Displaced Meaning Article Summary

The article "The Evocative Power of Things:Consumer Goods and the Preservation of Hopes and Ideas" argues cultures use products as objects or targets of displaced meaning. Displaced meaning is "the cultural meaning that has deliberately been removed from the daily life of a community and relocated in a distant cultural doman."

• Our idealism weakens when faced with idealism of reality.
• Cultures like to place meaning in the past or in the future or in other cultures where they place their ideals. Displaced meaning has to find its proper and functional locations, as well as time.
• Some societies displace meaning with idividuals. It's how some groups deal with times of turmoil, like in racisim displaced mean is used as hope that times will get better.
• Physical objects aid in the recovery of displaced meaning in society. Objects tend to be just "out of reach" for the consumer, even before buying brings persons closer to displaced meaning of lifestyle. Individuals react if they obtain the object where they have displaced their meaning. Objects are avalible with out risking contridiction.
• Industy have exploited this meaning. We buy into bridges because we are so used to steps. We are never satisfied with the marginal. Advertisers insit their products will supply our ideas; all of this is vital for a sound economy.
• Connections between consumer goods and consumer society helps us build hope. When we get what we are wanting it will be the solution. In order for this to work, we must never get what we want which requires "constant expansion of our wants."
• We must keep learning new things so we keep striving for higher goals and ambitions.