Philosophical Interpretation On Contemporary Conspicuous Consumption Concept

Consumption is one of the eternal themes of human being’s survival anddevelopment, and of course the human practice activity. So it is not only an economicproblem, but also a philosophy and social problems. Consumption view has significantguidance to the consumer’s behavior, and with the rapid development of China’s economy,Chinese consumption view also with each passing day, the phenomenon of conspicuousconsumption is serious in recent years, this view is inappropriate in nature, society andpeople’s own development so it should be understood and rethink. The conspicuousconsumption would be illustrated and criticized in this paper.This paper combined with social development to expound and analyze the conspicuousconsumption, describe the type of conspicuous consumption, the performance and the impacton the society, etc. And then, it from three dimensions of the unity of opposites on interpretingand criticizing the topic of conspicuous consumption. The first dimension is production andconsumption. There is the unity of opposites’ relationship between commodity production andcommodity consumption and for the rise of consumerism, the conspicuous consumption arise.But the commodity fetishism should avoid and the relationship between production andconsumption should be grasp and the consumption should adapt to the production. Secondly,use value and symbolic value dimension, the emergence of consume society changed theconsumption view which is thrift and simple, symbolic value becomes the vital aspect andaffect the commodity exchange, we should grasp this pair of contradiction of use value andsymbolic value and build the view of rational consumption. The third one is the dimension ofpeople’s subjectivity and the other dimension, because people are driven by goods inconspicuous consumption, they fall into a trap of blind consumption and lost their subjectivityand free conscious class nature, so people should grasp human nature’s critical awareness andthe right on choice and realize the human’s free and comprehensive development.