THE CONSUMERIZED CITIZEN AND THE CITIZEN CONSUMER: DIGNIFICATION, IN POST-MODERNITY, BY THE CONSUMER LAW

Abstract

The understanding of citizenship departed from its notion strictly linked to nationality to designate a more complex phenomenon, linked to the full realization of fundamental rights (political, civil and social) which, to a large extent, always depended on state prerogatives and potentialities. On the other hand, contemporaneity has exposed the limitations of the State in a scenario of globalized economic competition. Post-modernity, by liquefying modernity, weakened the mortar that linked individuals to collective projects, launching them into a desperate search for identity, softened by the act of consuming goods and services. Although consumption is also vital to human dignity, when conducted in such a way as to fill this identity void, it is much more the result of a hollow will which, as such, is not even a will. In this way, the human condition is reduced to that of a consumer, loosening citizenship. In Brazil, the possibility of changing this trend has, to some extent, been made possible by the tools made available by the Consumer Defense Code, the Marco Civil da Internet and the General Data Protection Law, in order to even take advantage of the informationalism, making the consumer see himself as a citizen, or rather, a citizen who consumes, and not a mere consumerized citizen.