Purchased Experiences: Identity and Consumer Culture in Generation X

    Douglas Coupland’s 1991 novel Generation X presents a view of life in the contemporary world which can be further understood by Marxist criticism, as it aesthetically embodies the theoretical views of such criticism.[1]  The novel revolves around three characters, Andy, Dag, and Claire, all near the age of thirty.  They have left their career-oriented lifestyles, and moved to the Mojave Desert to live in Palm Springs.  Here they work “Mcjobs” and entertain each other by telling stories.  Being hyper-conscious of the world of the late twentieth century, Generation X criticizes the prevailing class structure of consumer society.  This has led to accusations of the novel being pretentious and unrealistic. Why are the members of this generation more dissatisfied with life than previous generations were?  Does the world presented by Coupland correspond to external reality, or is it one writer’s personal dissatisfaction and disillusionment with the world?

     Marxist criticism seems useful in analyzing this work, perhaps even more now than when it was published in 1991 and Marxism was still a powerful political force that overshadowed its critical effectiveness.  Marxist criticism provides insight into the world of the late twentieth century, where economic class and status have become the most important factors in social life. The Marxist idea that economic class is fundamental to everything that happens in culture reveals more about the characters in the novel than is immediately apparent  While Paul Fussell has laid out the division between classes and the similarities of the members of each class, the ideas found in the postmodern theory of Frederic Jameson are highly illuminating for understanding this novel.  In Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, published at roughly the same date as Generation X, Jameson details the change in culture after World War II, manifesting in the emergence of a consumer society, claiming that the postmodern split happened in the 1960’s, at roughly the point that “generation x” came into being. As the importance of participation in the consumer world has increased beyond this split, authenticity of the individual has been replaced with an artificial and superficial public stream of economic interaction - participation in the latest trends as a source of meaning. What you buy defines who you are, so the individual works just to buy stuff; work becomes the field in which to experience life while the resulting economic exchanges define the individual.

    The well developed theories of Marxist criticism suggest that the postmodern world depicted in Generation X is an accurate one, and the novel presents us with illustrations of how we should approach living in such a confusing and challenging time period.  Coupland remarks that “There is no weather in Palm Springs - just like TV.  There is also no middle class, and in that sense the place is medieval . . . Nonetheless, the three of us chose to live here, for the town is undoubtedly a quiet sanctuary from the bulk of middle-class life” (10).  Escape is an important concept in the novel as each of the main characters recalls their exit from traditional society.  Furthermore, they compare their lifestyle to other characters who have decided to stay in the mainstream society. In “An Anatomy of Classes” Paul Fussell analyzed contemporary society by dividing it into nine classes, revealing the negative aspects of each class by presenting the conformity inherent to each one. He then proposed a “Category X” of people who attempt to escape from the rigid class structure.  This category of Fussell's analysis has been mentioned by Coupland as a possible influence on his generational concept.  The idea of a “medieval” lack of the middle class can be understood as the middle-class being a very modern development, and Jameson argues that there was a pre-communist state that existed before capitalism widened the split between classes.  The novel's comparison of Palm Springs to TV shows a postmodernist awareness of real places feeling fake and fake illusions presenting themselves as real.

     While attempting to escape from the construct of the consumer society that has been created, the characters in this book find themselves in a fragmented existence, alienated from the world and each other, and internally from their own cohesive past.. They exist in isolation, trying to relate to each other.  The characters view their lives as discreet, separate experiences which seem story-like.  As they attempt to get through life and relate to each other, they tell stories, which take on a significance of their own, revealing much about the characters and the world they see themselves in.  The historical events of their lives are reduced, while the fictional stories of their imaginations are elevated, thus blurring the division between reality and non-reality.  The idea of postmodern fragmentation is readily apparent here, both the fragmentation of individuals into different groups within society, and as time fragmenting into a series of "perpetual presents,” as understood by Jameson.

    Coupland's Generation X asks "Why work? Simply to buy more stuff?  That's just not enough" (23).  This line alone communicates much of what Marxist thought would condemn about our consumer society. We go to work to make money to buy things, and then the cycle repeats itself.  The death of the subject presented by Jameson is also an important idea here.  The characters feel that if they exist in that consumer world, they lose some level of consciousness and become an automatic part of that system.  They feel restricted by their jobs, career choices and life choices. In order to become creative and have the ability to develop their own individual being, as well as experience a sense of aesthetic possibility, they must drop out of the structured world of class.  They leave behind the career track and live moment to moment.

