The Production Of Consumer Society: Cultural-Economic Principles Of Distinction

Cover
Content
Preface
Part 1: Culture of Dissimilarity
	Chapter 1 Material
		Singletons: Piña
		0/+Consumption
		Identity, Quality, Motivation
		Chains: Purple, Titian, Uniform
		Excursion into Nature
		A Glimpse at the Peculiarities of Culture
		Cultural Trees: Oriental Carpet,  Traditional Costume, Archaic Style
		The Illusion of Total Cultural Order
		A Glimpse at a Colourful World
		Beyond the World of Things
		We and the Others and We Amongst Ourselves
		Fluid Society
	Chapter 2 Style
		Beauty versus the Aesthetic
		Individual versus Common
		Original versus Mutation
		Signature versus Expression
		Representation versus Exemplification
		What versus How
		The Material versus the Personal
		The Material versus the Social
		Overview
	Chapter 3 Distant and Near Vision
		Excursion: from Nature to Culture
		Segmented Order
		Comparability
		Ornament
		Diversity Based on Comparability
		Incomparable Ornaments
		Incomparability
		Diversity Based on Incomparability
		Psychology of Distant and Near Vision
		Proximity in the Collectivistic versus Individualistic Society
		Distant and Near Vision and Style
Part 2: The Productive Consumer
	Chapter 4 Inside Culture’s Sorting Plant
		Pattern Recognition
		Fuzziness
		Assigning Objects to Styles
		Similarity of Objects
		Clustering in Nature
		Clustering in Culture
		Style Leadership and Innovation
		Repertoire and Structural Fluidification
		Stylistic Viscosity
		Classification of People
		Preferences and the Nucleus of the Social Space
		Identification and Identity
		Above-Average Type/Syndrome and Extreme Type/Syndrome
		New Age and Performance Cult
	Chapter 5 Social Volition and Cultural Prowess
		Proximity Clarified
		Distance Clarified
		Style Nucleus and Periphery in the Social Whole
		Objective Function in the Social
		Psychology of the Objective Function
		Egoism/Altruism Obsolescence
		Poststructuralism of the Objective Function
		Club Goods and Public Collective Goods Production
		Restrictions for Style Followers
		Restrictions for Style Leadership
		Culture as Dynamic Institution
		Lingua franca as Restriction
		The Cultural Trade-off
	Chapter 6 Cultural Selection
		Feature Inflation
		The Rise of Anti-Aesthetics
		Singletons adieu
		Phylomania
		Quality Inflation
		Up-to-Date Forever
		More and More Savants
		Phasing-Out of the Uniform
		Polytomisation
		Nucleation
		Charisma of Style Leadership
	Chapter 7 Social Evolution
		Opening of the Closed Society
		Equalisation of Individuality and Happiness
		Destabilisation of Elective Affinities
		Social Cellular Division
		Societal Structuring
		The Old with the Old – The New with the New
		End of History
		Utopia and Disruption
		A Variegated World and the Silence of the Orthodoxy
		Variegation in Nature and Culture
		Gene(tics), Meme(tics), (Bio)semiotics, Human Being
Part 3: The Stylish Present Day
	Chapter 8 Cultural Juxtaposition  and Stylistic Fertilisation
		Distance Type and Syndrome –  Individuality Type and Syndrome
		Style Groupings
		A New Home for Modernism
		Special Groupings
		Refinement and Limitations
		Stylistic Encounters
		Spiral into the Extreme
		The Innovation Cycle
		Cool
		Coolness and Viscosity of the Mainstream Style
		Aesthetic Liking and Interest
		Honecker’s Legacy
		To Have or to Be
		Happy in Style
	Chapter 9 Identity Industry
		Industrial Revolution
		Singularity Mass Production
		Length Extension
		Simplification of Thought
		Mass Market and Criticism of Consumerism
		Fashion
		Dialectics of Postmodern Business Models
		Culturally Dynamic Time
		The Ecological Footprint
		Brand (Equity) and Ecology
	Chapter 10 The Added Value of Becoming
		Signalling and Sign Transformation
		Semiotics of Being and Having
		Creative versus Conservative Signalling
		Stylistic Engagement
		Signalling Typology and Signalling Cascade
		Industrial Transfer and Scaling
		Brand Groupings
		Cascade Position and Brand Erosion
		Brand Upgrade and Stylistic Ship Wrecking
		The Size of the Mainstream
		Customer Touchpoint Management
		Brand as Mediator
		‘Brand per se‘ Signification
		The Cultural Foundation of Economic Activity
Bibliography
List of Figures
	Figures
	Tables
Index