Reading Michel de Certeau’s the Practice of Everyday life has proved very fruitful for thinking through a potential study on the social life of money. His criticism of Social Science’s ability to examine the ways in which individuals appropriate and subvert meaning (strategic meanings of institutions and power vs. the (unconscious) tactics of the individual navigating their own paths) mirrors my own view of consumers as ‘producers of meaning’ and consumption being merely seen as a means to an end, not an end in itself.
Where I diverge, perhaps a function of the liquid modern, connected context we now inhabit, is the level to which individuals do not possess conscious strategies of their own which oscillate between conformity and subversion (often simultaneously as individual life projects) and are unconscious tacticians using a form of cultural common sense. The ‘brownian motion’ of tactics as De Certeau characterizes it, seems too random, and in its own way deterministic and limited, in its vision for the modern individual. Surely the existential angst we feel is a function of broadened horizons, new technologically enabled freedoms and the creation of long term goals which often conflict with our short term, tactical needs, desires, faults, mistakes, habits, addictions, etc. Given the right context, any individual can articulate their strategic ideal and trajectory to the level of an institution or brand, but they often lack the confidence and mutual support to carry it through. In other words, we carry the means and capabilities to produce a "kingdom of ends", but are often held back from expressing them through inherited deference to authority, repression or merely lack of self esteem and confidence.
Last week’s debate on money played out just such conflicts in the minds of bankers and bureaucrats of money, and likewise a similar rich vein of this experience is being exposed by the personalization initiatives in adult social care. Perhaps what MdC and others underestimate is the level to which individuals not only subvert but appropriate brands for the furthering of their own strategic aims and ideals, not just ‘surviving and navigating’ the city, but increasingly shaping and seizing control of it.
Realizing the potential of brands, and other vehicles for the creation of social and cultural meaning, for liberating the praxis of individuals (as well as repressing or oppressing it) will create the bridges we need to achieve the new goals of society; such as sustainability, fairness etc.
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