The horror of consumer culture - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Johnny Rotten · 03-10-2004, 11:38 PM

Not too long ago, people grew their own food, herded their own animals, built their own houses, made their clothes, and basically created 99% of what they owned. Fast forward to today, and it is nearly the opposite, in the industrialized world. Yet, being able to buy instead of laboring to make hasn't, on a large scale, made us explore our creative sides, or work towards improving the standard of living--it's just addicted us to the luxury of consuming, especially in the entertainment sector. Movies, music, videogames, 500-channel cable TV lineups, etc.

Instead of us being able to measure our contrbution by taking stock of the land around us, it's gauged by bank accounts and material possessions--baubles and trinkets. Even as I am an avid reader, I collect books at a far faster rate than I could ever read them. It would take me, maybe, a year to go through my current collection, if I devoted 100% of my free time to nothing but reading. As it stands, it may take me five to ten years, if I never purchase another book, even though I am a very focused reader. As we live in an information age, it takes me long enough just to go through the daily news on the 'Net.

Anyway, we have been trained to buy by people trained to sell. They know our resistances, our likelihoods, our buttons, you name it. Studied extensively, focus grouped, refined to a cunning edge. "You deserve it! Indulge yourself. For a limited time only! Exclusive offer!"

It makes me sick, all the more so because I can feel the seething contempt of Ad Agency XYZ boiling underneath every ad campaign. For the same reason that a con artist has no respect for his mark: A Freudian transferrance of despising the mark's greed instead of despising their own. It's easy to say that the general public as a whole is kind of dumb and easily led, but that's a cop-out.

At this point, the "captains of industry" are today's elite, as the Christian Church was the European elite in medieval times. Yet the Christian Church held sway for more psychological reasons, not because they produced concrete goods and services. Their power was contingent upon a mode of thought, not something you needed to buy in order to survive. That is what makes our current technological religion far, far more powerful and fundamental. The reality of consumerism permeates our lives so much that it is a membrane through which we see the world. Almost all connection to land and toil has been severed, only living on the vestigal form of hobbies like model planes, stamp collecting, and...

Well, now think about this for a minute. How many of you actually even have hobbies? A creative thing you do in your free time that results in a concrete product. While there seems to be a statistically larger number of creators on the TFP, our hobby time, on the whole, has been largely swallowed up by TV, web surfing, and listening to music. And why hang out with someone physically, when you have cell phones, IM, email and text messaging? How social are we, really? How creative are we, really?

My nightmare image of civilization is a person who never leaves his home and buys everything on the Internet, works for a company that sells things on the Internet, and has been lulled into the strangled fantasy of believing this is not only the best way to do things, but the way it's pretty much always been done.

lurkette · 03-11-2004, 07:08 AM

I have several hobbies that I would consider creative. I make stained glass objects, most of which I design myself. I create scrapbooks (mostly genealogical albums) which I don't really consider so much a creative hobby as an archiving project, but there it is. I also have several hobbies that don't result in concrete products - I'm not sure why you would include that as a criterion. I swing dance, I belly dance, I sing, and I am in the process of training my dog to be a "therapy dog" who visits hospitals and nursing homes. All of these things (except maybe the scrapbooks) I consider creative, and to some extent I consider the ones that DON'T produce an object to be more creative - they produce a series of transient moments in which I bring myself to a situation (choosing how to move my body, expressing myself through music, working to bring myself and my dog to provide a moment of pleasure for someone else) and am truly present.

I think the real horror of consumer culture is not our disconnection from the means of production, but our disconnection from our true selves. We have been "tricked" (all too willingly) into believing that we are what we buy and own, that our identities are tied to our consumption habits. Consumption in and of itself is not a problem for me (to the extent that it's sustainable, which it's not at its current levels), what's a problem for me is un-self-conscious consumption that serves as a poor substitute for self-creation, self-expression, and connection to other people.

TheKak · 03-11-2004, 08:18 AM

I love reading, but I usually don't have as much time as I would like to do it. I recently started learning how to speed read, and I have to say it is one of most wonderful things I have ever learned how to do. Zoom through books with nearly 100% comprehension. I would recommend it to anyone that enjoys reading! (for reference, I bought Tony Buzan's "The Speed Reading Book", though I don't think it really matters how you learn). I read much more than I used to, and it has pretty much taken the place of playing video games for me since I can now get so much more out of books because I can get through them faster.

I do agree though, with comsumers moving to the Internet to buy everything you could need, and even work on the internet from your home, it makes everything seem disconnected.

