Consumerism And The Turn Of Aesthetic Life

The turn of aesthetic life has a close relationship with consumerism. The cultural historical development of mass consumerism contains the cultural logic of the turn of aesthetic life. The appearance of consumerism is a modern affair. As a new ideology, the spreading consumerism forms a new cultural context, which has changed the survival context and discourse of humane studies, the existing environment and background of human aesthetics as well as human aesthetic concept and practice. Consumption and consumerism are the cores and power in post-modern society, and culture is the very element in a consumption society. The post-modern consumption, characterized by sign and image, is a cultural movement in nature. It destroyed the mark of culture, accelerated the implosion of reality, and blurred the boundary between the noble and humble, the divine and worldly, the true and false, and culture an nature, making a balance between aesthetic and life as well as aesthetic and non-aesthetic. The rule between art and aesthetic is broken;aesthetic is open to practical fields and cultural context;aesthetic is changed from a narrow artistic kingdom to a wider field of mental perception through sensory organs, and to visual image and the experience of pleasant sensation. Aesthetic style, taste and interest are getting colorful gradually. With the impulse of pleasure-seeking, the functional and practical aesthetic begins to appear. In all the issues combined by consumerism and aesthetic, body and desire, visual sense and image, entertainment and relaxation are protruding gradually, spreading in all social levels and clearly showing that human aesthetic concept and practice under the context of consumerism culture have entered what Baudrillard called "hyper-aesthetic" or "post-aesthetic" era.The most important sign of the turn of aesthetic life is the presentation of daily life in the form of aesthetic. Compared with traditional aesthetic, this form has its own secret. It no longer takes the individual main body as its foundation, no longer takes individual life experience as its survival form, and was no longer the process and result of the main body's liberation and free choice. Instead, it is the passive reality of consumption culture, or the control of cultural industry. In consumerism cultural context, both aesthetic and consumption are presented as way of life and value. With the aid of consumption,aesthetic finishes the process of colonization, daily life is given a form, and aesthetic acquires a daily property. Aesthetic becomes a guiding principle and strategy in life, and a self-content social guiding value. As an ideology in daily life, it is clearly permeated in the image production of way of life and in desire consumption. More often, aesthetic is the lubricating grease of consumption society, the perceptual appearance of desire, and the artistic package of consumerism cultural ideology. The daily aesthetic presentation is, to a great extent, the illusion caused by consumerism cultural ideology. The prevalent extensive aesthetic consciousness under mass and democratic aesthetic is only a pseudo-aesthetic spirit, and the aesthetic in the real world is still a modern engineering to be finished. Therefore, after consumption replaces politics and becomes the foundation of art and aesthetic, we should be on guard against the conspiracy of aesthetic with new ideology, expose the new aesthetic alienation existing in daily life, and start a new aesthetic criticism. The ideology criticism in daily life and that of consumerism are two important aspects.