I like commodities, you like commodities; everyone likes commodities! How consumerism and individualism have changed society (with some minor digressions).

Tangled in a complex web of relational connections, consumerism and Western culture come as an inextricable pair. It is not only the West either that has been infected by the ethos of consumerism, oh no, but increasingly other traditionally non-Western regions too. One could be so bold as to say consumerism has transcended into some divine weltanschauung – a universal worldview. Like the industrial revolution that came before it, consumerism, and the concomitant process of consumption, is the next pivotal historical advancement; the latest epoch. Consumerism per se teasingly offers the consumer – that is, you, myself, everyone – the opportunity of unmitigated choice. This appearance of choice is but a masquerade of superficiality; indeed, it looks like choice, but on closer inspection, it is exposed for what it is: a rigid and preconceived array of commodities which have been conjured up to exude an aura of uniqueness and individuality. Environmentalists are mortally frightened of consumerism, and for good reason. At the very heart of the process is the premise of infinite consumption: not figuratively or metaphorically speaking, but quite literally (as illogical as that may be). It doesn’t necessarily have to be about quantity either, Western societies have created the normative belief that to become a recognised and respectable citizen, one has to, out of dire necessity, own a car (Mulgan, 1994) (p.48). Car ownership holds a recognition like no other commodity. It has even been subject to prosopopoeia, a special type of personification, in which something inanimate as a car is construed as a moving manifestation of sleekness or power – purchase a car, the promotion goes, and become powerful. Those under the spell of consumerism express a burning desire to search and seek the “ultimate good”. Of course, the paradox herein, is that when this supreme item has been located, a new desire is induced, and the previous commodity loses any appeal it once had. Round and round, this cycle self-perpetuates itself, in a cyclical motion; “an apparently endless pursuit of want” (Campbell, 1989) (p. 37). Diminishing returns kick-in, and for the next transient instance of consumption, there is a need for even greater quantities to derive the same amount of satisfaction as before. This mode of living has not suddenly materialised out of nowhere, without impetus or origin. Rather, it has been encouraged through Althusserian ideological state apparatuses (ISAs) –  particularly media and education – to inculcate the seeds of consumerism into our minds and, once they germinate, our actions too. 

The consumerist masses show little interest towards the true use-value of a given commodity, the intrinsic utility of it; but rather, give more heed to the items that are convincingly engineered to appear as appealing but are, nonetheless, devoid of satisfaction. People think they are doing one thing – purchasing a satisfying item – when in fact they are doing the complete opposite – setting themselves up for the consumer trap: the re-emergence of desire. On the surface, it is a self-liberating process; but deeper down, where it matters, it is a subtle act of subjugation to capitalist ideals (Passini, 2013). We coexist in a world in which people are willing to enter indebtedness all in the name of consuming the latest fad item. The virtue of long-sightedness is of no persuasion, as people take on debt even though it means, at some eventual point, they will have to sell their labour power as repayment. Insofar as this elusive satisfaction urges people to consume, there is a growing trend of shopaholics, those individuals which consume beyond their means (into credit servitude). Instantaneous self-gratification is what matters most to the consumer, even if this means infringes on the well-being of others. We are witnessing the rise of expressive individualism. As the name suggests, this variant of individualism wishes for creativity and uniqueness of the individual, based on self-expression and hedonism. There are clear overlapping features between consumerism and expressive individualism: both are premised on the expression of individuality, indeed, they could be perceived as complementarities. By believing the individual is everything – and this is hardly a novel observation – egoism, narcissism and selfishness increase in commonality. To be astounded and surprised by this finding is to forget the central tenant of individualism: that personal freedom is more important than equality. Even more radically, some describe the deification of the individual as a form of hyperindividualism, ‘‘characterized by (a) disconnection from society, but not from the self; individuals feel free to satisfy personal needs without considering the consequences of their actions on the rest of society’’ (Huang, Huang, & Syu, 2010) (p.42). The ultimate teleological end of consumerism, like most capitalistic processes, is profit, not friendship or civic bonds. It labels consumption with more importance than interactional human experience, crowding out social activity. When one desires self-gratification it is only natural of them to exhibit a disregard for the long-term; immediacy is everything. Through the prism of hedonistic-individualism, social relations are only worthwhile for their instrumentality to a feeling of self-gratification; as soon as this is realised, however fleetingly, these relations are discarded and forgotten. It is a mode of thinking predicated upon the assumption that “buying things and pre-packaged experiences” are the means to nirvana (Bocock, 1993) (p.50). To forget about the monotony of working life, those never-ending nine till five shifts, people are cunningly lured into the consumerist way of life. It has entered and colonised the leisure sphere in part, displacing the more communal activities with an outing to the shopping centre or its Americanised counterpart, the “mall”.

