Lorne Daniel reflects on the fact that our society seems to view its individuals entirely as consumers. How do we gain independence from the consumer culture? Is it even possible?
I wonder if, one of these days when I wake up, someone is going to try to sell me sunshine. Now that everyone buys water in bottles, pays hundreds of dollars every month for digital entertainment products, and feels they can’t get out and exercise without Lululemon ‘yoga inspired athletic apparel,’ there aren’t many frontiers left.
Want to get away from it all? You better stop first at Mountain Equipment Co-op and load up on the latest light-weight, water repelling, environmentally sensitive whatever: tent, clothing, backpack. Heaven forbid you should just, you know, get away from it all.
I must start with a couple disclaimers. First, I am thoroughly immersed in the capitalist stream myself. A portion of my consulting work in recent years includes marketing – directly encouraging consumption. And I have played the whole capitalism game reasonably well – well enough that I have a fair collection of assets. I can hardly claim to stand above the commercial fray.
Secondly, I recognize that capitalism is an inspired system. It is fueled by our built-in desire to improve, to build a little better cave or hut, to strap a hunk of animal hide under our sore feet, to gather more goodies to eat and drink. Capitalism has, for now, won the world – because it works.
At the same time, I struggle with the fact that our society seems to view its individuals entirely as consumers. As long as we are producing, buying, eating – even wasting – stuff, our system is happy. Our economy loves it when you buy clothes that you have no room for in your closet, a couple new cars to replace the one that’s running just fine, piles of food that will settle onto your waist or go out in the garbage, and expensive adventure tourism outings on the other side of the globe.
Not surprisingly, the response to our 2007/08 economic crunch was to buy more. We don’t question a system based on continually, year in and year out, producing and consuming more products per capita. Our economy is based on growth, so get out there and buy a new Chrysler. Or Kia. Or Smart car.
I am continually amazed by the ingenuity of marketing – and the extent to which we (literally) buy in. Example: I am a runner, so I see the marketing of running gear up close. I have watched as clothing marketers introduced and used the term “technical clothing,” to the point where it’s commonly accepted. Race organizers now promise that the souvenir t-shirt is a “technical” shirt. Ha!
What is this technical wear? Just read the label. It’s what our parents used to call polyester (or similar petroleum based product). I once mocked my dad’s plaid polyester slacks with the never-die crease. The joke is now on me.
Polyester and other artificial fibres are more porous than most naturally grown materials like cotton and wool. But polyester was ridiculed in the 60s, so it needed to be rebranded. Which is why you now see fancy little tags that say all kinds of grandiose things like “advance moisture wicking technologies.” LOL.
Give me a break, I think. Then I buy the product. Because, of course, it is lighter and doesn’t hold the sweat the way cotton does.
Fellow Life As a Human writer Tori Klassen recently blogged about “the unending vomit” of too-early Christmas advertising. At a local mall, on Halloween night they hosted a children’s costume and candy fest. As soon as the kids and parents had been ushered out, trucks rolled up and in came the gear for Christmas season – the pop-up trees, the stage where Santa Claus will sit and encourage the little toddlers to consume, consume.
I now go to shopping malls so rarely that I suffer a bit of culture shock when I do. “So this entire place is dedicated to the purchase and consumption of products?” the alien me thinks when he is dropped into the polished world of glass, brass and bright rainbows of products.
It is a luxury of my advancing years that I no longer need to frequent malls, big box stores, and hyper-retail environments. We have more possessions than we need in our household, our children are living on their own, and we have stepped back from meaningless gifting. I call this a luxury because it’s much harder for younger families to make these choices.
The book The Rebel Sell (renamed A Nation of Rebels in the U.S.) made the case that trying to live a ‘counterculture’ life or ‘culture jamming’ is problematic at best, and possibly entirely futile. The authors make the case that counterculture efforts typically just create new markets – the desire to be different ultimately leads to a broader product line. Shabby looking jeans deliver the message that you don’t care about buying new jeans but, lo and behold, soon every young lawyer is town is wearing “distressed” jeans to the club for drinks. Reaction to hulking big SUVs leads to new markets for cute, boxy little Nissan Cubes and Kia Souls. Reaction to floating-buffet cruise travel leads to round-the-world adventure tours that leave at least as large a carbon footprint and probably generate as many purchases. Just different purchases.
