The Culture of Choice considered Through Cultural Studies

Abstract

The article deals with modern cultural studies of choice, carried out within the framework of a pragmatic turn, a turn to the material, modern critical theory. It is shown that an independent field of cultural studies of choice is outlined, however, due to the complexity of the object for such developments, the fragmentation of the methods and approaches used is specific. To concretize and develop socio-cultural ideas about choice, we propose a specific conceptual construction — the concept of "culture of choice", which has its own internal structure. In the structure of the "culture of choice" we have identified two components: subjective and environmental. The subjective component is understood as cultural values internalized by the individual, norms, rules, principles that guide the subject when making a choice, as well as the subject’s culturally conditioned memory of the past and foresight of the future. The environmental component represents the features of the environment in which the individual makes a choice, information about the alternatives of choice that is currently incoming, as well as the tools and mechanisms of the environment that the subject uses when making a choice.