Before I proceed it is important to contemplate what exactly individualism is. Obviously it has something to do with the individual, acting autonomously in pursuit of their own personalised goals; in fact, that is pretty much all there is to it. Under individualism the individual is assigned a status of superiority, of integrality (Fischer, 2008). Its opposite, collectivism (the promotion of group coherence and action), is demoted to inferiority, which serves as an explanatory reason as to why individualism is cynical of, even hostile towards, the government. It comes back to Adam Smith’s invisible hand, of how a society controlled purely by the volitions of individuals will maximise societal well-being (Lehrer, 2001). Individualised as a society, politics is radically changed, moving in the direction of anti-institutionalism. Coincidental with these shifts towards individualism and consumerism is yet another, this time from materialism to postmaterialism (don’t worry these will be explained). In days gone by the sociological doctrine of materialism was deemed most appropriate for society, emphasising a high rate of economic growth and order in society. With these objectives in mind the government played an integral role in societal proceedings. Today, however, these materialist values have been left in antiquity, outmoded and inappropriate. Instead a more individualised set of beliefs have come to the fore, under the umbrella term of postmodernism. With this change the values of ‘self-expression, quality of life, freedom of speech, and self-determination’ have risen to preeminence (Halman, 1996). The dual forces of individualism and postmaterialism idolise individuality and self-expression, both of which can be altered through the medium of consumerism. Putting more emphasis on the individual works in the favour of consumerism, a process that is premised on the image of oneself, and how to better this image. If we flip the scenario upside-down, to one where collectivism and communitarianism predominate, an emphasis is placed on group-based activities; it would disrupt the business happy relations of today, as people will think of others rather than themselves, and will not feel reify their consumerist urges. When commentators refer to individualism as the “a basic right to individual autonomy. It means not having anyone tell us what to do, not having to listen if they do, not having to conform. It means having the capacity to make our own decisions, rather than simply living up to the expectations of community or fulfilling obligations to someone else” (Wuthnow, 1991)(p.12). From this perspective the perception of government dramatically changes from a caring overseer to a nosey repulsive oppressor – the implications of which will be discussed later. Individualism is not one unchangeable singular belief, indeed, it has various varieties. To digress slightly from the topic in discussion – consumerism – one such variant is utilitarian individualism. It assigns ultimate importance to personal interest, personal responsibility, accomplishment, and material success. Which means, by extension, a desensitisation towards other people’s woes, a sort of Darwinistic outlook on life – the attitude of “those with very little are usually deserving of their poverty” being characteristic of this belief. A society of self-interested utility-maximising individuals is one in which welfare programs are viewed as condoning indolence and idleness. People therefore hold no reservations about retrenching government payouts, as in their eyes the recipient is undeserving and parasitic. So for those wondering why there is a distinct lack of action against austerity, there is part of the reason. 

