Legalised ecstacy: the true nature of consumer culture

Let me share with you a little sketch:

I am in my mid-20s, wearing nothing but black underwear, and banging out words on a laptop. A lit cigarette hangs out nonchalantly from my lips. I am thin, with great hair. To my right is a big bed with white sheets. In the bed is a devastatingly good looking guy, naked and asleep. He is a talented filmmaker/ actor/ editor. Like me, he is becoming increasingly known for his amazing work. His skinny black jeans have been thrown carelessly over a chair. We live in a spacious converted warehouse, in Surry Hills/ Brooklyn/ East London. There are many other creative types living on the other levels. Tonight we will go out and drink with them at hip bars until ungodly hours, and feel young and invincible.

This little dream is one that had been solidifying in my brain since I was about 13 years old. A vision that, over the years, grew more and more detailed, and seemingly more and more feasible. A fantasy that I now realise, is a total

SHAM.

Perhaps you have a little vision like mine. It might be quite similar, or very different. But most of us will have something, and it drives so many of the choices we make: the clothes we wear, the places we hang out, the work we do, the suburb we live in, the friends we make and people we date. It is a vision that is extremely tantalising because it is imbued with feelings of being sexy, loved and powerful – feelings that Freud would say are connected to deep, irrational, unconscious desires.

And guess what, it’s no accident that the vision is so seductive. If it wasn’t, capitalist democracy would be a smoking pile of ruins right now.

Advertising, aided and abetted by media, film, music and fashion have been playing a huge role in the capitalist machine. According to the excellent 2002 Adam Curtis documentary The Century of the Self, modern consumerism was the brainchild of Freud’s nephew Edward Bernays.

Bernays invented the public relations profession in the 1920s and was the first person to take Freud’s ideas to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn’t need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires. Bernays was one of the main architects of the modern techniques of mass-consumer persuasion, using every trick in the book, from celebrity endorsement and outrageous PR stunts, to eroticising the motorcar.

His most notorious coup was breaking the taboo on women smoking by persuading them that cigarettes were a symbol of independence and freedom. But Bernays was convinced that this was more than just a way of selling consumer goods. It was a new political idea of how to control the masses. By satisfying the inner irrational desires that his uncle had identified, people could be made happy and thus docile.

It was the start of the all-consuming self which has come to dominate today’s world. (Information Liberation)

And in the last 90 years, corporations have become more and more sophisticated at manipulating us. Even back in the 60s and 70s when university students attempted to break free from the system, corporate culture proved their resilience, inventing niche markets, lifestyles – individuality through customisation. Be alternative as you want, so long as it involves consuming things to express it.

It’s no surprise that with the demise of religion, consumer culture came rushing in to fill the moral vacuum. It’s the ultimate form of nihilism, right? Because if nothing really matters, I might as well just try and feel happy. Like, all the time. And there’s no happy drug quite like consumer culture. It’s like someone has pressed that little pleasure button in your brain, each time you buy that perfect dress, or bag that perfect apartment, or be seen strutting down Oxford Street with your oh-so-attractive friends. You’re so hot! You’re so talented! Everyone wants to know you. Everyone wants to be you. You OWN this city.

All of us, using credit cards to chase false idols of ourselves.

But now I want to break free. As I documented in this post, a couple of years ago my own vision began to falter. Slowly it is beginning to metamorphise into this:

I don’t see anything. Instead I am living a life in which I am very close to my friends, family and neighbours. We have warm, loving relationships, full of joy, discovery, laughter and intimacy, and we take very good care of one another. I am an engaged citizen, in contact with my local political representatives, as I fully believe that in a democratic country such as our own, the laws should reflect the wishes of the people. I live modestly, so only need to work part-time. It is work with integrity and commitment to making the world a better place. I enjoy nature, and learning about other cultures. I like to read books, go to theatre and gigs, and see art, free of advertising and the chase for cool, and that instead says something truthful, and with sincerity.

Good luck the capitalist system trying to exploit that dream!

***

Perhaps you feel it unfair and paranoid of me to denounce capitalism the way I have. After all, are corporations not made up of people, of us? Has it not been a highly effective machine, pulling us out of poverty, making us ‘happy’, providing us with all the modern conveniences that has given me time to write this very post? And darn it, isn’t having nice things fun?

Firstly, I wouldn’t be so critical of capitalism if it wasn’t for the fact that the environment is footing the bill. And Mother Nature is running out of steam. So clearly, this system is not sustainable. Nonetheless, maybe we don’t mind going out with a bloody bang, so long as the run-up was good times.

So, secondly, what I don’t like is that the kind of pleasure consumer culture gives me feels really hollow, and temporary. It is just like taking an ecstasy pill. A short term high, with a bitter comedown. And you never end up feeling fulfilled. New visions replaces the last. There is this perpetual anxiety of having to forever maintain those sexy/ popular/ powerful feelings. Like an addict, you must always get fresh “hits”.

But you know what, that’s just me. And who am I to say to everyone having a good time that they should feel differently? So at this point I’ve just decided to make personal changes – which does little for changing society as a whole.

Even if I did want to support larger, structural changes, I’m not yet educated enough to know what they should be. I mean with my currently limited knowledge, I can’t help but feel that the alternatives don’t look good. Other nation states offer authoritarian governments in which religion or nationalism is the opiate used to control the masses. Perhaps the answer lies in a more socialist democracy, rather than a capitalist democracy. And I’m definitely interested in reading more about the economists, politicians and writers working with that ideology.

For now, I am going to attempt to dodge the tainted brush of consumerism as best I can, in every aspect of my life, and support everything and everyone who does the same. Thankfully, I do believe society still leaves room for this. Corporate culture isn’t everywhere (yet). And perhaps, eventually, the entire thing will collapse, and from the rubble human ingenuity will come up with something more meaningful.