Essays

Consumerism is a term that describes the relations between personal happiness and possessing of the material things. Consumerism is also associated with the belief that the free choice of consumers should dictate the economic structure of a society. The theory of consumerism dictates that an increasing consumption of goods is economically beneficial. It also means to a movement that advocates greater protection of the interests of consumers.

In many critical contexts the term is used to describe the tendency of people to identify strongly with products or services they consume, especially those with commercial brand names and obvious status-enhancing appeal, e.g. expensive automobile, rich jewelers.

A culture that has a high amount of consumerism is referred to as a consumer culture. To those who accept the idea of consumerism, these products are not seen as valuable in themselves, but rather as social signals that allow them to identify like-minded people through consumption and display of similar products.

Consumerism is economically manifested in the chronic purchasing of new goods and services, with little attention to their true need, durability, product origin or the environmental consequences of manufacture and disposal. Consumerism is driven by huge sums spent on advertising designed to create both a desire to follow

trends, and the resultant personal self-reward system based on acquisition. Materialism is one of the end results of consumerism.

Consumerism interferes with the workings of society by replacing the normal common sense desire for an adequate supply of life's necessities, community life, a stable family and healthy relationships with an artificial ongoing and insatiable quest for things and the money to buy them with little regard for the true utility of

what is bought. An intended consequence of this, promoted by those who profit from consumerism, is to accelerate the discarding of the old, either because of lack of durability or a change in fashion.

The traditional cultural values of Western society are degenerating under the influences of corporate politics, the commercialization of culture and the impact of mass media. Society is awakening from its fascination with television entertainment to find itself stripped of tradition, controlled by an oppressive power structure and bound to the credit obligations of a defunct dream.

For the public at large, the integrating and transformative experiences of culture have been replaced by the collective viewing experience and by participation in consumer trends. The public has been inundated by an unending parade of commodities and fabricated television spectacles that keeps it preoccupied with the ideals and values of consumerism.

Consumerism is the myth that the individual will be gratified and integrated by consuming. The public fetishistic ally substitutes consumer ideals for the lost acculturating experiences of art, religion and family. The consumer sublimates the desire for cultural fulfillment to the rewards of buying and owning commodities, and substitutes media-manipulated undulations in the public persona for spiritual rebirth. In the myth of consumerism, there is no rebirth or renewal. And there are no iconic symbols to evoke transcendent truths.

While consumerism offers the tangible goal of owning a product, it lacks the fulfillment of other cultural mythologies. Consumerism offers only short term ego-gratification for those who can afford the luxury and frustration for those who cannot. It exists as an incomplete and inadequately engineered system of values

substituted for a waning cultural heritage.

The egocentricity of Western society made it an easy target for the transition to a consumer society. As deceptive advertising and academic nihilism gutted culture of its subjectively realized values, the public was easily swayed onto the path of consumerism. In the midst of a major identity crisis, will people realize the lack of morality and humanitarianism in a world based on media image and the transient satisfaction of ownership rather than the ontological value of the meaningful cultural experience? The reduction of cultural values to economic worth has produced a situation in our 'enlightened' society where product availability, as opposed to survival needs, becomes ethical justification for political oppression.

Self-worth is gauged by buying power. The acts of buying and owning reinforce self-worth within consumer society. You can see it in the haughty and demanding attitude of the consumer as he stands before the cashier. No longer does the purchase have to be justified by purpose.

Mass-media perpetuates the myth of consumerism as a priority of the New Capitalism. The corporate profiteers are very quick to substitute the lure of material luxury and consumer gratification for the fading spirit. Media advertising sells an image—an empty shell. Corporate placate its flaccid public with dispiriting pastiche. There is only fraudulent illusion. Instead of Swiss clockworks encased in hand carved hardwood, the consumer is offered a cheap imitation of routed particle board and computer chip technology. Who cares as long as it looks good?

In its duplicitous plot to throttle the public, corporate policy assumes only the self-interested exploitation of the consumer market and environmental resources. Corporate priorities and the business ethics are not intrinsically humanitarian or ecologically sensitive. Within the corporate hierarchy the salaried employee does not have the incentives of the entrepreneurial capitalist. The humanitarian ethic associated with small business (the obligation of the proprietor to his customers) is lost. The consumer is no longer courted by the competition of small businesses. The small business has been crowded out by the corporate capitalist to insure less competition and greater profit.

Big business is too often the enemy of the people. Behind the butchery of symbolic values by media advertising, the mercantile machine smiles as it folds the green. More than to simply insure a profit, consumerism is the means by which the New Capitalism maintains control of its buying public.

In corporate (monopolistic) capitalism the consumer is a target—he is acted upon. Controlling interests commodity culture and sell it to a public weaned on media advertising. Selection is reduced, not to what the public wants, but to what it will accept at a greater profit for the stockholder. This includes the availability and

^\ variety of commodities as well as their quality. Our choices and freedoms are limited by corporate policy.

As we become acclimated to life around the television set, collectively striving for a media-produced image, our choices are made for us. Choice is reduced to brand name. We sacrifice self-knowledge for consumerism. Consumerism, like! Communism and fascism, is a secular religion restricting freedom of choice.

In the era of consumerism, self-awareness and self-worth have been distorted. We are what we wear. In the New Capitalism's seduction of the television audience, the individuating personality identifies with advertising fantasies and consumer ideals. Who we are merges with roles and images portrayed in the media. Ever so subtly we are losing curability to act independently of the justifications of consumerism. This constitutes a qualitative loss to the individuation process. The affront on human values by mass media advertising has left a well actualized

consumer but a poorly individuated personality.

 Consumers are only beginning to realize the political power they wield as a collective buying force. This potential has been tested on a small scale by union pickets and grassroots economic boycotts. It is expected that a day will come when the public tires of the shallow gratifications and empty promises of consumerism, it

will turn to large scale boycotts to control the abusive tactics of corporate policy.

Vocabulary

1.dictate—prescribe,  lay down,  impose, set down, order,  command; 2. obvious—perceptible, discernible, detectable, recognizable, evident, apparent; 3.manifest—Make evident tu the eye or to the underslandini;. show phiinly. reveal, display; 4.resullant—the composite or final effect of any two or more physical forces, agencies; 5.insatiable—unable to be satisfied, inordinately greedy; 6. quest—goal, aim. objective, purpose; 7. fascination—pull, draw. spell, sorcery; 8. preoccupied—distrait, oblivious, far away, rapt; 9. myth—invention, fabrication, untruth; 10- gratified—delighted, fulfilled; 11. persona—personality, role, part. public face; 12, spiritual—sacred, divine, holy, nonsecular; 13- transcendent—excelling, great, magnificent; 14. evoke—stimulate, elicit, educe: 15. tangible—real, actual, solid, substantial; 16. lack—want, need, deprivation; 17. haughty—scornful, imperious, lordly; 18. reinforce—prop up. brace, support; 19.pastiche—mishmash, gallimaufry, farrago; 20. throttle—suppress, control, inhibit; 21.fraudulent—dishonest, cheating, swindling; 22. hierarchy—social order, class system; 23. butchery—massacre, slaying, murdering.