TEXTS:
George Ritzer Guest Post: Are Today’s Globalized Cathedrals of Consumption Tomorrow’s Global Dinosaurs? By: George Ritzer (from http://sociologycompass.wordpress.com/2009/04/17/george-ritzer-guest-post-are-today%E2%80%99s-globalized-cathedrals-of-consumption-tomorrow%E2%80%99s-global-dinosaurs/)
"A decade ago I wrote a book dealing with what I called the “cathedrals of consumption”. These are consumption settings that had, in the main, come into existence in the United States in the post-WWII era. Of particular interest were the most grandiose of these consumption settings including major indoor shopping malls, mega-malls (e.g. Mall of America), theme parks (especially Disneyland and Disney World), cruise ships, and above all the themed casino-hotels that came to dominate the Las Vegas Strip. In the last several decades these cathedrals of consumption became increasingly ubiquitous and predominant not only throughout the United States, but also globally. This is particularly clear in and around the booming economies of China and the Arabian Peninsula, but similar developments are taking place in many other places in the world (e.g. Singapore, Philippines, etc.). Dubai began creating its three Palm Islands to be dominated by mega-hotels like the Atlantis (a clone of a hotel of the same name in the Bahamas), the first of nearly a dozen hotel-condominiums to be built on Palm Jumeirah, the first of the islands to be completed. Dubai will also have many shopping malls associated with this development; there is, as yet, no plan, to build a Disneyland there.
This essay is devoted to the fate of the cathedrals of consumption globally in the “Great Recession” that began in late 2007. It is difficult to feel as much sympathy for the plight of hyperconsumers and the grand cathedrals of consumption as, for example, those who have lost their jobs and seen their pension funds decline precipitously. Nonetheless, there is an important story to be told here and it is one that will have negative implications for large numbers of people, including more sympathetic figures such as those throughout the world who are losing, and will lose, their jobs (in construction, as dealers, as hotel workers, etc.) associated in various ways with hyperconsumption and the cathedrals of consumption.
The grand narrative here involves a series of changes in consumption that began mainly in the United States after the Second World War and gained increasing momentum over the next 60-plus years. Over this period of time these changes became increasingly global. When the window of opportunity for these developments slammed shut beginning in late 2007, many projects were stopped in their tracks and the trend toward increasing hyperconsumption and ever more, and more spectacular, cathedrals of consumption was aborted. In terms of the cathedrals of consumption, while this was true of some ongoing projects in the U.S., it is especially true in other places in the world which are being especially hard hit by the current recession. The cathedrals of consumption that seemed to so many to be a bright symbol of the future of the global economy in general, and consumption more particularly, now increasingly seem like dinosaurs, relics from a previous epoch that is not likely to return, at least in anything approaching the form it reached in the first decade of the 21st century.
While many extant cathedrals of consumption have closed or will in the coming months and years, much depends on the length and severity of the current recession/depression. However long and severe it is, it is clear that in this realm, as well as in the economy in general, we have seen an epidemic of irrational exuberance. Too many were built and many of those were much too big and much too expensive. However, the greatest problems will be reserved to those who entered the game too late and were too ambitious including the Cosmopolitan and City Place in Las Vegas, the Palm Islands in Dubai, and the Cotai Strip (a copy of the Las Vegas Strip) in Macau. All of these projects are likely to experience great distress in the near-future. While some projects will slow down and others will not be built, many of those under construction may well be considered too big to fail by local and national governments, banks or large corporations. Many may be completed with help from the latter entities, but completion is one thing, survival is another. Once built, these cathedrals and landscapes of consumption require large influxes of people and especially of money. If the recession/depression lengthens and deepens, the people and the money may not materialize and at least some of the cathedrals/landscapes may fail or at least be postponed or scaled-back, no matter how much funding other entities are willing to pour into them.
Thus, these are hard times for the cathedrals of consumption, but they are hard economic times across the entire economic spectrum. However, while the cathedrals of consumption may be forced to change as a result of this, they are not disappearing. Furthermore, they will retain their need to be spectacular and to use time-worn devices such as simulation, implosion and time-space manipulation to produce those spectacles. Yet, in the short-run, and perhaps even in the longer-term, they can be expected to be less grandiose and to find more economical ways of creating spectacles.
