consumer attitudes, through which you can consume quickly and comfortably. However, it is thanks to this resource that the number of advertisements has significantly increased, which is rightfully considered the main driving force of modern trade.

Half a century ago, the main point of exchange was to satisfy a real need. But nowadays, the purchase-sale relationship no longer carries its true essence, having become an "action", the need for which, in most cases, is illusory, but persistently fills its price through advertising. Plus, a wide range of goods and services and their relative accessibility allows society to satisfy not only basic needs, but also to acquire something endowed with aesthetic, hedonistic and other meanings. The very fact of having such a large number of meanings is beneficial to manufacturers, primarily large ones, who get the opportunity to actively promote a "beautiful" life and the associated amenities and pleasures ^{[12, p. 6]}.

It should be noted that the process of axiologizing consumption in modern society is influenced by a whole body of objective and subjective factors. The first ones include:

1. The presence of biological needs, called basic needs;
2. Striving to increase the status and prestige;
3. The need to possess;
4. The need to be sure of something.

Note that consumerism today is not a functional exchange of money for goods for the sake of their usefulness, but a symbolic exchange. A huge number of artificial, far–fetched needs that are fixed in the value system of our contemporary – from an electric toothbrush to a shoe dryer - have so penetrated both into everyday life and into the human value system that they seem as understandable and familiar as a daily morning coffee ^{[12, p. 139]}. Of course, for consumers who surround themselves with such things, it does not seem at all unnatural that their main and main benefit is the possibility of owning them.

Starting from the thesis that the desire to possess is present in every individual to some extent, one can understand the reason for the phenomenon of possession: the fundamental difference between the subject and objects in its very essence. However, the whole socio-economic life of mankind with its inherent values is based on this naturally conditioned aspiration.

The future and the uncertainty associated with it actualizes another important value for a person: time. It is time that explains the desire for possession in terms of guaranteeing some certainty in the future, and it is the fear of uncertainty that can explain a person's desire to build a stockade around himself from the "world of things" that are always nearby, providing a constant connection between needs and objects with which they can be satisfied. Thus, an attempt is being made to "banish" such unpleasant symptoms as fear, anxiety, and uncertainty about one's own "tomorrow" from human existence.

It is often important for a person to show individuality. It is so important that the very possibility of such a manifestation in the conditions of life in the city, depersonalizing work and conveyor, mass production of things, is already becoming a value. Indeed, in these conditions, consumption also fills an ever-expanding vacuum of identity. It becomes a kind of "guiding star" that helps you find your place in life and decide on it.

Quite often today, one can observe the maximum convergence of the term "consumer society" with the concept of "consumer culture". It is logical to assume that this is due to the stimulation of mass culture of the very act of acquisition, while culture itself becomes quite an ordinary "marketplace". In the field of economics, mass culture literally "infects" it with its values, but at the same time, it reveals the identity of material and spiritual, which equally act as objects of mass consumption. It is worth noting that the concept of "bestseller" becomes universal and system-forming in such a culture ^{[13, p. 61]}.

An indisputable fact of the present time can be considered that societies with a highly developed trade circulation are gradually transforming all cultural works into objects of "purchase and sale", making the existence of the creator dependent on commercial factors. The uniqueness of works of art no longer plays a decisive role, and the value of the creator is now determined solely by the demand for his products on the market.

The capitalist formation openly declares that it is the market that will seize positions in cultural activity, and gradually it will become the dominant form of its provision. Of course, there was a market before capitalism, and it exists under socialism, but it was only under capitalism that the saleability of "cultural goods" began to be called as the main measure of creativity. There is a difficult dilemma between the freedom of creativity and the dependence of the author of the product on commercial success. The postulate that the market price of a work of art cannot be directly correlated with its spiritual value has also generated a lot of controversy.

There are many examples in the cultural history of the 19th century when many brilliant creators found serious financial difficulties. Pushkin and Balzac are perhaps the most striking of them. All these examples demonstrate that the dialogue between the freelance artist and the seller is not over to this day, and relatively few creators can declare themselves that they have provided financial stability. Paradoxically, there are much more among those who succeeded in the market – those who did not produce the best products, but who managed to find "their" consumer, hungry for simple "bread and circuses". Therefore, on the one hand, the market freed the artist from external dictates from the Church or the state, but, on the other, placed him in the most severe dependence on the vagaries of commercial demand ^{[14, p. 126]}.

Mentioning the commercial side of mass culture, it is impossible not to mention the marketing that came with it, which brought its own values to it. The main goal of marketing is to promote a cultural product to the masses, and in order to successfully achieve it, a fairly complex apparatus was formed, including specialists in various fields of scientific knowledge: sociology, psychology, social philosophy. An important component of the success of any marketing system can be called access to information about consumer preferences and dislikes, which can be sold to manufacturing corporations, as well as knowledge about the most effective methods of working with people's group consciousness. In this case, marketing becomes an organizational and commercial connecting link between the manufacturer and the buyer of a mass cultural product. It is fair to note that marketing itself in this role can generate values, and often false ones.