Individualism fits in nicely with consumerism in particular and capitalism more generally. One of the traits of individualistic folk is their preoccupation with how they compare against others; relative, not absolute, improvements take priority. They look at one another – their fellowman – as something to better, a symbolisation of competition. As a lifeform, competition is and always has been a necessary and inevitable characteristic of all conscious beings, ever since the dinosaurs graced the planet. Dominance was asserted through instinctive and often deadly violence. Today, in a world so utterly different, competition still ensues, but is battled through the avenue of materialistic possessions, of one’s superficial appearance – a slight difference, then. An individualistic society is one in which collectivism and communitarianism are lost; people, rather than cooperative and helping, are competitive and selfish. Stratified in our de facto social standings, each with a differing degree of materialistic conspicuity, we bequeath to the next generation, to our posterity, the values of narcissism. Stepping outside of this conformist way of thinking, and interacting with somebody of a different social standing is ab absurdo. In this sense, consumerism acts as a consolidative mechanism of a primitive class system, as it allows the rich to symbolise their wealth through the clothes they wear and the cars they drive. Consumers aim for self-gratification and self-worth through the medium of materialism, but only end up, counterproductively, inducing self-estranged tendencies – am I truly satisfied, is the question that bedevils the consumer’s mind. When I think about the current political, economic, and social climates – conservatism, neoliberalism, and postmaterialism - there is a clear relationship between all three ideologies and the widespread practice of fiscal cutbacks and austerity. On the one hand, government debt has been metamorphosed into some unbearable liability, that needs serving urgently, at all costs. Selling off publicly owned utilities is now on the discussion board. The revenue can then be used to tackle some of the government debt, as the proponents of privatisation smugly state. Everything is being turned over to the theology of profit, and it only weakens the citizen’s ability to escape the almost-claustrophobic confines of capitalism. Only a small minority are actively mobilising and standing against these large transfers of wealth; for the remaining majority, on the other hand, austerity and privatisation are seen in a more contrived light, making them indifferent towards this marginalisation of the government. There are two main problems inherent in the process of consumerism. On the one hand it is responsible for socialising whole populations into insatiable consumers, to the detriment of the environment principally, but also (paradoxically) to the participatory individual per se. (Paradoxically because they are forever unfulfilled, as consumerism self-perpetuates itself. It also destroys social cohesion and places the self above others). Then, on the other hand, it encourages an unconscionable misallocation of resources, away from genuine needs to frivolous and inessential ones. This climate of repugnance towards the government makes itself apparent in the stance taken by consumers when income taxation is in discussion. Following an announcement for heightened tax rates, there will be an uproar of hostility emanating from the followers of consumerism. On the contrary, people have been spoon-fed the belief that reduced tax rates – from the richest to the poorest – will allow for more consumption-derived pleasure (Wolff, 2006). The irony in all this, of course, is that the animosity towards the government, and the demand for lower tax rates, will affect the populace adversely in the form of lower government spending and vitiated amenities. There is nothing democratic about consumerism; only those with the requisite wherewithal can realise and indulge in the practice. There is a parasitic, self-reinforcing relationship between this fixation of consumption and free-market ideology. Those who subscribe to the former may not necessarily subscribe to the latter; the chances are though, is that, in fact, they do. The opposite of free-market ideology – governmentalism – has connotations with more extractive tax-rates, and thus, by implication, a coercive appropriation of one’s purchasing power (Schneiderman, 1998). Their ability to consume, in turn, is eroded away, which creates a justification – in the eyes of the devout consumer – for minimal government interventionism. Notwithstanding the obvious benefits of redistributive-purposed taxation – to help the less fortunate – the dual forces of consumerism and individualism have reduced empathy and sympathy to atrophy.