All of this also serves to illustrate globalization in general. A few decades ago, the consumerism, hyperconsumption and cathedrals of consumption, all with origins in the U.S., flowed easily around the world and made their way into many parts of the globe. Beginning in late 2007, the recession, also with its origins in the U.S., cascaded around the world with great rapidity putting the lie to the idea that other global economies had decoupled from the U.S. economy. It is clear that virtually the entire global economy has been affected by negative economic flows. This essay has sought to show how consumption in general, and the cathedrals of consumption in particular, have been adversely affected by these flows, perhaps more negatively in locales outside of, rather than in, the U.S.
However, the implications of globalization for all of this go far deeper. For example, in light of globalization, we can now see that America’s dominance of the world economically for more than a half century after the end of WW II was unique and unsustainable. It was only a matter of time until many other past (in Europe) and future (Japan, China, India, Brazil) global powers would assert themselves and achieve what was in many ways their “rightful” place in the global economy. If that turns out to be what we are currently witnessing, then the U.S. economy will retreat relative to these economies and perhaps even in some absolute sense, as well. In that case, hyperconsumption and the cathedrals of consumption (as well as much of the rest of the economy) in the U.S. will be in retreat, but other parts of the world can be expected to emerge as global centers of consumption and of the cathedrals of consumption. China would be a likely possibility to replace the U.S. as the leader here and, in fact, before the current downturn China was already moving in that direction. Under this scenario, we would not so much see a decline in hyperconsumption and the cathedrals of consumption, but a shift in their global distribution and in where they will be concentrated.
Whatever the future, what we are now witnessing in the realm of consumption, as well as in the larger economy, is another of the economic “gales” that were the focus of the work of Joseph Schumpeter. What defines capitalism to Schumpeter is a process of “creative destruction” where new economic structures are created and the old are destroyed in order to make room for them. Schumpeter, of course, was focusing on production (e.g. manufacturing plants), but much the same argument can be made about consumption (and, say, shopping malls).
Once again, however, we need to look at this entire process in the context of globalization. Schumpeter wrote long before the current “global age” with the result that his theory of creative destruction focused only on what transpired within a given country. Thus, his image was, for example, of a factory closing in the Midwest, but being replaced by a newer and more efficient one in the South. From the perspective of the U.S., this could be seen as a rather benign process since the country as a whole lost nothing and may even have gained by such creative destruction. However, in the era of globalization it is likely the case that that which is new and more efficient might well be created in some other, very distant part of the world. A factory that closes in Michigan, and is replaced by a new one in Vietnam, represents a huge loss to the American economy. Thus, in the era of globalization, creative destruction is not such a welcome process from the perspective of all concerned.
We might see this repeated in the case of the cathedrals of consumption. For example, one could conceive of a circumstance in which much of the Las Vegas Strip is decimated by a prolonged depression and/or a dramatic shift in the global economy away from the U.S. In that case, it might be that the Cotai Strip in Macau becomes the world’s main landscape of consumption as far as gambling is concerned and comes to be populated by the most spectacular casino-hotels. This is made much more likely by another global change- the global airline business- which makes it possible for gamblers all over the world, including from the U.S., to get to Macau more easily and inexpensively. Furthermore, if the global economic center of gravity is indeed shifting to China, India and Southeast Asia, then it makes sense for Macau to replace Las Vegas as the paradigmatic landscape of consumption, at least as far as gambling is concerned. However, this is not a benign process of creative destruction, at least from the perspective of the U.S. The decline of the Las Vegas Strip would be an economic disaster for the city of Las Vegas, the state of Nevada and may be even the U.S. as a whole.
It is also possible that many of the dinosaurs of consumption (like the hotel-casinos on the Las Vegas Strip) will not go quietly or at all, nor will the (hyper-) consumerism that fueled them. Americans, and many others, lived through a half century of unprecedented consumer excess. While that is not likely to return any time soon, the memory of that lifestyle is not going to fade quickly or easily. The history of capitalist economies is, as Karl Marx demonstrated long ago, defined by periods of “boom and bust”. There is no reason to assume that this bust in any different; it will be followed (although no one know how long it will take) by another boom. That boom, when it occurs, will be accompanied by a resurgence of consumerism and by the most spectacular and expensive cathedrals of consumption. However, neither is likely to be as excessive as it has been, nor will they necessarily take place, or be found, in the same locales in the world".
