Consuming Life

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Journal of Consumer Culture

ARTICLE

Consuming Life
ZYGMUNT BAUMAN
University of Leeds
Abstract. This article posits a ‘mutual fit’ between consumer culture and the task posed
to individuals under conditions of modernity: to produce for themselves the
continuity no longer provided by society. It therefore explores the new forms ofconsumption formed from a shift from the functionality of needs to the diffuse
plasticity and volatility of desire, arguing that this principle of instability has become
functional to a modernity that seems to conjure stability out of an entire lack of
solidity.
Key words
choice q consumer markets q desire q modernity q need q self

MONTAIGNE (1991: 298) RECALLS an ancient story of the wildlyambitious
King Pyrrhus who would not rest before he fulfilled his dreams of new and
ever new conquests, and Cyneas, Pyrrhus’ factotum, who advised him to
relax and enjoy a rest right away, skipping the pains and hazards of the war.
Pascal (1966: 131–9) was sceptical about the practicality of the advice and
derided Cyneas for his ignorance about human nature. Yes, it is true that
‘allunhappiness comes from one thing – the inability of human beings to
stay quietly in their rooms’; but it is also true that ‘nothing is less endurable
than staying at rest, without passions, adventures, diversions and efforts’.
‘Seeking rest, people fight the obstacles which stand in their way: but once
the obstacles have been overcome, repose becomes unendurable’ (as
Montaigne himself put it: ‘Of allthe pleasures we know of, their pursuit is
the most pleasurable’, 1991: 19). People tend to believe sincerely that what
Copyright © 2001 SAGE Publications
(London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)
Vol 1(1): 9–29 [1469-5405] (200106) 1:1; 9–29; 017439]

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they truly desire is tranquillity – but theydelude themselves: what they are
truly after is agitation. What they really crave is to chase the hare, not to
catch it. The pleasure is in hunting, not in catching the prey.
Why must it be like this? Because of our human condition – ‘mortal
and miserable’ – of the sheer impossibility of finding consolation in anything once we look at it closely. The sole comfort available is an absorbingventure that would divert our attention and prevent us from thinking about
death and the brevity of life, the genuine reason for our misery. What we
enjoy is ‘hubbub and bustle’, not their ostensible purposes and rewards.‘The
hare would not protect us from the sight of our death and misery, but the
diversion of hunting a hare would do so.’ We seek and find the dénouement to the drama of mortality notin things we gain and the states we
attain, but in desiring them and running after them.
Pascal (1966) entertained little hope: there is no escape from human
fate except diversions, and our partners-in-mortality could hardly be
blamed for wishing for them.
Their fault is not in seeking commotion, if what they do is for
the wish to be entertained. What is wrong is to seek things in
the hopethat their possession will bring veritable happiness:
only in such cases is one right to accuse them of vanity.
(pp. 68–9)
Were Pascal born a couple of centuries later, he would perhaps repeat
after Robert Louis Stevenson in Virginibus Puerisque: ‘To travel hopefully is
a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour.’ In all probability, he would, however, sharpen up theScottish writer’s point and observe
bitterly that to arrive is no joy at all. To stop travelling is a recipe for despondency and despair, Pascal would have said. From human fate there is no salvation, he would conclude: one can only do one’s best to forget it.
To that last statement, though, another great explorer of the human
(modern, as will become clear later) predicament, Søren Kierkegaard,...