Through the unremitting bombardment of advertising and marketing, the human mind, out of sheer capitulation to informational overload, inculcates the values of consumerism. To become a bona fide consumer one has to inculcate a fixation with their bodily appearance; how one looks is the sine qua non of consumerism. This self-consciousness of one’s appearance can be changed (or ostensibly improved) through consumptive behaviour, through the purchase of yet more ultimately needless commodities (Bauman Z. , 1983). It is a temporary palliative, a brief but quickly extinguished moment of satisfaction, which turns into longing and unhappiness. In a world where commodified items control the actions and behaviourisms of whole populations, the marginalised non-commodified avenues to contentedness – socially cohesive practices, which emphasis communality and interaction – are ignored and sidelined (Bauer et al., 2012). That consumerism is painted in such beautiful(ly idealistic) colours, people do not feel overly concerned with being exploited to the extent that they are. It is a necessary and tolerable unpleasantry to acquire their wage to partake in “the paradise of shopping” (Ivanova, 2011). People do not view commodities as the product of labour, but as mere commodities; they overlook the exertion that was instrumental in their creation, dehumanising these objects of any prior human contribution. It comes back to what, in Marxist terms, is known as commodity fetishism. Self-expression, a consciously creative notion, has been misappropriated by consumerism and turned into something that is manifested in what one wears. It is inevitably exclusionary, and those without the purchasing power (or increasingly who have reached their upper credit limit) are alienated from this consumption-driven spectacle. This idea can be encapsulated into the saying: “I am = what I have and what I consume” (Fromm, 1976) (p.36). Producers, with their impressive array of marketing mechanism, manipulate people into purchasing goods, commodities, of no intrinsic value. Indeed this change marks a transition away from the subjectification to objectification of the consumer; from individuals being subjects within the consumerist process, to constitutive cogs, mere objects. Producers have hijacked positive abstractions – "success," "sophistication," "hipness," "independence," etc., - into concrete realisations through the medium of consumption (Morris, 2001). The representative values of commodities are now ordered in terms of subjective significance, with extrinsic values subordinating intrinsic ones. It comes back to what French sociologist, Jean Baudrillard, described as the “political economy of the sign”, a society wherein the connotative values of a good has primacy over its actual use value. As consumers, we would choose a “trendy, fashionable pair of trainers”, over another pair of superior durability, comfortability, and affordability. Consumerism is construed as a readily available avenue to the valorisation of individualised identity. Because consumption is underpinned by this over-obsessive fascination with sign values – of what something symbolises - the chances of reappropriation are slim. Consumerism, like most important practices, has its very own culture and ideology – “a coherent set of practices, attitudes and values, based on advertising and the mass media but permeating the whole social structure, that encourages ever expanding consumption of consumer goods” (p.260). It was Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci who famously formulated the notion of cultural hegemony, an instance in which the general populace assimilates the ruling party’s culture. On this qualification, therefore, consumerism can be seen as exhibiting hegemonic status. It is akin to a Ponzi scheme, a perpetual and hopeful game of creating new goods or services before the prior ones stultify.

To put a Marxist label on consumerism, and particularly its idiosyncratic culture-ideology, it would constitute a chunk of the superstructure (which is then constituted by a whole multitude of interactions, encouraging individuals, sometimes unwittingly, sometimes consciously, into the realm of consumerist “paradise”).  The process has also caught the attention of the Frankfurt School, with famous critical theorist, Herbert Marcuse, formulating the dichotomy of “true” or “false” needs, to distinguish between what is necessary, and what is merely desirable but inessential. From the above, it should hopefully be clear that the needs which consumerism depends on, which perpetuate its continuance, are the false ones. That the commodification of anything that is plausibly commodifiable is so successful, is because it brings about an extraneous and extrinsic satisfaction; it does not address intrinsic yearning, the wants that are of significance. To reiterate: consumerism is merely palliative, a soothing yet insufficient device to satisfy subproblems, the ones attached to the source of the discontentment. The fact consumerism is premised on the constant and unending consumption of materialistic items, may (though unlikely) be the cause of its undoing. Workers so fed-up with their ounce of purchasing power will demand, more and more ferociously, greater and greater wages, in the end creating the fermenting conditions for a working class revolt. And this isn’t just exaggerated scaremongering. This very situation – a proletarian revolution – was documented, in waves, during the year of 1989 across Eastern Europe (Bauman Z. , 1992) (p.170).

