Self-Realization and Creativity of the Individual in the Consumer Society

Self-realization of a person is a process of conscious-volitional complex disclosure and implementation through the activities of social, personal, professional, creative, gender and other aspects of the individual. Self-realization and self-actualization are not identical. Self-actualization is a person's desire to reach his potential. Self-realization is a form of practical realization of the need for self-actualization. Creativity plays a special role in the self-realization of a person. Creative self-realization is impossible without the subject-practical activity and social relations, therefore, in the process of harmonious creative self-development of the individual, socio-cultural factors play an important role. Freedom is a necessary condition for the self-realization of the individual, but the consumer society and its ideology generate non-freedom and consumer coercion. The consumer society turns the individual into the consumer. Moreover, it imposes consumption as the main activity for self-realization. In modern consumer society, such activity is creative consumption, but it is not a full-fledged form of creative self-realization because it is not associated with the types of professional scientific and artistic creativity. Consequently, self-realization through consumption is not a worthy alternative to professional, creative and status self-realization because consumer activity is unsuitable to reveal various aspects of the individual.