Research On Baudrillard’s Early Critical Theory Of Consumer Society

After World War II, the West has experienced the history of mankind’s largestand most far-reaching influence of the third technological revolution. Capitalisteconomy has developed rapidly, which accelerated the enormous material. Both abovecontribute to oncoming of Consumer Society. Under the tremendous role of thecommodity logic, consumption penetrates into social life in the round. Not only thegoods, but also the body, culture, leisure and sex etc. become the object which theconsumption nibbled. Consumption develops as a positive way of relationconstruction, and the relationships among people are depicted and embodied perfectlyin consumption relation. The mass media has provided many consumption samplesand models continuously, in order to stimulate consumption desire and need of thepublic in the most extent. As a system of symbol communication and social divisionmechanism, consumption deeply reflects the social structure of ContemporaryWestern Consumer Society.As one of the most well-known French social theorists, Jean· Baudrillard utilizedthe view of the Marxism and the semiotics to investigate the consumer societycomprehensively with his original analysis from the plane in culture and symbol. Hepointed out that consumption constituted the leading logic in consumer society. All inthe society took symbol as intermediary, and were operated by symbol further more.This view uncovered the essence of bondage and domination in ContemporaryWestern Consumer Society. Early Baudrillard made detailed and profoundexplanation and analysis in the commercialization of the daily life, theconsumerization of the society and the symbolization of consuming. His CriticalTheory of Consumer Society is valuable for reality and theory investigation inunderstanding the contemporary society and culture.From the technical sociology’s angle of view, this paper attempts to give anelaborate research on the frame of Baudrillard’s Early Consumer Society Theory bymeans of retrieving the history conception of “consumer society”,“consumption” and “symbolic value”, and eventually strives to refine the structure of Baudrillard’s EarlyCritical Theory of Consumer Society from his implicit and obscure thoughts. Theapproximate line is as follows: Firstly, the paper introduces Baudrillard’s concept of“Consumer Society” from the historical technical background, and then combs out themain content of Baudrillard’s Early Consumer Society Theory, including detailedanalysis separately with the essential character, the integration mechanism, as well asthe narration words in consumer society. Under the widespread application ofscientific and technical achievements, the symbol has obtained multiplicationincreasingly, and consumption becomes the core of social life. More importantly, themass media has also acquired hegemony status to control the whole society with theaid of technical strength. Finally, this paper tries to discuss the basic frame ofBaudrillard’s Early Critical Theory of Consumer Society from perspectives of valuecritique, technical critique and ideology critique. According to the explaination ofBaudrillard’s thoughts, it brings out a conclusion that under the control of symbolsystem in capitalist technological civilization, human’s value are decreasing androughly keep living and developing in battle with symbol, and the society is facedwith numerous social ethical problems such as the environment and resources crisis,the social interaction crisis, the esthetical crisis and so on. Freedom, democracy andequality emphasized by Capitalism are merely illusory, pointing to the essence ofsymbol fetishism. The combined action of technology and consumption has realizedthe society’s comprehensive control, which keeps the order of ContemporaryCapitalist domination positively.