___________________________________
Source: http://www.scribd.com/doc/7700263/Cathedrals-of-Consumption (there is no reference from the author)
George Ritzer Guest Post: Are Today’s Globalized Cathedrals of Consumption Tomorrow’s Global Dinosaurs? By: George Ritzer (from http://sociologycompass.wordpress.com/2009/04/17/george-ritzer-guest-post-are-today%E2%80%99s-globalized-cathedrals-of-consumption-tomorrow%E2%80%99s-global-dinosaurs/)
"A decade ago I wrote a book dealing with what I called the “cathedrals of consumption”. These are consumption settings that had, in the main, come into existence in the United States in the post-WWII era. Of particular interest were the most grandiose of these consumption settings including major indoor shopping malls, mega-malls (e.g. Mall of America), theme parks (especially Disneyland and Disney World), cruise ships, and above all the themed casino-hotels that came to dominate the Las Vegas Strip. In the last several decades these cathedrals of consumption became increasingly ubiquitous and predominant not only throughout the United States, but also globally. This is particularly clear in and around the booming economies of China and the Arabian Peninsula, but similar developments are taking place in many other places in the world (e.g. Singapore, Philippines, etc.). Dubai began creating its three Palm Islands to be dominated by mega-hotels like the Atlantis (a clone of a hotel of the same name in the Bahamas), the first of nearly a dozen hotel-condominiums to be built on Palm Jumeirah, the first of the islands to be completed. Dubai will also have many shopping malls associated with this development; there is, as yet, no plan, to build a Disneyland there.
This essay is devoted to the fate of the cathedrals of consumption globally in the “Great Recession” that began in late 2007. It is difficult to feel as much sympathy for the plight of hyperconsumers and the grand cathedrals of consumption as, for example, those who have lost their jobs and seen their pension funds decline precipitously. Nonetheless, there is an important story to be told here and it is one that will have negative implications for large numbers of people, including more sympathetic figures such as those throughout the world who are losing, and will lose, their jobs (in construction, as dealers, as hotel workers, etc.) associated in various ways with hyperconsumption and the cathedrals of consumption.
The grand narrative here involves a series of changes in consumption that began mainly in the United States after the Second World War and gained increasing momentum over the next 60-plus years. Over this period of time these changes became increasingly global. When the window of opportunity for these developments slammed shut beginning in late 2007, many projects were stopped in their tracks and the trend toward increasing hyperconsumption and ever more, and more spectacular, cathedrals of consumption was aborted. In terms of the cathedrals of consumption, while this was true of some ongoing projects in the U.S., it is especially true in other places in the world which are being especially hard hit by the current recession. The cathedrals of consumption that seemed to so many to be a bright symbol of the future of the global economy in general, and consumption more particularly, now increasingly seem like dinosaurs, relics from a previous epoch that is not likely to return, at least in anything approaching the form it reached in the first decade of the 21st century.
While many extant cathedrals of consumption have closed or will in the coming months and years, much depends on the length and severity of the current recession/depression. However long and severe it is, it is clear that in this realm, as well as in the economy in general, we have seen an epidemic of irrational exuberance. Too many were built and many of those were much too big and much too expensive. However, the greatest problems will be reserved to those who entered the game too late and were too ambitious including the Cosmopolitan and City Place in Las Vegas, the Palm Islands in Dubai, and the Cotai Strip (a copy of the Las Vegas Strip) in Macau. All of these projects are likely to experience great distress in the near-future. While some projects will slow down and others will not be built, many of those under construction may well be considered too big to fail by local and national governments, banks or large corporations. Many may be completed with help from the latter entities, but completion is one thing, survival is another. Once built, these cathedrals and landscapes of consumption require large influxes of people and especially of money. If the recession/depression lengthens and deepens, the people and the money may not materialize and at least some of the cathedrals/landscapes may fail or at least be postponed or scaled-back, no matter how much funding other entities are willing to pour into them.
Thus, these are hard times for the cathedrals of consumption, but they are hard economic times across the entire economic spectrum. However, while the cathedrals of consumption may be forced to change as a result of this, they are not disappearing. Furthermore, they will retain their need to be spectacular and to use time-worn devices such as simulation, implosion and time-space manipulation to produce those spectacles. Yet, in the short-run, and perhaps even in the longer-term, they can be expected to be less grandiose and to find more economical ways of creating spectacles.