Ustwo · 03-11-2004, 08:54 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Johnny Rotten
Not too long ago, people grew their own food, herded their own animals, built their own houses, made their clothes, and basically created 99% of what they owned. Fast forward to today, and it is nearly the opposite, in the industrialized world. Yet, being able to buy instead of laboring to make hasn't, on a large scale, made us explore our creative sides, or work towards improving the standard of living--it's just addicted us to the luxury of consuming, especially in the entertainment sector. Movies, music, videogames, 500-channel cable TV lineups, etc.

Hey that’s great, why don't you go get a cabin in Montana and see what fun it is. Life basically sucked. You lived you worked you died. The middle class now lives the lives of kings compared to these poor slobs.

You know I like that my clothes are not home spun, they don't itch, don't need to be patched, and I have more then 2 pairs of pants.

I like that my food is bought. I have a hard time growing oranges in Chicago, lettuce in the winter, and pigs stink. Instead I just buy it, mnmmm mmmm good.

I like that I don't have to tend the fields. I have a slight allergy to grasses which I'm sure would have really sucked as a farmer.

I like that my life-expectancy isn't in the high 30's.

I like that my wife’s chance of dying in childbirth is a lot less.

I like that my tools are made of steel instead of hard to care for iron.

I like that I can post this with my computer.

NO one is stopping you from going back to the way we were. I'm not sure if the Amish would accept you but its worth a shot.

Its important that people understand how lucky we are now, but no fucking way would I dream of going back.

filtherton · 03-11-2004, 10:01 AM

If it weren't for blind consumerism our economy would be in shambles.

Mantus · 03-11-2004, 12:01 PM

Ustwo,

I think what he is saying is that despite all the achievement you listed the average human being hasn’t advanced much spiritually or culturally. Another words most people are still peons.

Yakk · 03-11-2004, 12:49 PM

While I understand that people like to physically manipulate stuff, that doesn't mean the abstract world can't be as fulfilling.

Thanks to the modern world, I can do things I personally find engaging and that I'm good at, and leave the rest to others.

You don't have to be a consumer-aholic. I own a metric tonne of books, all but the latest and a few anomolies I've at least read half of, a 12 year old car, clothing, some old computer equipment, a DVD player, and points in a bank's computer that say I can tell people to cook food, put on plays, or do other things for me.

Things don't excite me, they are more of a burdin than a boon: keeping track of them is annoying.

The point is, you don't have to buy things. You don't need a shiny car. You don't need a big house. You don't even need to want a big house, a shiny car, or the latest gizmo on TV. Make a choice to not want them, and walk away from consumerism.

If you want to make things physically, find a job (or two for variety!) that pays you to do this. And don't consume any more than you need, let the ads flow off your back. You should be able to earn many times your living expenses (no, really), so you can spend most of your life doing your hobbies.

It is a choice. Most people seem to prefer the consumer path, but more power to them.

Ustwo · 03-11-2004, 01:19 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Mantus
Ustwo,

I think what he is saying is that despite all the achievement you listed the average human being hasn’t advanced much spiritually or culturally. Another words most people are still peons.

We are basicly the same people as we have been in all of recorded history. Its nicer now, but our brains and hormones haven't changed a bit. We have limits to what we can attain. Perhaps with genetic manipulation you will see real changes in the future, but right now we are just Romans with less slaves and cooler stuff.

shakran · 03-11-2004, 02:28 PM

very interesting thread. Anyone see that PBS "reality" show (this one was actually real, instead of the fake crap the other reality shows put out) where they had several families try to make it out in the middle of nowhere living as the pioneers did? It was VERY interesting, and I think points to what this thread is (I think) really about.

I don't think anyone's upset that we can buy gas to heat our house or that we can buy clothes and food instead of having to produce them ourselves. I think what people are upset about is that very few people work for themselves anymore. Most of our jobs involve enriching someone else. We get paid, but we have no satisfaction of having built/made/done something with our own hands that we then use ourselves. It's a more efficient system when you look at it from an economical standpoint, but it also goes against thousands of years of nature and evolution - something which is deeply ingrained in us and which we are now almost universally denying.

Ustwo · 03-11-2004, 04:09 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by shakran
Most of our jobs involve enriching someone else. We get paid, but we have no satisfaction of having built/made/done something with our own hands that we then use ourselves. It's a more efficient system when you look at it from an economical standpoint, but it also goes against thousands of years of nature and evolution - something which is deeply ingrained in us and which we are now almost universally denying.

That’s why its good to be the king. Kings, priests, shamans, elders, Pharos’s, Caliphs, CEO's, its all the same since we had anything like a civilization. You work and someone else takes a cut.