Which is why I have significant reservations about ‘eco’ retailers. It’s hard to reconcile sustainability with the essential retail motive of moving more product. Bamboo sheets, sure, but do I really need to replace the existing sheets? Is there no getting away from our consumer culture? Essentially, no. So all the individual can do, for the moment, is be in the moment and look for the real world out there – the world that is not being bought and sold. All I can think to try is the proverbial walk in the woods – without a stop beforehand at the outdoor retailer.
Photo Credits
Bar Code Protest – by Keith Ellwood on flickr – Some Rights Reserved
“Obey Conform Consume” Ebby @ Flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.
Thank you, Lorne. This is a good post.
Too often, we don’t pause and think about what we are caught up in. The consumerism chase wears away at us in ways we may not even be aware of. I have a little book about Feng Shui that talks about the energy we lose from our experience of clutter. I am glad it distinguished that for me, because I may not have been able to notice the source of the anxiety on my own.
Likewise, your article offers some suggestions for choosing something different. To try it on, and see how it works for us.
Cheers.
Thanks for those observations Donna. I’ve never spent enough time with Feng Shui to grasp it but do keep trying to move towards simplicity – it’s an ongoing practice.
Due to a divorce, I’ve watched my dad go from living in an expensive house on the hill to sharing a tiny one bedroom rental at the beach. My dad has learned to live on very little. He drives an old, used car, and buys his clothes and household necessities at thrift stores. He now frequents farmers markets. He no longer has a TV, but he’ll watch programs on the net. He doesn’t have health insurance, and doesn’t plan to fight cancer if it comes knocking at his door. Now, he interacts with his neighbors and enjoys the company of a feisty cat. This has been a dramatic change of lifestyle, but I must say, I so admire it!
Hi Christina, Good on your dad for making that adjustment. Living on less is doable. It’s too bad that the momentum of our society discourages people from making some of those changes intentionally. We all want to have ‘enough’ – but I think we tend to overestimate how much is ‘enough.’
I disagree with the idea that living a “counterculture” life is futile. You don’t do it by shopping at “eco-retailers” though, you do it by shopping less.
The alternative to the floating-buffet tour isn’t the adventure tour: it’s the vacation week volunteering to build a Habitat for Humanity house in a nearby city where you have friends. Or if you’d prefer some real time off, take the Megabus somewhere and use couchsurfing.org to find a place to sleep.
The alternative to buying “distressed” jeans is to keep the ones you have until they get too ratty to be decent, and not worry about what some poseur wears.
There are community gardens and community-supported agriculture setups all over now. You can get your clothes at secondhand stores. You can buy your tools at the mom-and-pop hardware store, or share with neighbors.
I think the hardest counterculture thing to do isn’t on the consumption side. It’s much harder to get your hands on enough money to cover the really basic expenses of living in modern civilization. You can only go so low on rent, utilities, food, medical care, and transportation. In most places it’s really hard to live without a car, and many of us just aren’t okay with having roommates, and if you’re working casual hours or part-time there’s no health insurance. Those things are hard to overcome without simply getting an ordinary full-time job.
In short, I think dialing back your consumerist impulses isn’t all that difficult, especially if you don’t feel a need to go all the way. You can do as much or as little as you want, in increments, and maybe get better at it over time. But opting out of the mainstream in your work life can be very hard, simply because that’s where the money and heatlh care are, and people need those things.
Good points Mark. On an individual basis, it’s true that it’s possible to opt out. Possible, but difficult because almost all of the messages we receive from our society encourage consumption. It’s disconcerting to see how even many charity messages are ‘support charity X by buying product Y.’ The message of The Rebel Sell is that counterculture attempts, on a broader scale, seem to only generate new and more varied consumerism: hence, the distressed jeans example. An individual can choose to buy old jeans at second hand stores and replace them only when they are truly worn out, but as a society not many people are making that choice. As you say, the culture of work and the basic cost of living push everyone into looking for more …
Thanks for the comments.
Well spoken & written. I couldn’t agree more.
Lorne:
I completely agree with you on this. What is it that we are missing in contemporary life and why do we keep trying to fill the gap with stuff and thus allow ourselves to be virtually controlled by the corporations -including the media? Is consumerism the new spirituality?
Thanks Ross – the analogy or comparison gets some people excited but I don’t think it’s too far fetched to equate consumerism to a form of religion. It has worship, it has deities, it has the promise of a better life, it asks you to make financial sacrifices. It’s wacky how even attempts to move toward simplicity create these marketing responses – ‘Simple Life’ magazines etc. which of course are just trying to sell new versions of consumer products.
Thanks for taking the time to read and respond.