Thursday, January 18, 2007

Consumerism - orig. 07/28/05

Let’s talk for a second about what consumerism has done for “Family Values”. Although some may argue that feminism has brought women in to the work force, (This may be true. I don’t know much about feminism.) I would argue that it has also become a consumeristic imperative. I would argue (with no research to back this up mind you) that the capitalistic marketing model is forcing us to allow institutions to raise our children (I believe that the majority of classrooms have commercial television now). Parents also seem to have little energy left for parenting. (Children demand an incredible amount of energy and attention.) Which means that more and more children are being raised by television which is run by marketing. It is a vicious loop that demands the next generation be raised in the same manner. I remember when commercial advertising first appeared on the walls in my public high school.

Consumerism is, I believe, an addiction fostered by the marketing machine. “The Corporation,” discusses ideas including “created wants” and a “philosophy of futility”. The idea is that first you must make an individual feel worthless e.g. I’m not good enough, I’m not pretty enough, I’m not smart enough. Then you sell a person a product that will fix them. Unfortunately, the fix is an illusion. The person feels better briefly after the purchase of a product, (whether it works as advertised or not) but the feeling of futility must return such that the consumer will purchase future products. Is it any wonder that the US and the world has epidemic problems in regards to drug addiction and alcohol addiction.

I don’t know if I heard this on TV or in one of the books I have been reading that 70% of the German population is depressed.

(One of my favorite commercials right now is for screensavers that promise to make your life better.)

I have found lately that when I do something that I feel is moral (I am talking about a humanistic morality) I feel good. When I do something that goes against my personal morality I feel bad. Seems simple.

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Let us not get distracted however. The issue we should be concerned with is, “the decline of every natural system on Earth”. I believe this concern should supersede every other issue or agenda. The problem, as it has been pointed out to me, is systemic and should be addressed on every level.

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I received two copies of “The Corporation,” today. I just watched it with a friend of mine. I didn’t want her to watch it alone as it is a heavy film. I also gave her a copy of the film that she is obliged to pass on and sent her the URL to this blog. Watching "The Corporation," brought up a lot of issues, but I tried to keep our focus on what I believe is the main issue (see above).

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I really like the interviews with Ray Anderson, CEO, Interface, who is working on making the carpet manufacturing company that he heads 100% sustainable. One of the things he mentioned is “Greenwash” which is when a company tells you what it intends to to as opposed to what it is doing. I have been guilty of this in my blog. I have rationalizations for this, but I will try to stick to telling you what I am doing not what I intend to do.

This is a process. I am still a product of my culture. I want it all and I want it now. There are not enough hours in the day. There are not enough years in a lifetime etc.

I still worry that Ray Anderson doesn’t take the idea far enough however. His idea is that his company would retain ownership of the product while providing a service to the customers. His company would install and maintain the carpet then retrieve it for reuse when it could no longer be maintained or became unwanted by the customer. I worry however that the company would still be manufacturing a product that’s durability is such that it cannot be reincorporated by the biosphere. I don’t know if this is the case or not, but it brings up the issue of durability.

We strive to create products that are durable. You wouldn’t want your frying pan decomposing while you are trying to cook with it. It seems oxymoronic that the products would also be designed with “planned obsolescence” built into them and manufactured in such a way that they would break easily and need to be replaced. The problem with durability though is that the durability of these objects makes it such that they cannot be reintegrated into the biosphere. Even firing clay creates objects that it takes thousands of years break down. (The main teacher that I worked with during my student teaching liked to tell a story about her instructor smashing one of her pieces because he didn’t feel that it was worthy of existing for 10,000 years or some such thing.)

Maybe we could stop creating objects from scratch and only work with non-destructible materials from wastes that we have already created. Or become accustomed to a world where products are designed to decompose naturally. This might actually be great news for a disposable society.

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It seems that one issue the film has with corporations is that they are amoral. They are not moral, they are not immoral, but as institutions they have no morality.

This doesn’t ring quite true to me now. It brings me back to situational ethics. Corporations have a morality just not a humanistic morality. They are ethically and legally obligated to generate revenue for their shareholders which is a form of morality, but it is also very abstract does not take into account the impact to life other than the immediate economic success of it’s stockholders.

No institution that’s bottom line is the generation of revenue can have any interest in a restorative economy unless and until restorative business practices become revenue generators or the bottom line is changed.

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I think that the point of view of situational ethics is a very compassionate one. It allows me to believe that men in power, who are making what I consider to be terrible decisions, are not evil and as such can be affected on a humanistic level.