The only time people did it all themselves was when they were alone and HAD to. This wasn't some ideal state, but just survival.

Thagrastay · 03-11-2004, 04:53 PM

It was the Catholic CVhurch, not the Christian Church that held sway during the Dark Ages- please note the difference. Midieval times, whatever you may want to call them. Things truly began to come about with the advent of the printing press and the availability of the Bible to the common man and the breaking of the religious stranglehold the Pontiffs and their lapdogs held over the Europeans. Consequently, they had to branch out to Africa and South America to yoke the illiterate there in order to continue their dynasty.
Nowadays, we really are left with nothing much in the way of personal satisfaction when it comes to our own achievements. And this is sad. Many people mock the Amish, but they do lead a rather exemplary life in that cloistered, austere way.
There is much to be said for true adventure, as well as the finer and more available things in life, but then the question really becomes, I suppose, what is the thermometer for the real quality of living?

FleaCircus · 03-11-2004, 06:55 PM

How creative are the people in the few cultures left that still work on a hunter-gatherer subsistence kind of system?

How much free time would you have left over in order to be creative, if you had to spend all your time growing food and making clothing and attending to all the necessities of life that are taken care of with a quick trip to the grocery store?

How long would you live if you didn't have access to modern medicine (which goes hand in hand with industrialization)?

sexymama · 03-11-2004, 07:59 PM

Whether one lives today or 100 years ago or 1000 years ago, the same struggles existed. People still had to/have to discover who they are, what is important to them, and how they connect to the bigger world/universe. Finding peace within will always be a struggle, no matter when in history we live.

With that said, I do feel that it is important to tap into my creative side and to help my children tap into theirs. We all knit and crochet. We scrapbook too (which I find to be creative.) In the summer we pick fruit and berries to can, so that the kids will understand that not everything is bought at the store -- but comes from nature. One daughter has woven and died fabric. We all dance, sing, and have fun together. The TV is on very little in our house; but what we watch we watch and enjoy together. And we are happy -- at least I am -- because I know and love me and understand, at least today, what my "job" is here on earth and I have a good relationship with "the universe" (god, whatever you want to call it.)

Yakk · 03-15-2004, 07:53 AM

Flea, the amount of free time has more to do with the load you put on your environment than on how you get your resources.

During times with "easy food", hunter gatherer socieities would have lots of spare time. During times of "hard food", HG societies would have little free time.

If your population was enough below the carrying capacity of the area, you would be able to walk out, kill a deer, bring it back, and with a bit of preservation eat for a week.

Now, if you increase your population enough, you'll end up having to do more work to find deer, and more deer to feed your dependants. The 2nd deer per week will be harder to get than the first deer per week. You have to trade free time for production.

Same thing nowadays: if you choose to live at or near your productive capacity, you will have little free time. If you choose to live far below your productive capacity, you will have lots of free time.

03-10-2004, 11:38 PM	#1 (permalink)
Johnny Rotten lost and found Location: Berkeley	The horror of consumer culture Not too long ago, people grew their own food, herded their own animals, built their own houses, made their clothes, and basically created 99% of what they owned. Fast forward to today, and it is nearly the opposite, in the industrialized world. Yet, being able to buy instead of laboring to make hasn't, on a large scale, made us explore our creative sides, or work towards improving the standard of living--it's just addicted us to the luxury of consuming, especially in the entertainment sector. Movies, music, videogames, 500-channel cable TV lineups, etc. Instead of us being able to measure our contrbution by taking stock of the land around us, it's gauged by bank accounts and material possessions--baubles and trinkets. Even as I am an avid reader, I collect books at a far faster rate than I could ever read them. It would take me, maybe, a year to go through my current collection, if I devoted 100% of my free time to nothing but reading. As it stands, it may take me five to ten years, if I never purchase another book, even though I am a very focused reader. As we live in an information age, it takes me long enough just to go through the daily news on the 'Net. Anyway, we have been trained to buy by people trained to sell. They know our resistances, our likelihoods, our buttons, you name it. Studied extensively, focus grouped, refined to a cunning edge. "You deserve it! Indulge yourself. For a limited time only! Exclusive offer!" It makes me sick, all the more so because I can feel the seething contempt of Ad Agency XYZ boiling underneath every ad campaign. For the same reason that a con artist has no respect for his mark: A Freudian transferrance of despising the mark's greed instead of despising their own. It's easy to say that the general public as a whole is kind of dumb and easily led, but that's a cop-out. At this point, the "captains of industry" are today's elite, as the Christian Church was the European elite in medieval times. Yet the Christian Church held sway for more psychological reasons, not because they produced concrete goods and services. Their power was contingent upon a mode of thought, not something you needed to buy in order to survive. That is what makes our current technological religion far, far more powerful and fundamental. The reality of consumerism permeates our lives so much that it is a membrane through which we see the world. Almost all connection to land and toil has been severed, only living on the vestigal form of hobbies like model planes, stamp collecting, and... Well, now think about this for a minute. How many of you actually even have hobbies? A creative thing you do in your free time that results in a concrete product. While there seems to be a statistically larger number of creators on the TFP, our hobby time, on the whole, has been largely swallowed up by TV, web surfing, and listening to music. And why hang out with someone physically, when you have cell phones, IM, email and text messaging? How social are we, really? How creative are we, really? My nightmare image of civilization is a person who never leaves his home and buys everything on the Internet, works for a company that sells things on the Internet, and has been lulled into the strangled fantasy of believing this is not only the best way to do things, but the way it's pretty much always been done. __________________ "The idea that money doesn't buy you happiness is a lie put about by the rich, to stop the poor from killing them." -- Michael Caine