All of this also serves to illustrate globalization in general. A few decades ago, the consumerism, hyperconsumption and cathedrals of consumption, all with origins in the U.S., flowed easily around the world and made their way into many parts of the globe. Beginning in late 2007, the recession, also with its origins in the U.S., cascaded around the world with great rapidity putting the lie to the idea that other global economies had decoupled from the U.S. economy. It is clear that virtually the entire global economy has been affected by negative economic flows. This essay has sought to show how consumption in general, and the cathedrals of consumption in particular, have been adversely affected by these flows, perhaps more negatively in locales outside of, rather than in, the U.S.
However, the implications of globalization for all of this go far deeper. For example, in light of globalization, we can now see that America’s dominance of the world economically for more than a half century after the end of WW II was unique and unsustainable. It was only a matter of time until many other past (in Europe) and future (Japan, China, India, Brazil) global powers would assert themselves and achieve what was in many ways their “rightful” place in the global economy. If that turns out to be what we are currently witnessing, then the U.S. economy will retreat relative to these economies and perhaps even in some absolute sense, as well. In that case, hyperconsumption and the cathedrals of consumption (as well as much of the rest of the economy) in the U.S. will be in retreat, but other parts of the world can be expected to emerge as global centers of consumption and of the cathedrals of consumption. China would be a likely possibility to replace the U.S. as the leader here and, in fact, before the current downturn China was already moving in that direction. Under this scenario, we would not so much see a decline in hyperconsumption and the cathedrals of consumption, but a shift in their global distribution and in where they will be concentrated.
Whatever the future, what we are now witnessing in the realm of consumption, as well as in the larger economy, is another of the economic “gales” that were the focus of the work of Joseph Schumpeter. What defines capitalism to Schumpeter is a process of “creative destruction” where new economic structures are created and the old are destroyed in order to make room for them. Schumpeter, of course, was focusing on production (e.g. manufacturing plants), but much the same argument can be made about consumption (and, say, shopping malls).
Once again, however, we need to look at this entire process in the context of globalization. Schumpeter wrote long before the current “global age” with the result that his theory of creative destruction focused only on what transpired within a given country. Thus, his image was, for example, of a factory closing in the Midwest, but being replaced by a newer and more efficient one in the South. From the perspective of the U.S., this could be seen as a rather benign process since the country as a whole lost nothing and may even have gained by such creative destruction. However, in the era of globalization it is likely the case that that which is new and more efficient might well be created in some other, very distant part of the world. A factory that closes in Michigan, and is replaced by a new one in Vietnam, represents a huge loss to the American economy. Thus, in the era of globalization, creative destruction is not such a welcome process from the perspective of all concerned.
We might see this repeated in the case of the cathedrals of consumption. For example, one could conceive of a circumstance in which much of the Las Vegas Strip is decimated by a prolonged depression and/or a dramatic shift in the global economy away from the U.S. In that case, it might be that the Cotai Strip in Macau becomes the world’s main landscape of consumption as far as gambling is concerned and comes to be populated by the most spectacular casino-hotels. This is made much more likely by another global change- the global airline business- which makes it possible for gamblers all over the world, including from the U.S., to get to Macau more easily and inexpensively. Furthermore, if the global economic center of gravity is indeed shifting to China, India and Southeast Asia, then it makes sense for Macau to replace Las Vegas as the paradigmatic landscape of consumption, at least as far as gambling is concerned. However, this is not a benign process of creative destruction, at least from the perspective of the U.S. The decline of the Las Vegas Strip would be an economic disaster for the city of Las Vegas, the state of Nevada and may be even the U.S. as a whole.
It is also possible that many of the dinosaurs of consumption (like the hotel-casinos on the Las Vegas Strip) will not go quietly or at all, nor will the (hyper-) consumerism that fueled them. Americans, and many others, lived through a half century of unprecedented consumer excess. While that is not likely to return any time soon, the memory of that lifestyle is not going to fade quickly or easily. The history of capitalist economies is, as Karl Marx demonstrated long ago, defined by periods of “boom and bust”. There is no reason to assume that this bust in any different; it will be followed (although no one know how long it will take) by another boom. That boom, when it occurs, will be accompanied by a resurgence of consumerism and by the most spectacular and expensive cathedrals of consumption. However, neither is likely to be as excessive as it has been, nor will they necessarily take place, or be found, in the same locales in the world".
