The modern mania for money and material possessions might be
argued to be the greatest addiction in the history of the human race. I suspect
it might even be definable as a neurosis. There are those who think it’s just
the natural result of a growing egalitarian ethic. I suspect differently; I
suspect it’s been manufactured by the system to put a great deal of wealth into
the hands of a very small number of people.
The result, of course, is that we have the majority of
people living in developed cultures constantly striving for more. That’s what
they’ve been conditioned to strive for; a permanent state of wanting is now
largely taken for granted as being the only way to live.
So what happens if you become one of the tiny minority who
go over the watershed and have more money than you could ever hope to spend? Do
you become painfully aware of the converse maxim to ‘When you’ve got nothing,
you’ve got nothing to lose?’ Does your maxim become ‘When you’ve got
everything, you’ve got nothing to want?’ And do you then wonder what it was all
about?
Shouldn’t we be taking life in a different direction than
this?
2 comments:
Agreed 100% my good sir. We are absolutely fed to believe that we need these things because our system of production and economy cannot survive without more and more consumption and demand. Everything becomes commodified, and people become more concerned with who they are based on what they own and purchase; you buy your way to being who you want to be, you buy your language, you buy your culture, you buy your job. Our mall here has a kiosc from which you can buy air from.
One day it won't work anymore and the system will fall, and society will have to take a big step back and really figure out where their values lie and what really matters.
I could easily go on and on about this because it drives me mental, but I'm sure I don't need to. Our minds tend to float in the same boat.
I could go on and on, too. I was thinking about TV shopping channels today, and it seemed to me that thay're the third stage in a process:
Stage 1: Provide retail outlets for people to buy what they've already decided they want or need (as it was during the Age of Reason.)
Stage 2: Make and market things that you feel confident of being able to persuade people to want, then pay advertising executives massive salaries to do the persuading. (And explain to people that ad execs are valuable members of society because they 'drive the economy.')
Stage 3: When you've brainwashed the masses into believing that life is all about wanting things, create a load of TV shopping channels so that said masses can pass their time usefully engaged in FINDING something to want.
At that point the rest of us fall about laughing, until we realise that this whole process has some dire consequences following in its insane little wake.
And I've thought for years that that the balloon of economic growth will have to burst one day, and that things will get a bit unpleasant for a while until we've sorted out a more sensible way to exist.
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