Psychology and consumerism pretty much go hand in hand. How the brain functions is important for the success and sustainment of consumerism. When our ‘biological needs’ are satisfied (to steal a phrase from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs), new desires are created, which are increasingly orientated towards materialist possessions. An iterative cycle of “dream, desire, acquisition, and disillusionment” is spawned (Migone, 2007), whereby consumers experience infatuation towards a particular good, only for unfulfillment to kick-in after purchase. In a society where the individual is most important, there is a need to openly exhibit one’s status. That there just happens to be an ideological force as consumerism which fits the criterion for this exhibition of individualism is suspiciously coincidental. Advertising is no longer restricted to aesthetics, but has moved into the psychological realm; it prizes itself in its ability to entrap the sensory neurons in the brain, those little receptors which light up ecstatically if prompted by something visually and psychologically appealing. In other words, advertising depends on the manipulation, both consciously and subliminally, of emotions (Cahill, 2001). The misery of others has been overexposed to such an extent that people are now desensitised to these systemic problems (a worrisome thought in itself). We don’t find homelessness emotive anymore, but new avant-garde fads; this, increasingly, is the only time emotion emerges to the fore. Emotionless as a population, the term post-emotionalism has been coined, to describe a society in which emotion is only evoked by artificial, not natural, stimuli; where “synthetic, quasi-emotions become the basis for widespread manipulation by self, others, and the culture industry as a whole” (p.14) (Mestrovic, 1997). Marketing specialists understand the basics of how the human brain functions, and more importantly what triggers its stimulation. It is these triggers that are being activated by marketing ploys in order to compel an impulsive purchase (Behr, 2010). Hunger being one example of these triggers, a fact that has not gone unnoticed by food producers. To artificially stimulate the viewer’s brain, into an impromptu desire for food – their actual hunger notwithstanding – promotions now use subliminal messages to instigate this reaction. As a process, consumerism is funny for the fact that it turns out-of-reach luxuries, one day, into necessitates, the next (Gummer and Goldsmith 2007: 41). Instrumental to this necessitation is the clever but manipulative psychologically-driven marketing techniques of entities who are responsible for the never-ending supply of consumer items – profit-hungry corporations and their equally as profit-hungry shareholders. A Frankfurt School perspective pairs mass culture – i.e. consumerism – with mass deception; of how consumption is antithetical to true liberation and autonomy – the very thing it promises to provide. Through a joint effort between advertisers and the media, this falsity has been systematised and reinforced until an uncritical acceptance prevails. From an early age, the collective tabula rasa of millions of children is socialised into one in which consumerism is considered the norm, something ordinary. To expand on this point about advertising, there is a clear and positive relationship between overexposure to marketing and consumerism. We have identified consumption as a process which provides gratification, something that allows the consumer to temporarily forget about the dissatisfaction of the workplace. It is an effective device at diverting attention away from the capitalist system, away from questioning its morality, its fairness, its inclusiveness. These two environments – the consumer and working milieux – depend on one another for their continued existence. The ease by which the wage-provider can justify a small wage is, in part, because of consumerism. To venture into the hedonistic paradise of consumption, the employee is willing to accept any wage. That is one half of the duality. The other half – how working perpetuates consumerism – relates closely to the prior point about tiny remuneration. If the worker only has little disposable income, the entry into the perfectionistic consumerist world can only ever be infrequently. What I mean to say, more straight-to-the-point-ly, is that the worker does not experience any significant diminishing marginal returns. If everybody were filthy rich, then consumerism would quickly become sucked of any excitement it once had, into a void of mundanity.

Conspiracy theories are typically laughed away as not being worthy of rebuttal. But some, indeed this one, are worth considering. Thinking about how low wages are prolonged one begins to question why are they so depressed; the economy is growing, so why is this not reflected in rising wages? This leads me to believe that low wages are artificially (though subtly) preserved by those with vested interests. What justification do I have for this claim? Nothing but simple intuitive reasoning. As the economy acclimatised into the suffocating climate of neoliberalism, there was a reorientation in policy: what became important was financial services, not the traditional backbone of any economy, manufacturing. With this growing dependence on financialisation the economy was flooded with cheap credit, which at a time when consumption underpinned by debt became  condonable (coincidence?), encouraged people into indebtedness. Once this choice was made, and those with a perfect credit record gave up this pristine status for that of a debtor, people were entrapped, legally, within the capitalist system. They have a reason to behave and be an exemplar to all others seeking to be a emotionless citizen; debt negates the inner feelings of dissent.

