二十世纪五六十年代，西方国家先后从生产型社会步入消费社会。随着消费社会的来临，现代西方社会一个新的神话——消费——产生了。虽然消费社会的来临让人们远离了物质匮乏的艰辛年代，然而，预期的幸福仍然没有降临。人们每天都在报纸和电视媒体炮制和宣传的“符号”里进行驯化，人们的精神完全被各种广告的物品符号所麻醉。在好奇心的驱使下人们不断地发明或尝试新的乐趣和满足，他们通过消费来实现自己，界定自己，以得到他人的认同和赞美。这样消费变得无止境，人们在无止境的消费中丧失了自己，不知道自己真正需要什么，似乎消费不是为了人，而人活着是为了消费，消费的主体却成为消费的工具。鲍德里亚提出“符号消费”理论，来对当今的消费现象进行诠释。认为这种消费不是为了满足人的基本生理需求，而是在追求心理上的各种满足，如追求地位上的优越感、满足感。消费社会行使的是一种差异的消费，我们正是通过这种差异而获得一定的社会地位和社会意义。在这样的消费伦理的引导下,原本存在于少数人身上的炫耀性消费、奢侈消费,成为了社会上多数人奉行的消费行为标准,并且演变成一种普遍性的消费主义潮流。人们一直持续着非人化的生存境遇，不能自拔。“符号消费”的神话笼罩在大家心头，人人对它顶礼膜拜。要破除这个神话，首先要揭开它的神秘面纱，恢复其本真面貌，要认清人与物的关系，提升人的主体地位；其次，要构建一种合理的消费结构，这种消费结构要能有利于人和社会的长远发展，实行一种可持续的消费模式。

In the 1950s and 1960s, Western countries evolved from production-based society into the consumer society early or later. With the advent of consumer society for modern Western society, a new story - consumption - came into being. Although the advent of consumer society helped people to stay away from the material hardships of the poor, however, the expectation for the happy life was still so far away. People were immersed everyday in the symbolic concocted by the media and propaganda like newspapers and television etc. People’s spirit was hocused everyday by various kinds of symbols from advertising products. Driven by curiosity, people were constantly trying new invention for the pleasure and satisfaction. They adopted to achieve their own consumption, to define themselves, in order to get other people's recognition and praise. The consumption evolved to endless and people lost themselves in the endless consumption, do not know what they really need. It seems like that consumption is not for human being themselves, and people live for consumption, so the subject of consumption - people, turned to be the tool of consumption. Baudrillard illustrated the theory of "Symbolic consumption" and explained to the present behavior in consumption. He thought "Symbolic consumption" was not in order to meet the basic physiological needs, but to meet the psychological needs, such as the status of the pursuit of superiority and satisfaction. Consumer society provides a type of difference in the consumers, and people get certain of social status and social significance through the differences in consumption. Under the guidance of such logic of consumption, the grandiose and extravagant consumption originally found in a small number of people now extends to most people, and becomes to the majority of people in social pursuit for consumption, and eventually evolves into a universal trend of consumerism. People have been sustained in the dehumanizing conditions of survival, unable to extricate themselves."Symbolic consumption", the myth shrouded in the people’s mind, and everyone pays great homage to it. To break this myth, we should first remove its cover and expose its original appearance. We’d realize the relationship between people and articles, promoting people to a dominant position. Secondly, we must build a reasonable consumption structure, which must benefit to the strategic development for human beings and society, furthermore, leads to a sustainable consumption pattern as well.