"Postmodernism is the New Black"

I came across a very interesting article while accumulating too many sources for my research paper. It’s called Post-Modernism is the New Black; Shopping and Philosophy. It is from The Economist, London, December 23, 2006. It is very short- here is the URL to take a look:

http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1196369361&sid=2&Fmt=3&clientId=3620&RQT=309&VName=PQD

It is periodical that doesn’t seem to have an author, or at least ProQuest doesn’t know who the author is. Whatever the case, this is a very interesting article that argues that modern marketing uses the tools of post-modern discourse, “thus capitalism employs the critique that was designed to destroy it.” I am particularly interested in consumption and post-modernism. I am currently reading several texts on postmodernism for my art history class, and every single one is heavily preoccupied with the effects of mass-consumption. A quote by Jean-Francois Lyotard thoroughly sums up the relationship between consumption and postmodernism in that there is no hierarchy of goods: “eclecticism is the degree zero of contemporary general culture; one listens to reggae, watches a Western, eats McDonald’s food for lunch and local cuisine for dinner, wears Paris perfume in Tokyo and retro clothes in Hong Kong; knowledge is a matter for TV games.” The activities that Lyotard listed are no longer contradictory in postmodernism because everything is individualized, fragmented, and random.

The mysterious author of this article argues that the pomos, Lyotard, Barthes, Foucault, and Derrida all wanted to destroy capitalism, but they predicted how capitalism would reinvent itself in the 1980s and 1990s, or the postmodern era. The author cites Adorno and Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment as the founding post-modern text, declaring that, “the 18th-century attempt to replace religion with rationalism had supplanted one form of mental slavery with another.” Horkheimer and Adorno, along with the pomos and other postmodern writers, sought to deconstruct theories such as socialism, Marxism, and capitalism to reveal their true natures and liberate their readers. Capitalism has reinvented itself in the past few decades in the same way- using offbeat advertising to liberate consumers, appeal to the individual, and make the consumer the artists of their own life. This can be seen in recent forms of non-traditional advertising, such as rebellious tilts (the author cites Nike), or highly individualized tones, such as “because you’re worth it.” Advertising campaigns superficially seek to breakdown authority and hierarchy within consumers, within companies, and within the relationship between consumers and the companies they buy from.

Both postmodernism and free-market economics seek to free the individual from authority- through thought and economic power respectively. Individual choices, and the power derived from choice, were to be the most important themes. Finally, the author argues that mass culture has broken apart into a million different niches, citing the success of companies based around one niche, such as Dolce & Gabbana (“…for people with lots of money and loud taste”) or American Apparel, who’s niche is moral and economic because people buy their expensive T-shirts not only for style or brand appeal, but because they supposedly treat their workers well.

In conclusion, a set of beliefs put forward by the pomos as postmodernism- the deconstruction of capitalism and other rationalist theories in order to liberate people and promote individual ability to take control of their own life- has been co-opted by corporations to increase profits. Huge stores based around a niche, or radical advertising with a highly individualistic, liberating flavor is the byproduct of the commodification of post-modernism. I guess the colonial nature of commodification is true- it subsumes all other logic.