Abstract

RAMOS, Conrado. Imperative of enjoyment and propaganda in the social tie of the consumer society. Mental [online]. 2007, vol.5, n.9, pp.101-116. ISSN 1679-4427.

We propose that consumer society produces a knowledge concerning enjoyment that affirms narcissistic alienation. As a social tie, advertising finds its efficiency as a cosigner of this knowledge that alienates the other in doing what is repeated in the act of consumption. The contemporary meaning of "exchange value" is discussed, questioning how much it stops being a "thing's attribute" and becomes the thing itself: the "value-exchange", produced in the reified act, as its own attribute, removed from any object. Within this understanding, advertising is positioned as a cultural network for the distribution of "fantasmatic matrixes" whereas "value-exchange" and consumerism are understood as acts through which neurotic sexual satisfaction is derived in the staging of enjoyment that is culturally shared by advertising.

Keywords : Consumer society; Advertising; Enjoyment; Social tie; Culture industry.

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