Nineteenth-century thinkers have constantly emphasized the central role of production in the creation of the human world. In the meantime, Marx unfettered this process from the shackles of profit and capital accumulation and gave it an aesthetical aspect through deconstructing the concept of capitalist production. He explained man’s living condition under the production system. For him, consumption is a kind of passive action and belongs to the animal world. In fact, the Marxist discourse regards consumers as misled and self-alienated creatures who have been obsessed by illusions of products which are made by themselves. From a Marxist perspective, consumption is a reflection of production itself, and "the way of output" are determined the "method of consumption" in a priori fashion. But Michel de Certeau, a philosopher in the postmodern tradition, suggest that even where a house belongs to others, deeds of settlement are ours; according to de Certeau, a consumer participates in the process of production of goods by his "different usage style." In this way, consumption secures its independent nature against the production system, asserting its place as "secondary production." If Marx says "production as the creation of aesthetics," postmodern discourse takes the aesthetic action into the realm of consumption, and ordinary men’s practice of everyday life becomes enceinte from beauty. Belief in the aesthetic of consuming means that the masses also have creativity, power and resistance force in their daily actions, and like producers, they have a role to play in the process of life creation.
Adams, William, Aesthetics: Liberating the senses, in: The Cambridge Companion to MARX, Edited by Terrell Carver, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Chaney, David, Lifestyles, London and New York:Routledge, 1996.
De Certeau, Michel, The practice of Everyday Life, Translated by Steven Rendall, London: University of California Press, 1997.
Featherstone, Mike, Theories of Consumer Culture, in: Consumer Culture and Postmodernism, London: Sage Publicatins, 1993a.
Featherstone, Mike, Towards a Sociology of Postmodern Culture, in: Consumer Culture and Postmodernism, London: Sage Publicatins, 1993b.
Fiske, John, Television Culture, London and New York: Routledge, 1994.
Foucault, The History of Sexuality: an introduction, (volume 1), Translated by Robert Hurley, Vintage Books, 1990.
Foucault, Prison Talk, in: Power/Knowledge, Edited by Colin Gordon, Pantheon Books, 1980.
Foucault, On the genealogy of ethics: an overview of work in progress, in: ETHICS, Translated by Robert Hurley and Others, Edited by Paul Rabinow, The penguin press, 1997.
Hebdige, Dick, Subculture: the meaning of style, London and New York: Routledge, 2001.
Highmore, Ben, Everyday Life and Cultural Theory: An Introduction, London and New York: Routledge, 2002.
', './data/kj/coversheet/cover_en.jpg'))