The Consumption of Mass

Ideas of mass dominate twentieth century thought. Mass has been core to its triumphs and complicit in the darkest hours. Alongside a repulsion to mass - genocide, bureaucracy and the crowd - lies an unceasing consumption. The icons of progress, democracy and civilization are all mandated by the globalization of wealth, the rise of popular culture and mass access to information.Yet mass remains the least examined idea in the sociological canon. Indeed, its analysis seems all but abandoned today. The status of mass as antinomy to individuality is made even more vacuous by postmodernity's celebration of the individual as host to a mass of signs.This volume sets out to reverse the neglect. Arguing that mass is key to understanding the materialization of social relations, the collection opens up contemporary thinking about identity, choice and values. With new contributions by Zygmunt Bauman, Robert Cooper and Dane Rose, these twelve innovative papers draw together debates on social theory, community, materiality and consumption.

Nick Lee is Lecturer in Sociology at Keele University. His research explores relations between dignity, presence and materiality. His main contribution so far has been to the sociology of childhood. His publications include 'Childhood and Society: Growing Up in an Age of Uncertainty', Open University Press, 2001.

Rolland Munro is Professor of Organisation Theory and Director of the Centre for Social Theory and Technology at Keele University. Among many articles on culture, identity, information, knowledge and power is a long standing interest in different forms of accountability and belonging. He is currently writing a book on the Euro-American's cultural and social entanglement with technology, provisionally called 'The Demanding Relationship' to clarify ideas like motility, disposal, discretion, punctualising and ethos. He co-edited a 1997 Sociological Review Monograph entitled 'Ideas of Difference: Social Spaces and the Labour of Division'.

Introduction

1

(12)

Rolland Munro

Part 1: Imagining Mass

Introduction to Part I

13

(3)

Interpreting mass: collection/dispersion

16

(28)

Robert Cooper

Pass the salt: how language moves matter

44

(16)

Dan Rose

The mystery of the Assumption: mothers and measures

60

(13)

Heather Hopfl

Sound, technics, energy: (consumption)

73

(29)

Rob Beeston

Part 2: Mass and Community

Introduction to Part 2

99

(3)

On mass, individuals, and peg communities

102

(12)

Zygmunt Bauman

The waiting of mass: endless displacement and the death of community

114

(15)

Rolland Munro

Consuming averages: interpreting luck and the social mass

129

(13)

Jane Parish

Virtual masses and real minorities: imagining the nation across space and time: the case of Rhodesians on the world wide web

142

(16)

Doug Stuart

Part 3: Mass and Persons

Introduction to Part 3

155

(3)

All-consuming passions: materials and subjectivity in the age of enhancement

158

(16)

Joanna Latimer

Becoming mass: glamour, authority and human presence

174

(15)

Nick Lee

Ordering others and othering orders: the consumption and disposal of otherness

189

(16)

Cristina Palli Monguilod

Border blues: between Maastricht and Dada disorder

205

(24)

Robert Grafton Small

Notes on contributors

229

(2)

Index

231

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The Consumption of Mass

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials