Modifications of family patterns of socialisation in compulsory consumerist society

Abstract

The recent civilisation and culture changes have modified the family life in Polish families. The contemporary infantilised consumerist capitalism enhances ambiguity and flexibility of norms and patterns of behaviour in everyday life. Thus, a sale-based consumerist capitalism develops and promotes a new type of hero – a compulsive consumer. This is, among others, the reason why new features of socialisation processes such as patterns of unsuccessful socialisation not only occur but seem to be desired. The ineptly implemented models of family life of earlier socialisation processes cause turmoil in the upbringing processes and children, instead of learning how to respect the rules, learn how to circumvent them. Children manipulate and effectively drift between different versions of the same or different worlds of everyday life – they play with their still forming identity. This ability, in turn, becomes crucial for modern secondary socialisation,
which in order to enhance the features of compulsive consumer requires smooth shifting between different identities. The article is an attempt to diagnose the changes that have recently, in a rather insensible manner, brought in significant new qualities in the fundamental space of our life – the family.