___________________________________
Source: http://www.scribd.com/doc/7700263/Cathedrals-of-Consumption (there is no reference from the author)
The term ‘cathedrals of consumption’ refers to ‘self-contained consumption settings that utilize postmodern techniques such as implosion, the compression of time and space, and simulation to create spectacular locales designed to attract customers’ (Ryan, 2005:2). That is to say, ‘not only shops and malls but also theme parks, casinos, and cruise lines, and other settings including athletic stadiums, universities, hospitals and museums’ (Ritzer, 2005:6, cited by Ryan, 2005:2). That they can be considered as cathedrals refers to the way in which consumption has replaced religion as ‘the dominant mode of contemporary public life’ (Goss, 1993:294), and thus these consumption settings have become, like the religious cathedrals of old, ‘the most sensually satisfying social gathering places in the community’ (Kowinski, 1985:218, cited by Ryan, 2005:2). In this piece I will locate the concept of ‘cathedrals of consumption’ within the broader urban and social landscape of UK and USA contemporary life, focussing specifically on shopping malls. I will then go on to consider a somewhat literal interpretation of the term, whereby shopping malls often bear a close physical and symbolic resemblance to religious cathedrals. In this way, as Goss (1993:295-6) states, "Developers have sought to assuage th[e] collective guilt over conspicuous consumption by designing into the retail built environment the means for a fantasized dissociation from the act of shopping … and have promoted the conceit of the shopping center [sic] as an alternative focus for modern community life". I am arguing, then, that malls have been designed in ways which not only disguises their true material function (Gottdiener, 2000:275), but in fact elevates the shopping experience and allows the shopper to feel virtuous by manipulating the psychogeographical sense of awe, ‘greater purpose’ and ‘community’ generally associated with religious cathedrals. Any attempt to locate an urban phenomenon such as shopping malls within an historical and social context must concede, as Hall (2006:6) states, that ‘the diversity of city types and processes of urbanisation cannot be reduced to a simple, linear evolutionary process’. Thus, what can be said about a city in the UK or USA may be very different to patterns of urbanisation in Developing or socialist countries. It is worth noting, then, that I am writing here of post-industrial cities of the UK and USA and I would argue that, with this focus, it is possible to see a broad template of change, both physical and social, which can be applied in a general way. The development of contemporary cities can be seen in terms of a shift from industrial to post-industrial, Fordist to post-Fordist and modern to post-modern patterns of production and consumption. These concepts relate to complex ‘physical, political, economic, social, cultural and spatial practices and processes’ (Jayne, 2006:13) which are by no means altogether consistent even within one particular city (Hall, 2006:99). However, broadly speaking there has been a shift which is closely related to the rise of a consumer society, linked to the post-war boom in mass production, and it is through this lens that Gottdiener (2000) identifies the concept of ‘consumption of space’ which, as will be seen, is highly important in the development of shopping malls.Gottdiener (2000:266-8), then, begins with the burgeoning industrial cities of the early 1800’s where ‘neither capital nor the state provided segments of land for free recreational use’(2000:266) and cities where sharply delineated, both socially and structurally, between the wealthy elite and the mass of labourers. Yet the Victorian reformers of the late 1800’s, ‘concerned about the social evils of industrial capitalism’ (2000:267), sought to design cities with green, open spaces for recreational use, such as the Garden Cities of England and the City Beautiful movement in the USA. Industrial cities of this era correspond to Fordist methods of mass production which are centralized, standardized and inflexible – a model which can be applied to political, cultural and social patterns and the physical structure of cities (Jayne, 2006:15). At the same time, the consumption of ‘specially prepared spaces’ (Gottdiener, 2000:267) was extended from city parks and encouraged through [The] commercial but inexpensive amusement spaces, such as Coney Island in New York City and Brighton in England, [which] provided alternative spaces for the masses to the dreary, boxed-in areas of housing within the inner industrial city (2000:267).Whist the rise of tourism, at this stage of the early 1900’s, remained largely the preserve of the upper classes, the scene was set for the production of ‘safe’ spaces of consumption, through the taming of nature for human use (2000:267). In terms of the development of shopping malls, the most significant changes began in the 1950’s when ‘the burgeoning middle-class population along with well-paid segments of the working class took up residence on an unprecedented scale in areas outside the central city that were developed for housing’ (Gottdiener, 2000:268). This mass exodus to the suburbs, made possible by the rise of the automobile and other cheap, mass produced goods of the Fordist era, was further compounded by the declining importance of industrial manufacturing and the post-industrial rise of the service economy (Jayne, 2006:15). Thus, it can again be seen that the economic model – that is to say, the rise of specialist production, niche marketing and decentralization – affects and is reflected in changing social, cultural, political and structural patterns in the city. The first malls, in 1950’s America, were developed to cater for these new suburban housing tracts and were designed