Thus the attempt to explain consumerism as a form of irrationality is a self-defeating theoretical strategy, since the ascription of irrationality to agents counts as prima facie evidence against any theory that draws support from such an ascription.
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1. All Sallys are rational, except when shopping.
2. Sally is shopping.
3. Sally is irrational.
Where is the flaw?
How does it strain credulity to imagine that intelligent agents are acting irrationally when they exhibit consumerist behavior, if the hypothesis about such behavior is that those who exhibit it, have abandoned both their agency and their rationality?
Remember, the hypothesis of consumer behavior was given us to `suppose that, when we make these sorts of choices [while consumer shopping], we are exhibiting some form of practical irrationality.'
The flaw of course is the assumption that we are autonomous rational agents. We know that is a damned lie if there ever was one.
``This view of consumerism enjoyed much greater popularity in the heyday of Marx and Freud than it does now.''
Arrrrat. Big Buzzer on that one, Herr Professor. It is the dominant paradigm.
The number one assumption in marketing of consumer goods is, `All shopping Sallys are irrational herd creatures of habit.' Number two, our goal as evil marketing manipulators of mass society is to figure out how to put our stuff in front of these irrational herd Sallys so they run toward it---and therefore, number three, we can sell it to them like crazy for our own fun and profit.
But it was a good article to read.
Unfortunately, it came down on the side of the rational agent, acting in its own self-interest to maximize its own ideal good. Thus Herr Professor, in fact recapitulates and thereby re-enforces the ideological mantra of neoliberalism, that our society, which is the best of all societies, is the product of rational choice Economics 101---and its lemma, that if we don't like it, that's our problem.
Conclusion. There is no one better at putting revolt against the system beyond all reach, than a professor of rational philosophy.
Chuck Grimes