In our consumerist society Mass-Marketing and the Mass-Media's exploitation of the susceptible forms of human mentality form an irresistible combination in their ability to manipulate behavior.
Multinational Corporations now dominate every aspect of our lives. They are the masters of the economies, the driving force of globalization and the super-exploiters of underdeveloped nations. Along with the Mass-Media they are the manufacturers of "lifestyles" and increasingly the determinants of art and culture the world over. They are among the most powerful political forces of our time.
Our cultures are being homogenized into a 'Society Of Materialism' where monetary wealth is the symbol of ambition & respect and people are regarded as a successful person by the amount of wealth they possess (regardless of how the money is attained). As a result we have entered into a vicious cycle based on greed, selfishness & competition.
Consequently most people are encouraged to conceptualise their ultimate success & happiness to be a result of financial wealth, materialistic possessions and the achievement of 'status'. We are increasingly encouraged to define ourselves through external materialistic things – what we do, what we own, how much we earn. We are constantly being told not to be satisfied with what we've got & are encouraged to always want for more.
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For some sections of the worlds population the "advantages" of 2,000 years of western civilization are familiar enough: an increase in wealth, in food supply, in scientific knowledge, in consumer goods, in physical security, in life expectancy and economic opportunity. What is perhaps less apparent and more perplexing is the way that these material advances have gone hand in hand with the phenomenon of a rise in depression and 'status anxiety' among western citizens, by which is meant a rise in levels of distress about importance, achievement, income and materialistic acquisitions. Whole populations "blessed" with material riches have shown a remarkable capacity to feel that both who they are and what they have is not enough.
These feelings of deprivation may not look so peculiar, however once we consider the psychology behind the way we decide what is enough. Our sense of an appropriate limit to anything - for example, to wealth and material possessions - is never decided independently. It is arrived at by comparing our condition with that of a reference group (our 'peers'), and, increasingly (and more effectively) through what we read and view in the mass-media in the form of consumerist propaganda and advertising. In the Consumer Age it is this which is largely responsible for fueling our material lusts & desires in the (false) promise that the acquisition of certain items and experiences will allow us to find happiness.
Criticisms of the 'ideals' of consumer society have focussed not only on the short-comings and inadequacies of products, but also, more fairly perhaps, on the distorted picture of our needs that ensues from the way these products are presented to us. Advertisements now bombard every minute of our lives (the average person in the Western World is exposed to thousands of advertisements a day). Advertisers therefore have great control over the consumer, and in their research, they have found ways which they can manipulate behavior through hidden needs in the human psyche, such as the need for status amongst our peers. They also know what gets our attention, such as images of a sexual content, and they know how to use their research to affect our purchasing and consumption behavior . With their massive budgets, advertisers can use this knowledge to break down any consumer barriers.
Through consumerist propaganda and advertising, products can appear "essential", and "blessed" with extra-ordinary powers to bestow happiness on us. We are tempted to believe that the accumulation of certain possessions and 'experiences' will guarantee us enduring satisfaction and complete contentment. We are led to imagine ourselves scaling the steep sides of the cliff face of happiness to reach a wide, high plateau on which to continue our lives; we are not reminded that soon after reaching the "summit", after acquiring a product or experience, we will be called down once again into the fresh lowlands of consumer anxiety and desire, in the pursuit once more of materialistic gratification. It seems that citizens are conditioned to pursue this unending consumer cycle, in the hope of finding happiness, without realizing that the consumer cycle is inherently flawed - and it is not an adequate means to finding happiness. Because the price we pay for desiring so much is a lifetime of perpetual anxiety that never ceases despite what we do manage to acquire or achieve.
Adapted and based on extracts from 'Status Anxiety', Alain De Botton, Hamish Hamilton (Penguin Group), 2004
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Philosopher and teacher Vincent Cespedes has written several books about the impact of advertising on people and said that the thousands of advertisements that the average person in the Western World is exposed to is feeding greed, alienation and depression. http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=featuresNews&storyID=4528908§ion=news
American
Psychologist Tim Kassar also showed how this is detrimental to our well-being
by demonstrating that"people
who are primarily motivated by ‘materialism’, [which in this
case means the pursuit of power, status, wealth and possesions] are much
more likely to be unhappy in almost every respect, including being less
healthy than those who remain resolutely un-materialistic"
Psychologist, Oliver James, Author of 'They Fuck
You Up', has also proved that increasing affluence has no impact on whether
or not you are likely to be happy. His research also showed that
"a 25 year old today is 5-10 more times likely
to suffer from depression compared to a 25yr old in the 1950's".
The wider implications of this argues James, is
that "the dominant values of Western
Society are almost literally programming us to be unhappy".
http://www.greenfutures.org.uk/text/features/default.asp?id=1702
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The essence of the charge made against 'The ideal of Modern Consumer Society' is that it is guilty of a gigantic distortion of priorities, of elevating to the highest level of importance a process of material accumulation which should only be a small proportion of the many things determining the direction of our lives under a more truthful, more broadly defined conception of living a fulfilled and contented life..
In 'Discourse on the Origin of Inequality' Jean-Jacques Rousseau's argument hung on the thesis about wealth: that wealth does not involve having many things. It involves having what we long for. Wealth is not absolute. It is relative to desire. Every time we seek something that we cannot have, we grow poorer, whatever our resources. And every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually own. Therefore We may be happy with little when we have come to desire little. And we may be miserable with much when we have been taught to desire everything.
'Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind,' wrote Thoreau, adding, in an attempt to upset his society's connection between owing things and being honourable, 'Man is rich in proportion to the amount of things he can do without'.
Adapted and based on extracts from 'Status Anxiety', Alain De Botton, Hamish Hamilton (Penguin Group), 2004
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'We may distinguish both true and false needs. "False" are those which are superimposed upon the individual by particular social interests in his repression: the needs which perpetuate toil, aggressiveness, misery, and injustice. Their satisfaction might be most gratifying to the individual, but this happiness is not a condition which has to be maintained and protected if it serves to arrest the development of the ability (his own and others) to recognize the disease of the whole and grasp the chances of curing the disease. The result then is euphoria in unhappiness. Most of the prevailing needs to relax, to have fun, to behave and consume in accordance with the advertisements, to love and hate what others love and hate, belong to this category of false needs.'
Herbert Marcuse, ONE-DIMENSIONAL MAN. STUDIES IN THE IDEOLOGY OF ADVANCED INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY (1964)
Those promoting the Ideal of Modern Consumer Society, such as those involved in advertising and the mass-media, have taken a firm hold on our daily lives. They take advantage of the vulnerabilities in our minds, and have unparalleled resources to manipulate and target a specific weakness in us. Once the group or collective conscious is programmed into what has been called culture, virtually any bill of goods can be sold at conscious levels. Politicians or private companies can use advertising and mass-media propaganda to sway votes one way or the other. They can muffle outcries against a war. What can you do to protect yourself? Knowledge. Knowledge that others are trying to influence and control you, and that you can fight back.
Adapted from Dr. Lechnar, Subliminal Advertising, 20th Century Brainwashing