It is marketing that promotes the products of the cultural industry to the market of cultural (and sometimes quasi–cultural) consumption, often producing a "stuffing" of simple, unsophisticated goods - but in a "cultural" wrapper. Fortunately, achievements in the field of special design and design make it possible to constantly produce new standards of what is visually or audibly adequately perceived by the mass of consumers. As an example of such a standard, one can cite a drawing on the envelope of a record, a design project for a city park, an online tour of a museum, etc. Successful marketing takes an active part in the repertoire of theaters, contributes to the financing of cinema, sets standards for what "can" or "cannot" be shown on TV or released in publishing houses. This approach gives cultural processes a "competitive" character, bringing to life the repeatedly repeated process of the ups and downs of "idols" and "stars". The apparatus of mass culture, which strictly performs its functions, at the same time strictly differentiates spiritual products by types of consumers.

Based on the above, we come to the conclusion that the consumer orientation of the public consciousness of modern Russia has a well-formed axiological system and is subordinated to the consumer needs and desires of individuals. As S.A. Khrapov emphasized, "by internalizing consumer attitudes, consumer lifestyle, identification styles and values of consumer culture ... a person thereby roots these worldview attitudes at the level of mass and public consciousness" ^{[3, p. 93]}.

Of course, there are also dangers on the path of the human consumer in the first decades of the XXI century, the first and main of which was formulated by the domestic economist V.V. Radaev. He noted that "his actions, as a human consumer, are subordinated to one dominant utilitarian motive - the selfish desire for his own good, expressed in maximizing utility" ^{[15, p. 7]}. And such manifestations of selfishness, of course, reduce the importance of eternal values, introducing a person into the system of illusory, and therefore unreliable, values.

The philosopher R.I. Khakhiashvili calls the second danger "rational teleologism". Back in the 20th century, it was quite acceptable, but today it makes a person consider himself a "perfect being" who can calmly walk over the heads and interests of others, ignores their opinions and internally feels moral superiority over others ^{[5, p. 110]}. Note that such behavior is very common in economically developed countries today and is quite correlated with the economic values of liberalism.

S.A. Khrapov speaks about the third danger of worshipping the Golden Calf. The researcher is convinced that the solution to this problem is complicated by the fact that, firstly, it is not realized and, moreover, none of the consumers will simply think about the "absurd" idea of debunking the cult of money. Secondly, "... the universalization of money contributes to the alienation of a person from culture in its classical sense" ^{[3, p. 97]}.

Finally, sociologist N.I. Zarubina warns us about another danger of the absolutization of the value of money. "Money reveals the property of alienating its own social and cultural motivation," she writes, "thus paralyzing the human will" ^{[16, p. 17]}. Becoming a "dynamic capital", they open up the ability for self-growth to a person. However, money can also participate in the process of "alienation" of a person, she is ready to sacrifice something, but not withdraw money from circulation, because in this case a certain share of the profit that this money would be able to bring is lost. That is why the "economic man", whose main goal is the rational exaggeration of capital, gradually loses its true cultural and social dimension, transfers part of its personal properties to money. All this encourages consumers to sacrifice a lot for the sake of being able to maintain the level of consumption, which in itself forms a favorable ground for axiological deformations.

The unambiguously positive aspect of the desire to consume more can be attributed to the desire to work more to achieve their goals. However, replacing all life meanings with only one thing – work, is also a dead end, because work becomes both a means of material life and a goal, and the desire to possess material often leads to the formation of a frankly destructive personal potential, with which it then enters into social relations. There is a certain historical paradox in all this: the individual has been trying for a long time to escape from the oppression of the gods and the "mistakes" of nature, but when he succeeded, he himself risks falling victim to the wrong choice between the spiritual and the material. To prevent this, a person should abandon building his entire axiological system solely on the basis of the values of consumerism.

Summing up, we note that consumption actualized in the first decades of the XXI century values, the essential content of which is materialized and far from the classical values presented in philosophy and, more broadly, in the culture of the XX century. A significant part of these values reflect a person's specifically consumer view of the new world, built by the person himself; they cannot be called unambiguously positive, moreover, as it seems to us, in the analysis of their very body, a feeling of a rather deep crisis of value orientations prevails, since among axiological orientations egoism, the fetish of money, the value of uncontrolled, maximum consumption. The social phenomenon of combining these values-quasi-values-anti-values is making its way deeper into the fabric of human social existence, affecting his vital world in terms of increasing anxiety, striving for loneliness, alienation from what an active, active nature does not accept. It seems that it is possible to avoid the growth of destructive tendencies through the conclusion of consumption in a reasonable framework controlled by the consumer himself, as well as the creation of the most comfortable psychological conditions for the reasonable use of the benefits of modern society.