A Research On Leisure Alienation In Consumer Soceity

Modern society is a highly developed civilization of material and we live in a consumer society, which is full of all sorts of goods and services. Consumerism has dominated people’s thoughts. Under the influence of government’s macro-policy, mass media and advertising slogans, consumption has been the mainstream discourse. In consumer society, the system of objects and the system of sign coexist, it means that consumption can be separated from substantive matter, everything could enter this field, and the value of sign is the most important. Consumption has become an essential way of self-confirmation and identity construction.Under the framework of consumer society theory, this thesis focuses on the leisure activities and explores the trouble that leisure alienation has brought to us. In consumer society, it is inevitable that leisure is associated with consumption, working and sign. People have to take the way of working to consume goods and services. With the function of display and show, Aiming at suggesting his or her particular status, leisure has become a kind of discourse system and way of communication. In fact, there is no direct relationship between leisure alienation and personal comforts. It is a compelling task which people have to complete. On nature level, it has caused waste and damage of resources; on social level, it becomes a kind of social control method, preventing people to oppose the existing production system and social system.The root cause of leisure alienation is labor alienation in the productive area, it leads people to break away from labor and seek for leisure. However, laborers are also in a passive position in the leisure area, just like they couldn’t feel the identity of subjectivity in the productive area. The unprecedented insecurity has forced people to comparison.Instead of bringing freedom to people, leisure alienation not only has caused great waste and damage of resources, but also gets people in chains. It has become a kind of method of social discipline. Only developing social productive forces continually, further promoting social reform and dispelling the private ownership can we realize the liberation of labor and step into the truth meaning of leisure, so that we can build a freedom and equal society, people could enjoy leisure totally and live a free and happy life.