…he [she] is forced to represent the individual as a completely passive victim of the system… we are all aware of how consumers resist such a precise injunction, and of how they play with needs, on a keyboard of objects. We know that advertising is not omnipotent and at times produces opposite reactions; and we know that in relation to a single need, objects can be substituted for one another… if we acknowledge that a need is not a need for a particular object as much as it is a need for difference (the desire for social meanings), only them will we understand that satisfaction can never be fulfilled, and consequently that there can never be a definition of needs.
Jean Baudrillard, Selected writings (1988)
reflagged from Nicolas Nova at Pasta & Vinegar: Baudrillard on the difficulty to grasp people’s needs
(via culturalbytes)
(via culturalbytes)
