Wellsangels

As I think about citizens’ identities and relationships to the public world around them, I was struck by two somewhat contradictory points from Harold’s book. First was her observation that consumption of commercial products is (for most people) a—or even the—primary mode of self-expression and self-presentation. Most people do not have a great number of other opportunities for expressing themselves to any number of people—certainly no significant number in comparison to the media with which they may compare themselves. At the same time, Harold notes, there is a deeply individualizing side to consumption: especially through advertising, the consumption of products is offered as a solution to specific individual problems: acne, being stylish, losing weight, or even having more friends. This focus on the individual, and the relentless comparison of the individual self to other individual selves exists at the expense of attention to a public—and at the expense of developing skills for communicating in a public way.

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