The next point requires citing yet another French sociologist, Emile Durkheim, who wrote extensively on the relationship of society and individuals, on the one hand, and society and communities, on the other. What he found was that within an individualistic society, and even more so in one that emphasises money (i.e. under capitalism), social relations degenerate from their seemingly irreducible natural state to a less organic, even inorganic, form. To recalibrate the disorientation of society, consumption as a leisurely process was introduced. Those that were on the verge of, or suffering from, anomie found purpose again in life; to become a proud and pious consumer. Consumerism has only built upon its initial strength, to establish itself as something that is taken as normal, so normal in fact that to renounce consumption is to create grounds for one’s marginalisation (Migone, 2007). It is this aspect – of how those that are indifferent towards consumerism consume regardless, in fear of marginalisation – that could go some way to explaining the intensity by which people have chosen to enslave themselves to credit. Income inequality is one of the major 21^st century problems, alongside an ecological crisis and scarily unpredictable geopolitical tensions (more so the former, though). The attention that income inequality ought to warrant, for its severity and damaging implications, is evidently nowhere close in reality. People do not necessarily turn a blind eye to the problem, but are content with the current trend as long as their access to consumerism is not precipitously curbed. In this post-Fordist and globalised world, labour markets have been deeply restructured to take account for the flexible needs of producers. Workforces hold little bargaining power when it comes to wage discussions; which at a time when job insecurity is rising, along with longer working hours, is a lamentable sight. That consumerism is predicated upon the commodification of practically everything, in this respect, it is highly reductionist; it reduces everything to the level of the commodity (Beabout & Echeveria, 2002). The entry into the consumerist sphere is only permitted on the strict condition that one has the sufficient wherewithal; to acquire this wherewithal, of course, one has to work; and by working one is essentially exchanging their labour power for, in effect, an admission ticket into this shopping wonderland. Between this relationship exists a paradox: the worker is trying with all their effort and determination to realise that feeling of liberation which consumerism ‘brings’, but at the same time, is made ever more dependent and subjugated to their wage-provider.

Liberty, the brother of individualism, places a heavy emphasis on the individual, and their self-sustaining powers. Ever since feudalism, when classical thinkers such as John Locke and Thomas Hobbes wrote their treatises on liberalism and the invasive state, liberty has been accorded more and more value. Of course some question whether this liberty is indeed for everybody, or just for the wealthy; is it one standard for all, or merely a subtle instance of double standards? It is a point that Marx and Engels found to be true: ‘from the moment when individual property can no longer be transformed into bourgeois property, from that moment, you say, individuality vanishes. You must, therefore, confess that by “individual” you mean no other person than the bourgeois’ (Marx & Friedrich, 1848). Marx was no denialist when it came to whether individuality was present in society; he accepted this fact. It was to whom, or rather to what, this individuality was assigned that he was sceptical of. Capital, Marx believed, was the only thing with true individuality; to capture capital (and become a capitalist) was therefore the only possible route to individuality. Without capital one has to offer their labour to a capitalist, thus forfeiting individuality and autonomy. In this era, government played an important but minimalist role: to maintain a relation were the employer can employ workers freely, and employees can choose employment freely. There was a certain freedom in their behaviour, workers were not coerced into a place of work. But when the choice of employment ranged from being fully exploited to slightly less so, what this revered freedom bought was drudgery and toil. There are means to overcome this vulnerability, namely to unionise together and demand a higher wage. But even unionisation was to compromise individual freedom – on the side of the capitalist; they would no longer hold the ability to dictate and set an appropriate price tag (in their eyes) on labour. In the times that these debates were first sparred, and indeed also today, when liberal individualism is once again pervasive, if the government was to (mis?)appropriate the wealth of capitalists it would be derided as an attack on one’s inalienable freedom. This was until John S Mill postulated his views on individualism and, specifically, the permissibility of the capitalist to accumulate and accumulate wealth. At this juncture Mills diverged away from the (by now) conventional truisms, highlighting the unfairness of how the capitalist contributes very little but feels entitled to such substantial remuneration; ‘independently of any trouble or outlay incurred by themselves. They grow richer, as it were in their sleep, without working, risking, or economizing’ (Mill, 2004) (p.220). By merely owning the factors of production the capitalist was able to, not out of his own wit, intellect, or perseverance,  extract the surplus value from their overworked labour force; indeed this surplus value came to be known as ‘unearned income’. Mills, to the disgust of fellow liberals, was sympathetic towards the appropriation of capital from capitalists, if it clearly derived from ‘unearned income’. The argument was that, if the capitalist is merely profiting from their monopoly price or because they own the factors of production, and in turn benefits from ‘unearned income’, they are not actually qualified to accumulate this wealth (O'Flynn, 2012). The problematic nature of individualism stems from the fact that, when everybody thinks and acts in solely their self-interest, individual rights and liberties are given primacy while duties and responsibilities are attenuated and neglected (Passini, 2013). Conflicts quickly arise between what is optimal for the individual, on the one hand, and what is optimal for others, on the other. All that matters is one’s individuality, and its improvement. Opportunities may indeed present themselves, to assist others in their quest of realising individuality, but despite the altruistic satisfaction from these acts of benevolence, they are ignored and avoided.

