Podrobný výpis o publikaci

Consumption is not merely an economic phenomenon, but also a social, cultural, political, and anthropological one, involving a range of religious and spiritual practices and symbols. The primary objective of this study is to interpret the process of shopping, through the perspective of religious thought, as a sacrificial ritual. A religious interpretation of shopping will subsequently enable the phenomenon of thrift to be understood as an ethical norm of transcendental significance in the behavior of the modern consumer. The secondary objective is to demonstrate how thrift is retained as a traditional attribute of Protestant ethics in the setting of contemporary consumer culture. Here the effort is to identify a modified dimension of thrift as part of a new non-ascetic idea. A third, related objective is an effort to demonstrate that thrift, as a complement to patterns of consumer behavior, has now been transformed into a part of hedonistic practices. I propose my own theoretical concept of frugal hedonism, incorporating the dimension of thriftiness as an alternative pattern of a non-ascetic lifestyle. I define two main pillars of frugal hedonism, comprised of voluntary restraint in attitudes toward material values and deferred consumption. I question the thesis of a strictly ascetic and rationalized conception of thriftiness as an expression of consumer deprivation, as it may concurrently have a hedonistic dimension, contrary to certain theories of shopping, through the achievement of goals that are valued higher, such as mental well-being, stress reduction, and overall higher quality of life in areas of non-material life experience.