- July 27, 2012
- Posted by: essay
- Category: Sample essay papers
In fact, an individual cannot live in isolation from society. In this respect, I am not an exception. This is why I have naturalized values that are common for the society. Nowadays, commercial values are dominating and constitute the basis of the contemporary culture. At the same time the process of naturalization occurs gradually in the course of my personal development. Basically, it is possible to single out several stages of the naturalization of commercial values, which are based on Jean Baudrillard’s ideas. At the beginning, I perceived commercial values as functional values. In other words, the acquisition of commercial values occurs on the basis of their usefulness. For instance, the acquisition of commodities improves consistently my life making more comfortable. It is really difficult to refuse from such things as computers, cars, microwaves ovens, etc. which surround us and make our life easier.
Furthermore, commercial values have acquired exchange value for me as I understood that I can not only acquire commodities but also exchange them to get new ones and multiply my wealth. However, gradually, commercial values have started to play more important role for me acquiring symbolic value. In other words, commercial values became the basic set of values which compared to other values that exist in other cultures or existed in previous epochs, such humanistic values, for instance. In such a context, commercial values have their own symbolic meaning for me. Today, commercial values have a sign value for me since I perceive them as a system of values which, to a significant extent, defines my lifestyle.