Intro; Table of Contents; Notes on Michel Couturier's Images; Preface By Christoph Wulf; Introduction; The Origin of Consumerism; In the Beginning was Anomie; Elementary Forms of Civil Religion; Rituals and Society; The System of Objects; Social Representations; The Money God; The Cult of Abundance; The Cathedral of Consumption; The Drug of Propaganda; The Christmas Fairytale; Art and Advertising; Photography and Memory; Ways of Re-Enchantment; New Age Generations; Sex and High Culture; Psychographics; Consuming Childhood; Temporary Conclusion; Acknowledgements; Bibliography
Summary
Consumerism has established itself as a dominant lifestyle, but the reasons behind this are often unclear. This study revisits a large amount of diverse research, and argues that consumerism is a powerful ritual ""machine"" that can make up for the modern lack of values with new symbols and rituals. Consumerism made its claim between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, when the traditional symbolic world had ended and a new one had not yet emerged. Slowly but progressively, consumerism begun to develop new symbolic forms and new social rituals, becoming the basis for new