03-11-2004, 07:08 AM	#2 (permalink)
lurkette My future is coming on Moderator Emeritus Location: east of the sun and west of the moon	I have several hobbies that I would consider creative. I make stained glass objects, most of which I design myself. I create scrapbooks (mostly genealogical albums) which I don't really consider so much a creative hobby as an archiving project, but there it is. I also have several hobbies that don't result in concrete products - I'm not sure why you would include that as a criterion. I swing dance, I belly dance, I sing, and I am in the process of training my dog to be a "therapy dog" who visits hospitals and nursing homes. All of these things (except maybe the scrapbooks) I consider creative, and to some extent I consider the ones that DON'T produce an object to be more creative - they produce a series of transient moments in which I bring myself to a situation (choosing how to move my body, expressing myself through music, working to bring myself and my dog to provide a moment of pleasure for someone else) and am truly present. I think the real horror of consumer culture is not our disconnection from the means of production, but our disconnection from our true selves. We have been "tricked" (all too willingly) into believing that we are what we buy and own, that our identities are tied to our consumption habits. Consumption in and of itself is not a problem for me (to the extent that it's sustainable, which it's not at its current levels), what's a problem for me is un-self-conscious consumption that serves as a poor substitute for self-creation, self-expression, and connection to other people. __________________ "If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." - Anatole France

03-11-2004, 08:18 AM	#3 (permalink)
TheKak Insane Location: Virginia	I love reading, but I usually don't have as much time as I would like to do it. I recently started learning how to speed read, and I have to say it is one of most wonderful things I have ever learned how to do. Zoom through books with nearly 100% comprehension. I would recommend it to anyone that enjoys reading! (for reference, I bought Tony Buzan's "The Speed Reading Book", though I don't think it really matters how you learn). I read much more than I used to, and it has pretty much taken the place of playing video games for me since I can now get so much more out of books because I can get through them faster. I do agree though, with comsumers moving to the Internet to buy everything you could need, and even work on the internet from your home, it makes everything seem disconnected. __________________ Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a schizophrenic and so am I.

03-11-2004, 12:49 PM	#7 (permalink)
Yakk Wehret Den Anfängen! Location: Ontario, Canada	While I understand that people like to physically manipulate stuff, that doesn't mean the abstract world can't be as fulfilling. Thanks to the modern world, I can do things I personally find engaging and that I'm good at, and leave the rest to others. You don't have to be a consumer-aholic. I own a metric tonne of books, all but the latest and a few anomolies I've at least read half of, a 12 year old car, clothing, some old computer equipment, a DVD player, and points in a bank's computer that say I can tell people to cook food, put on plays, or do other things for me. Things don't excite me, they are more of a burdin than a boon: keeping track of them is annoying. The point is, you don't have to buy things. You don't need a shiny car. You don't need a big house. You don't even need to want a big house, a shiny car, or the latest gizmo on TV. Make a choice to not want them, and walk away from consumerism. If you want to make things physically, find a job (or two for variety!) that pays you to do this. And don't consume any more than you need, let the ads flow off your back. You should be able to earn many times your living expenses (no, really), so you can spend most of your life doing your hobbies. It is a choice. Most people seem to prefer the consumer path, but more power to them. __________________ Last edited by JHVH : 10-29-4004 BC at 09:00 PM. Reason: Time for a rest.