Here is evil as defined by dictionary.com:

e·vil :twisted:
adj. e·vil·er, e·vil·est
1 Morally bad or wrong; wicked
2 Causing ruin, injury, or pain
3 Characterized by or indicating future misfortune; ominous
4 Bad or blameworthy by report; infamous
5 Characterized by anger or spite; malicious


My personal favorite episode of "Heroic Endeavors".

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Let’s take a look at Union Carbide and Bhopal, India for a second. (I am using that situation as an example just for the sake of discussion.) In 1984 in Bhopal, India there was a gas leak that killed 20,000 people. Corporations have the same rights as people under the laws of the US and yet are not held to the same levels of accountability. I guarantee that if I were responsible for the deaths of 20,000 people I would be hunted down, tried and executed. Union Carbide is still operational. I know this because I just went to their Web site. On the front page was a graphic showing a bunch of grapes.

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I heard on the news today about tax cuts related to the conservation of energy. I think it is interesting that the tax cuts were all based on the purchase of new products.

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Do you remember the guy that killed himself when Bush was elected president. I believe that he was overtaken by futility. I also believe that he made a mistake. If his beliefs were so strong that he would take his own life then we need his voice more than his martyrdom especially since without clout his actions were written off as a crazy. Unless you have the personal magnetism and political influence of Ghandi or the monk who burned himself during the Vietnam War then the goal of a restorative economy is better served by adding your voice than it is by martyrdom.

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My goal is to help affect the situational ethics of our culture and our businesses in order to bring them in line with humanistic values. I believe that this is what is required in order for us shift to a restorative economy.

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Can you run electricity to a mud hut? I bet you can.

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I haven’t talked very much about global warming (the greenhouse effect) yet. The second part of “Race to Save the Planet,” deals with this issue. Paul Hawken also brings it up in The Ecology of Commerce, The agents cited as the root causes in the theory of global warming are CO2 (a byproduct of burning coal, oil and gas), chloro fluoro carbines (There are to many products to list and I am not sure where we stand as far as the reduction of the production of CFC’s) and methane which comes from cattle (cow farts and belches?), rice paddies and leaks from coal mines.

The fear is that the climate could shift so rapidly that natural systems will not be able to compensate. One of the big worries is that the polar ice caps will melt releasing vast stores of methane that will even more greatly increase the rate of climactic change.

Rising water levels could have substantial impact on human and animal life. The temperate regions could shift such that the areas that are currently perfect for growing crops will become unsuitable for that purpose which could lead to worldwide food shortages.

I caught a newsbite from Nigeria, (I think. I could be wrong, but the location is not actually the point.) where they interviewed a citizen who said that he had to fight for everything [food and water]. “The Corporation,” documents a city in Brazil where the citizens had to rise up in order to regain their right to water. Water is a basic human necessity. No company should have the right to deny water to any individual who needs it in order to sustain their life. (I do not think that companies should be extended this same right in order to water golf courses or whatever. Why are we growing lawns in deserts?)

I do not want to have to fight for food or water. I do not want my children or your children to have to fight for food and water.

We need to reduce the generation of “greenhouse gases”. Fuel efficiency, energy efficiency and reforestation can all help. (Fuel efficiency doesn’t mean buying an SUV.)

I, personally, have not eaten meat since October of 1996 (which, for you nitpickers, is not to say I haven’t slipped and had the occasional taste of bacon or slice of pepperoni pizza). I stopped eating meat for no other reason than that I wasn’t eating much red meat and then I moved in with a couple of vegetarians who encouraged me to stop altogether. I do recall however, hearing in a class about 14 or 16 years ago, that cattle generate 25% of the world’s methane. That’s a lot of gas.

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I had some friends who recently spent some time in Chile. They told me that the people in Chile don’t go out during the height of the day because of the thinness of the ozone layer over Chile.

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Beware of half-measures. Half-measures have the potential to make us complacent at the cost of the ball game. If you have to rationalize your actions you may be dealing in half measures.

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Lead by example. I am attempting to reduce my consumption not because I believe it will resolve the solid waste issue. I am not riding my bike for my health. I am trying to show that it is possible to affect a significant change in my life such that others can feel confident that they are also able to make necessary changes. Companies and governments are made up of individuals. You may be such an individual. You can affect a change in your life and in the institution for which you work.

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Are you bored at work? Are there times when you don’t have enough to do at work? Instead of doing what you would normally do to entertain yourself in these moments take that time to brainstorm. How can you affect a change?

Then, take action. Let me repeat that: Take Action!

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I just sent my blog URL out to another friend who may be ready for it. If you know someone who may be ready to view this blog please forward the URL to them.

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