Day of All (Self-)Lovers: the Individual and Collective Dimension of the Holiday

Abstract

The article presents theoretical and methodological approaches to the phenomenon of celebration in a globalized, individualized, commodified, rationalized society. The authors examine modern and postmodern theories on the processes and consequences of individualization; trace a direct link between the processes of individualization and increasing alienation, using the work of such sociologists and anthropologists as G. Bataille, R. Caillois (Le College de Sociologie) and theorists of consumer society and the spectacle J. Baudrillard and G. Debord. At the conceptual level, the authors take into account the logic of unity and struggle between the collective and the individual in the holiday, distinguishing and describing two types of holidays – a true mythical holiday and a feast-holiday, and also formulating the assumption of the existence of pseudo-mythical and synthetic (in the modes of collective and individual) holidays. The authors propose and conceptualize a number of features that can be used to measure and empirically define certain types of holidays. Based on the results of the theoretical analysis, a number of hypotheses are formulated, including the hypothesis of the dominance of pseudo-mythical and holiday holidays within modern holidays. Analysing the empirical material (messages on Twitter), the authors come to the conclusion that the specific Valentine's Day has transformed into the Day of All (Self-)Lovers. In particular, they identify signs of emotional decline and alienation, reflection on loneliness, the use of obscene vocabulary, elements of antisocial behaviour, consumerism of the holiday (emphasis on alcohol and food consumption, focus on iPhones), the transition of the holiday to the language of things, conceptualizing all this as signs of reification and naturalization, fetishization and alienation of the holiday. The study states that the practices of self-love related to the body show signs of reification, including a special aspect of corporeality – sexuality. The hypothesis about the transformation of the mythical holiday into a pseudo-mythical one, as well as the hypothesis about the profanation of the holiday, is confirmed. Conclusions are drawn regarding the limitations of the study and the prospects for further research on the chosen problem.