around the growing use of automobiles. The earliest designers, like the early city planners, had utopian dreams in mind: to provide much-needed pleasant community spaces for human interaction, much as the market-place had done in times past (Ryan, 2005:4; Goss, 1993:297). Yet their dreams were not fulfilled because, as Ryan (2005:5) states, "As soon as capitalists understood the great profit potential that could be realized from manufacturing community itself, there was no stopping their quest to extract profits from this ideal". Shoppers were seen as dupes who could be ‘environmentally conditioned’ with crude psychogeographical techniques (Goss, 1993:301) and, as more and more malls were built, so the competition to attract customers led to ever-greater efforts to pull them in. Thus, as Jayne (2006:80) states, "Architectural designers imploded traditional concepts of urban form by managing to gather together all of the social amenities and shopping experiences of the ‘traditional’ downtown city street to the suburbs, by playing with space, light, representation and perceptions of safety. Yet why this great need to dupe their customers? The answer to this question lies not only in the proliferation of malls and subsequent increased competition to attract customers, but also in the need to override the conflicting discourses of consumer society. Thus, as Hall (2006:111) states, The cultural shifts within which consumption was implicated made it far more than merely a functional fulfilment of need but a significant leisure activity in its own right … where the consumption of space and time is of equal cachet as the consumption of designer goods. Yet at the same time a vague, disconcerting conflict exists within the consumer culture. There persists a high-cultural disdain for conspicuous massconsumption resulting from the legacy of a puritanical fear of the moral corruption inherent in commercialism and materialism, and sustained by a modern intellectual contempt for consumer society (Goss, 1993:294). The ‘morality’ of consumption – a hangover from more religious times, exemplified in the biblical notion of a camel passing through the eye of a needle with more ease than a rich man entering heaven – is, perhaps, deeply embedded within the collective consciousness. This unease has been compounded in more recent times by the work of such intellectuals as Veblen (1953), Adorno and Horkheimer (1969) and Haug (1986) (cited by Goss, 1993:294), who have condemned the emptiness, falseness and homogeneity of the consumer culture. Little wonder, then, that The contemporary shopper, while taking pleasure in consumption, cannot but be aware of this authoritative censure, and is therefore … driven by a simultaneous desire and self-contempt, constantly alternating between assertion and denial of identity (Goss, 1993:295). In order to address this conflict, mall designers needed to not only disguise the true instrumental function of malls, but also to promote a fantasy within which shoppers can feel good about consumption. This is achieved through a variety of methods, often involving some kind of ‘theme’, all of which serve to promote ‘a fantasized dissociation from the act of shopping’ (Goss, 1993:295). A common theme is that of the idealized city street, whether this is of ‘Ye Olde Worlde’ or ‘High Tech’ variety (Gottdiener, 1995:89) or based on the bazaars and street markets of more exotic locales (Jayne, 2006:80). Regardless of the particular type of street depicted, the goal here is to appeal to and exploit ‘a modernist nostalgia for authentic community, perceived to exist only in past and distant places’ (Goss,1993:296). What we have, then, is a carefully constructed reimagining of city streets, free of the uncomfortable aspects of reality which may jolt shoppers out of their dreamlike experience: An idealized social space free, by virtue of private property, planning and strict control, from the inconvenience of the weather and the danger and pollution of the automobile, but most important from the terror of crime associated with today’s urban environment (Goss, 1993:297). In this way, mall designers attempt to promote the sense of community and democratic public space associated with the marketplaces of old. Yet alongside this well-documented city street theme there is, I would argue, another theme built into the very structure of many shopping malls: a symbolic association with religious cathedrals of the past. Thus, as Kearl and Gill (1998) state, Upon entry, one is immediately struck by the immensity of the mall structure. The sense of vast, open, larger than life space that one receives within both cathedrals and malls induces the sense of awe, wealth and power … One receives the sense of an unseen force or person being in control, of some greater divine master plan. In this way, despite, or perhaps because of, the secularization of contemporary life, mall designers are able to tap into a lost sense of awe and direction, so that, as Gottdiener (1995:91) states, Individuals living in environments with few public spaces and low-density demographics, can find something that many of them lack and often crave when they enter the mall. This can be understood when we consider a Durkheimian definition of religion which ‘involves the reaffirmation of publicly standardized ideas, providing social solidarity and linking the individual to the broader social order’ (Kearl & Gill, 1998) – a definition which can easily be seen to apply to ‘consumption’ in contemporary life. We need only consider the UK and US governments’ entreaties for the public to ‘go shopping and take holidays’ in order to uphold the economy and defy the 9/11 terrorists (Jones & Smith, 2001), to understand how it may be that shoppers can feel they are ‘performing a meaningful part of the contemporary organic solidarity that binds not only individuals, but nations together’ (Kearl & Gill, 1998).
