Discuss: The Gospel of Consumption

The brainwashing is real. It starts at a very young age, and it follows us around through our entire lives. As a mental exercise, try counting the number of ads you see in one day - billboards, commercials, print advertisements, banner ads - all of it goes into your subconscious mind, even if you’re not always aware of it. If your day is anything like mine, you’ll lose count by mid-morning.

For every hour of network broadcasting, twenty minutes consists of advertising, not counting product placements and all those popups that come up during the middle of shows. Even PBS is riddled with advertising - in the form of “enhanced underwriter acknowledgments”, mind you. Kid’s shows themselves are largely advertisements for toys or movies.

As the parent of a two year old, I find myself paying much more attention to the ubiquity of advertising in modern America than I used to. I can’t shield her from it entirely, but maybe I can limit its influence on her.

I have tried to shield my children from consumerist tendencies.  I home school, with out tv and limit internet.  They read a lot of books. 

All in all however, I found this article interesting.  I never knew about the six hour work week.  For my family this would be ideal provided we lived with in biking distance to work.  The two hours extra spent working usually pays for gas each day, so really it would be the same income with less expense.

How can one limit their consumption?

Is it feasible to grow a portion of ones diet in a small garden? Even if it is possible how can a small garden be incorporated into an urban setting where space is limited? Even when space is available it’s usually covered in concrete.

I do my best to work as little hours as possible, spend as many hours outdoors as possible and engage in meaningful conversation or just enjoy the silence instead of watching television.
Yet, the income I do live on comes directly from an industry that would not exist without this wonderful consumerist economy.

On another note: In his essay “Why the Rich Are Getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer,” Robert Reich notes that the only industries that are truly sustainable in the current economic climate are in-person servers, and symbolic analysts (not that production jobs aren’t necessary, there just aren’t as many available). This system of over-production and “innovation” no longer offers the stability of having enough jobs to go around (were there ever? forgive my ignorance).

Seems to me that where there aren’t enough jobs to support people you can find a bunch of McDonald’s paying minimum wage, gifting their employees with just enough cash to afford people living in this urban sprawl to feast upon the righteous dollar menu.

We’re living in what I call “plutopia"--a society almost entirely grounded in the notion that material wealth is the ultimate good. Never mind how we satisfy our many wants (as opposed to our real needs, which are relatively few). If we want to change (and I’m not sure the majority of us actually do), we must re-educate our desires, identify means with ends, and stop seeing Americans as the measure of all that is good in the universe.

To recognize the problems and to seek solutions is not by nature fascist, although it tends to be socialist (as opposed to capitalist), nor does it require draconian rules or acts of congress. If people became aware (through articles like this one) of how our everyday actions impact a much larger context, it might be relatively simple to change some minds.  But, alas, most folks don’t read Orion, and judging by most of the comments in this discussion, those who do are already members of the choir.

As a part of my political activism I did a little rewrite of the opening of the Declaration of Independence and inserted a balance point.  “Inherent in our inalienable rights are undeniable responsibilities.” I also changed pursuit of happiness to pursuit of joy and contentment.  It is a matter of choosing, but to choose wisely one needs all the cards laid on the table.

Unfortunately for this excellent article the comment section is not very conducive to productive conversation…

This is fine and good for a paper but it won’t work in a living culture (at least on Earth) you can be sure about that.

It’s very interesting how these sorts of ideologies almost always come from people who they would adversely affect the least whereas you never hear of a starving or poor person using such arguments.

Kudos on a fantastic article.