| Abstrakt: |
The aim of the article is to check whether the materialistic and consumerist characteristics of contemporary postmodern society constitute an obstacle to the possibility of achieving the postulates of sustainable development. Research for the theoretical part of this study (including presenting the basic conceptual framework in the field of sustainability and the postmodern stage of societys’ development), has been made based on the method of critical analysis of the literature on the subject and specialized press (desk research). In the empirical part, the author makes usage of the results of qualitative study. Relates to personal, informal interview, which took place on a voluntary basis among consumptionists who declared themselves to have a materialistic worldview. The results obtained show that, althought considered features quite naturally cause negative connotations, the characteristics of postmodern society have also certain advantages from the economic point of view of the processes taking place within the modern society. What’s more, although it is difficult to argue with the results indicating a negative impact of one of the characteristics of post-modern society on sustainable development, this relationship cannot be considered shallow and one-dimensional. It turns out that materialism and consumerism can, for example, accompany interest in environmentally friendly products and willingness to pay extra for them. Materialists are not always unfamiliar with sustainable consumption behaviors too. Some of them also contribute to promote environmental values and products supporting them in social media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