03-11-2004, 04:53 PM	#11 (permalink)
Thagrastay Crazy Location: Handrail, Montana	It was the Catholic CVhurch, not the Christian Church that held sway during the Dark Ages- please note the difference. Midieval times, whatever you may want to call them. Things truly began to come about with the advent of the printing press and the availability of the Bible to the common man and the breaking of the religious stranglehold the Pontiffs and their lapdogs held over the Europeans. Consequently, they had to branch out to Africa and South America to yoke the illiterate there in order to continue their dynasty. Nowadays, we really are left with nothing much in the way of personal satisfaction when it comes to our own achievements. And this is sad. Many people mock the Amish, but they do lead a rather exemplary life in that cloistered, austere way. There is much to be said for true adventure, as well as the finer and more available things in life, but then the question really becomes, I suppose, what is the thermometer for the real quality of living? __________________ "That's it! They've got the cuffs on him, he's IN the car!"

03-11-2004, 10:01 AM	#5 (permalink)
filtherton Junkie Location: In the land of ice and snow.	If it weren't for blind consumerism our economy would be in shambles.

03-11-2004, 12:01 PM	#6 (permalink)
Mantus lascivious	Ustwo, I think what he is saying is that despite all the achievement you listed the average human being hasn’t advanced much spiritually or culturally. Another words most people are still peons.

03-11-2004, 02:28 PM	#9 (permalink)
shakran Tone.	very interesting thread. Anyone see that PBS "reality" show (this one was actually real, instead of the fake crap the other reality shows put out) where they had several families try to make it out in the middle of nowhere living as the pioneers did? It was VERY interesting, and I think points to what this thread is (I think) really about. I don't think anyone's upset that we can buy gas to heat our house or that we can buy clothes and food instead of having to produce them ourselves. I think what people are upset about is that very few people work for themselves anymore. Most of our jobs involve enriching someone else. We get paid, but we have no satisfaction of having built/made/done something with our own hands that we then use ourselves. It's a more efficient system when you look at it from an economical standpoint, but it also goes against thousands of years of nature and evolution - something which is deeply ingrained in us and which we are now almost universally denying.

03-11-2004, 06:55 PM	#12 (permalink)
FleaCircus Insane Location: Denver, CO	How creative are the people in the few cultures left that still work on a hunter-gatherer subsistence kind of system? How much free time would you have left over in order to be creative, if you had to spend all your time growing food and making clothing and attending to all the necessities of life that are taken care of with a quick trip to the grocery store? How long would you live if you didn't have access to modern medicine (which goes hand in hand with industrialization)? __________________ "We must have waffles. We must all have waffles, forthwith. Oh, we must think. We must all have waffles and think, each and every one of us to the very best of his ability." -- Professor Goldthwait Higginson Dorr, Ph.D.

03-11-2004, 07:59 PM	#13 (permalink)
sexymama My own person -- his by choice Location: Lebell's arms	Whether one lives today or 100 years ago or 1000 years ago, the same struggles existed. People still had to/have to discover who they are, what is important to them, and how they connect to the bigger world/universe. Finding peace within will always be a struggle, no matter when in history we live. With that said, I do feel that it is important to tap into my creative side and to help my children tap into theirs. We all knit and crochet. We scrapbook too (which I find to be creative.) In the summer we pick fruit and berries to can, so that the kids will understand that not everything is bought at the store -- but comes from nature. One daughter has woven and died fabric. We all dance, sing, and have fun together. The TV is on very little in our house; but what we watch we watch and enjoy together. And we are happy -- at least I am -- because I know and love me and understand, at least today, what my "job" is here on earth and I have a good relationship with "the universe" (god, whatever you want to call it.) __________________ If you can go deeply into lovemaking, the ego disappears. That is the beauty of lovemaking, that it is another source of a glimpse of god It's not about being perfect; it's about developing some skill at managing imperfection.

03-15-2004, 07:53 AM	#14 (permalink)
Yakk Wehret Den Anfängen! Location: Ontario, Canada	Flea, the amount of free time has more to do with the load you put on your environment than on how you get your resources. During times with "easy food", hunter gatherer socieities would have lots of spare time. During times of "hard food", HG societies would have little free time. If your population was enough below the carrying capacity of the area, you would be able to walk out, kill a deer, bring it back, and with a bit of preservation eat for a week. Now, if you increase your population enough, you'll end up having to do more work to find deer, and more deer to feed your dependants. The 2nd deer per week will be harder to get than the first deer per week. You have to trade free time for production. Same thing nowadays: if you choose to live at or near your productive capacity, you will have little free time. If you choose to live far below your productive capacity, you will have lots of free time. __________________ Last edited by JHVH : 10-29-4004 BC at 09:00 PM. Reason: Time for a rest.