Does this theory push the bounds of realism too far, or is it reflective of reality?

While writing this piece it did strike me, not once but on a number of occasions, about whether the theory and critiques of consumerism are just the paranoid ramblings of some past anti-capitalist; whose thought processes were preprogramed to blame the capitalist system for all societal problems. Is this self-perpetuating circle of consume, unfulfillment, on a constant repeat cycle representative of the real world? People may not admit to behaving in this mechanistic manner, as it will appear imperceptibly to them; this imperceptibility is after all the beauty of modern day advertisement. That is not to deny the existence of this circulatory cycle, just that it will be expressed in more agreeable terms, that will go by unnoticed and not warrant a second glance. If people consciously knew they were being patronised and tricked into purchasing items that will, at some later point, become undesirable, then encouraging consumption in the first place would become an impossible task. What first comes to mind are fads and fashions. Indeed the motion by which consumption trends goes along in concert with the latest fads and fashions would suggest this analysis to be correct. Ask somebody do they follow these short-lived fads, and the likelihood of a yes is much higher than when asked are they manipulated by their favourite clothing designers. Importantly, though, they are both synonymous, and by answering yes to second question, they are, albeit indirectly, answering yes to the first one too.

Consumerism and the environment together just does not work. In fact attempting to reconcile the differences between the two is tantamount to assuaging the restiveness of two hyperactive and obstinate children who both want the same thing; there is no compromise. To protect the environment, consumers need to internalise the values of sustainability and ethicality. But these conflict with what consumerism espouses: an endless excess of consumption. In the end it comes down to one question: as an intelligent species do we care and value for environment the most, or that pair of trainers over there? The answer, as far as I see it, is self-evident; but then again, in an individualised society there is a disconnection between one’s actions and the wider implications upon the environment. That this mode of thinking pervades the consumerist society makes this important task particularly (though not insurmountably) difficult.

To draw this discussion to a close it is worthwhile to touch on the effects of an individualistic, consumerist society. Instead of valuing people for their non-materialistic virtues – their personality, their morality, their altruism – people regulate their human interaction in terms of what one wears, drives, or even how one looks. And given the selectivity with where nudism is permitted, there is no alternative to a clothes-cladded society. That people judge others on these superficial and largely unrepresentative variables is typical of the quintessential consumer in today’s world. Only by putting these what amount to pointless and pretentious differences aside will a more integrative, empathetic and sympathetic society arise. Until then, expect more narcissism, selfishness, and general disregard for other people – including yourself (sorry!).

If you enjoyed what you've just read, could you be so kind as to press the g+1 a little further down. It means I will appear closer to the first page when somebody types, for example, a related search into Google, which given the fact I rely wholly on Facebook groups would be massively helpful for exposure. :)

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