In conclusion, then, it can be seen that malls have been developed within a particular social, cultural and economic context. Designed around the increased use of automobiles of a large, suburban population, they have become not only places of consumption but spaces to be consumed in their own right. Yet this concept of malls as spaces of consumption has been used as a technique to disguise their true, material function and distract shoppers from their ‘guilt’ around such conspicuous consumption. To this end, designers have exploited the nostalgia for community and safe public spaces by employing a crude psychogeography. Whilst the replication of bygone city streets and marketplaces is one, well documented, method, I have argued that the structure of many shopping malls instils a sense of awe which resonates with cathedrals of old and allows the shopper to feel they are part of a spiritual, not just a physical, community.
BOOKS:
- Aldridge, Alan (2003): Consumption. UK: Polity Press.
- Jensen, Derrick (2002): The culture of make believe. New York: Context Books.
- Maciocco, Giovani and Serreli, Silvia (2009): Enhancing the City:New Perspectives for Tourism and Leisure. London: Springer.
- Pacione, Michael (2009): Urban geography: a global perspective. New York: Routledge.
- Paterson, Mark (2006): Consumption and everyday life. New York: Routledge.
- Ritzer, George (2005): Enchanting a disenchanted world: revolutionizing the means of consumption. Second Edition. california: pine Forge Press.
- Robertson, Roland (2003): Globalization:critical concepts in sociology. New York: Routledge.
- Webber, Michelle (2008): Rethinking society in the 21st century:critical readings in sociology. Second Edition. Canada: CSPI.
- Yannis, Gabriel and Lang, Tim (2006): The unmanageable consumer. London: Sage Publications Ltd.
Definition of a Consumer-Zombie:
A person who buys everything without thinking about it, or because she/he simply needs to buy something to be happy.
Consumerzombie: "I am a big fan of DLC for games, these are awesome! I bought every single DLC to date, because these make games great".
Smart Person: "Damn you are a consumer-zombie, buying this cheap crap without thinking. DLCs are just the new way to milk money from dumb people like you!"
Source: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Consumer-zombie
BOOKS:
- Aldridge, Alan (2003): Consumption. UK: Polity Press.
- Jensen, Derrick (2002): The culture of make believe. New York: Context Books.
- Maciocco, Giovani and Serreli, Silvia (2009): Enhancing the City:New Perspectives for Tourism and Leisure. London: Springer.
- Pacione, Michael (2009): Urban geography: a global perspective. New York: Routledge.
- Paterson, Mark (2006): Consumption and everyday life. New York: Routledge.
- Ritzer, George (2005): Enchanting a disenchanted world: revolutionizing the means of consumption. Second Edition. california: pine Forge Press.
- Robertson, Roland (2003): Globalization:critical concepts in sociology. New York: Routledge.
- Webber, Michelle (2008): Rethinking society in the 21st century:critical readings in sociology. Second Edition. Canada: CSPI.
- Yannis, Gabriel and Lang, Tim (2006): The unmanageable consumer. London: Sage Publications Ltd.
Definition of a Consumer-Zombie:
A person who buys everything without thinking about it, or because she/he simply needs to buy something to be happy.
Consumerzombie: "I am a big fan of DLC for games, these are awesome! I bought every single DLC to date, because these make games great".
Smart Person: "Damn you are a consumer-zombie, buying this cheap crap without thinking. DLCs are just the new way to milk money from dumb people like you!"
Source: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Consumer-zombie
