This Modern Product

My focus these last few days is on consumerism. I am coming to believe it is the primary motive force in modern life, yet most of us are only peripherally aware of it as a term over-used by dooms-day sensationalists. I believe we have morphed into a society with clearly consumerist values, and I believe the metamorphosis is a perfectly natural consequence of real life in our modern world.

In the most mundane, non-sensationalistic terms, consumerism refers to economic policies based on the belief that the free choice of consumers should dictate the economic structure of a society. The problem with this belief is the assumption of free choice, especially with regards to children born and raised in social environments saturated with highly sophisticated marketing forces in virtually all aspects of their lives. In this situation, corporations, rather than consumers, dictate the economic structure of a society. In other words, corporations dictate the emotional undercurrents which determine the decision making choices of individuals. These emotional undercurrents, essentially, are what we value – in fact, they are our values. Our values, in this modern life, are increasingly indistinguishable from the needs of corporate profits.

Why rehash old topics which have been around since before the time of Karl Marx? We have heard these arguments before. People have been aware of the evils of consumerism for over a hundred years, yet it has done nothing to prevent the continued shift to an increasingly corporately dictated lifestyle. The knowledge and wisdom of the few, it seems, is useless. Movements created by a small group of committed individuals quickly become subject to the limitations of marketing... Many of the same problems with marketing products also apply to marketing ideas. Simplistically, in competition to reach broader audiences, ideas need to become more easily and quickly understood or accepted. It is ridiculous to try to understand a product, so marketers appeal to emotions. Emotional marketing works – it bypasses understanding and goes straight for acceptance. The same applies for ideas – they quickly become products that are quickly and easily emotionally accepted, or they are displaced by ideas that are...

Consumerism is an old idea that is a product passed along and communicated in an emotional current with very little urgency or newness. Along with a thousand other ideas and concepts, the emotional currents which carry it are displaced in our minds by the much more powerful emotional currents of our cars, our homes, our finances, etc. But the actual subject matter of consumerism is the nature of the emotional currents which drive our decisions and choices regarding these more pressing concerns. For example, we feel the need to buy a newer or nicer car because they are everywhere around us. We feel the need to buy new computers, or technological gadgets, because they too are everywhere around us. We feel the need to eat fast food, or packaged food, because it is so easy, quick and available. Everywhere around us are faster, better, nicer, newer, easier, sexier products. As soon as we buy these products, a new generation of products grabs our attention... And everyone – from federal government policy makers, to corporate shareholders, to your next door neighbor – has a vested interest in your continued and increasing consumption, because the entire economy – from your job, to government social programs, to the price of gasoline - is designed for growth and consumerism.


If you have time, please read this article. I found it very interesting.
The Fastest Growing Religion
http://consumerism.ca/thefastestgrowingreligion.htm