    Andy, in one of his untold stories, imagines a future city where "its boulevards were patternless, helter skelter, and cuckoo.  Everywhere there were booby traps of moustetraps, Triffids, and black holes . . and directions were impossible" (51).  The dangers and confusions of contemporary existence found in this work correspond to the postmodern world envisioned by Jameson as “a mutation in built space itself,” a hyperspace, like the confusing maze of the Bonaventure Hotel which has become a physical manifestation of the fragmented, rhizomic structure of late capitalism. Andy warns of a future with no clear paths, exits, or methods of clear navigation.

     As Andy reflects on his home-life, he states that "I get this feeling--.  It is a feeling that our emotions, while wonderful, are transpiring in a vacuum, and I think it all boils down to the fact that we're middle class.  You see, when you're middle class, you have to live with the fact that history will ignore you.  You have to live with the fact that history can never champion your causes and that history will never feel sorry for you, It is the price that is paid for day-to-day comfort and silence.  And because of this price, all happiness is sterile; all sadnesses go unpitied." (147)  Here we see the idea of the middle class forming a bland, uncreative existence, like what had been presented by Fussell.  It may be comfortable, but it is not adventurous.  While recalling his youth during the Vietnam War, Andy notes ". . . they were ugly times.  But they were also the only times I'll ever get - genuine capital H history times, before history was turned into a press release, a marketing strategy, and a cynical campaign tool.  And, hey, it's not as if I got to see much real history, either - I arrived to see a concert in history's arena just as the final set was finishing.  But I saw enough, and today, in the bizarre absence of all time cues, I need a connection to a past of some importance, however wan the connection." (151). In the post-modern world where time becomes a fleeting series of discreet points the connection to a linear progression of history and self is lost, identity becomes unanchored from events resulting in an artificial presence, an existential alienation from the larger world. After the radical break in history, Jameson argues that "there is a disappearance of the sense of history, the way in which our entire contemporary social system has little by little begun to lose its capacity to retain its own past, has begun to live in  perpetual present and in perpetual change that obliterates traditions of the kind which all earlier social information have had in one way or another to preserve" (214).  This description could apply to Coupland's novels as well as the world at large.  Throughout the book Coupland's characters speak in phrases like “my hair doesn't look 1940's enough," as well as making extensive references to “dead TV shows,” Elvis, and Marilyn Monroe.  Through these references we can see Jameson's understanding of nostalgia, the idea that “we seem condemned to seek the historical past through our own pop images and stereotypes about the past, which itself remains forever out of reach.”  (Jameson, 208) If there is no way to map the future, no clear sense of direction, then sensible meaning can only come from the past. Furthermore, we can also see other aspects of postmodernism at work, such as the implosion between disciplines, where history becomes entangled with advertising, politics with entertainment, etc.

     Other theories, such a a psychological approach, could focus on the few disillusioned characters, and claim that this book is really just about three misfits who have a strong sense of nonconformity.  What is really important is their understanding and reaction to the world, and these understandings may not accurately represent the world at large.  In this sense the world would be a production of their attitudes, rather than the characters being the production of the social construct.  But, this interpretation becomes much too solipsistic, leaving every individual with an isolated reality.  Rather, the Marxist critique presents each individual relating to the same world, and is therefore more useful, as it deals with what is “out there,” rather than inside one’s own mind.  The base that society functions on determines the psychological consistency of its individuals.  Generation X can be seen as a story that explains the experience of existing culture, the one which has produced the characters,  as well as the readers.  This culture is indeed the one of consumerism and late capitalism described in detail by Jameson.  As it is based almost exclusively on economics, this society is therefore understood best in the terms of Marxist criticism.  It is not just a story of a few characters that have a particular psychological aversion to society.  As the novel is aware of the economic and social pressures that exist, it attempts to analyze those conditions rather than passively ignoring them, undermining the idea that modern mainstream consumerism is a natural state of existence. As Jameson notes, postmodernism explains the logic of consumer capitalism, however, "The more significant question is whether there is also a way in which it resits that logic" (214).  Coupland's work is a response to that. In the form of stories, through the aesthetic, meaning can emerge from the subjective individual experience.  Generation X is an exploration of the first generation to experience Jameson's radical break of history.

Sources:
Coupland, Douglas, Generation X. New York: St Martin’s Press. 1991

Jameson, Frederic.  “Postmodernism and Consumer Society.”  Everyday Theory.  Ed. Becky McLaughlin and Bob Cole, Pearson Longman. 2005. 201 -215.

Original version written as an outline (2010)

[1] Note here that I am using the academic mode of Marxism as it was originally conceived in philosophy as a critique of capitalism, and not a particular political ideology. Remember Marx was an actual philosopher and his critique was inseparable from the actual emerging conditions of capitalism (they are intertwined views).  Non-theoretical later uses by political parties are inauthentic distortions, which may or may not represent Jameson's views.