Consumerism
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The dominant message found in all the
corporate ads is BUY, BUY, BUY. The collective impact of this
message has had its effects over the past fifty years of
intimately linking
our most basic needs to consumer items and channelling all our
energies into the marketplace. Henry Ford, who introduced the Model T in 1909, probably would have died of a stroke if he had looked into a crystal ball and seen the May, 1973 issue of Playboy, which featured a pictorial on sex and the automobile. In the photo-spread we see a woman, apparently in ecstasy, stroking a steering wheel. The editors of Playboy seem to think that the automobile was primarily invented to get sex off the porch swing and on to wheels. Possibly so, but Ford basically wanted to produce effort-saving and practical cars for ordinary people like himself. Even if the first car on the road did more than just revolutionize transportation, Playboy shows us that in our modern world people driving thier "babies" don't always need human beings to love. We might also add that if Cotton Mather, a true spirit of Orthodox Protestantism, who viewed business as a vital calling and a part of religion, had foreseen the future development of huge religious amusement parks he probably would not have been so eager to sprinkle holy water on economic success. The early American was continuously blasted by the aphorisms, verses, lectures, or fables of the great apostles of individualism. Benjamin Franklin, for example, spent much of his life talking about his rise from obscurity to affluence. One must add Ralph Waldo Emerson to this group, as well as Phineas T. Barnum. Both praised the virtues of material success. Perhaps more than anyone else, Horatio Alger is responsible for the American rags to riches saga. In his 135 books, he always portrayed his hero as someone who achieved success through his diligence, honesty, perseverance, and thrift. If you worked hard and saved your money you succeeded. Despite the ideology of the self-made man, the last decade of the nineteenth century, and certainly the early years of the twentieth were increasingly difficult times for American culture. The growing American corporations appeared to be slowly changing the criteria for personal success. Henry Ford was able to maintain a commanding lead over his competitors by simply offering his customers the fundamental assurance that his cars would get them to their destination and back. After the basic mechanical features of the automobile became more reliable and production problems were overcome, the consumer needed an innovative jab. In 1927, when General Motors introduced the LaSalle, the first "styled" car, Ford lost his number-one position. Henry wanted back in and came out with his restyled Model A. We all know what has happened since. As corporate development mushroomed, the consumer increasingly became a passive observer of the technological process, but at the same time he also became more of a challenge for the producers' selling imagination. In 1900 there wasn't any American magazine with a circulation approaching a million. By 1947 there were at least forty-eight. Readers Digest, with a circulation of over 9 1/2 million in 1951, along with its competitors bombarded readers with incentives to work harder and harder in order to buy more and more goods. The work-to-buy ethic was being generously instilled into the American consciousness. The Gospel of Success was being democratized. This essentially meant that since everyone was being sold on the illusion that opportunity for success was equal, everyone was fair game. Vance Packard was not the first to attack the Great Success Story. When The Hidden Persuaders was published in 1957, however, public attention was more aroused than ever. Packard heavily documented his argument that two-thirds of America's largest advertisers had geared their campaigns to a depth approach, using strategies inspired by what was called motivation analysis. Consumers were seen as bundles of daydreams with hidden yearnings, guilt complexes, and irrational emotional blockages. Using research techniques that were designed to reach the subconscious mind, it was hoped that advertising would mass-produce customers for the Corporations just as he Corporations mass-produced products. Packard tells of a scene from Lorraine Hansberry's Broadway play, A Raisin in The Sun, in which the son, a reflection of modern ideas, cries out, "I want so many things, it drives me crazy ... Money is life!" The task of the motivation man was to carefully sort out what drove this young man crazy and package the solutions into pretty bottles and boxes. Packard raised very disturbing questions about the kind of society these manipulators were creating through their ability to contact millions of people through the mass media. He questioned the morality of playing upon hidden weaknesses and frailties such as anxieties, aggressive feelings, dread of nonconformity, and infantile hang-ups to sell products. And he questioned the morality of manipulating small children even before they reached the age when they were legally responsible for their actions. Packard also severely criticized social scientists: He claimed that having found the study of irrationality very lucrative, they were flying out of ivory towers hoping to land big booty with the new marketeers.
David Riesman, author of The Lonely Crowd,
described the emerging consumer as "other-directed", as one who
gauged everything he did in terms of the expectations of other
people. Riesman claimed that the other-directed type reflected
the rapidly increasing
consumption mania. Fromm echoed this interpretation saying,
"Human relations are essentially
those of alienated automatons, each basing his security on
staying close to the herd, and not
being different in thought, feeling or action. While everybody
tries to be as close as possible to
the rest, everybody remains utterly alone, pervaded by a deep
sense of insecurity, anxiety and
guilt which always results when human separateness cannot be
overcome." Thorstein Veblen,
critic of the conspicuous consumption of the American noveau
riche of the late nineteenth
century, pointed out that the mass-circulation newspapers, films,
radio, the rise of mass political
parties, and the special interests of advertisers all
anaesthetized the masses with what he called
laughing gas. And Herbert Marcuse describes the media-dominated
modern citizen as having a
"happy consciousness". Happy consciousness enabled a person to
see his own behaviour as
steadily progressive, always coming closer to the cherished good
life. The glorification and
perpetuation of the corporate state had become a built-in
condition, a string fastened around
one's neck so tightly that a vested interest in the system was
fostered and the need for gobbling
up every new gadget, instrument, and fashion became as "natural"
as the need to breathe...
The doctrine of consumer sovereignty was
given its greatest criticism by John
Kenneth Galbraith. Writing in The New Industrial State,
Galbraith explained that since the turn
of the century Corporations were increasingly concerned with
managing demands of consumers.
"The one man in ten" was carefully planned on the drawing board.
Galbraith referred to the
control or management of consumer demand as a growing industry in
itself, made up of
communication networks, merchandising specialists, advertising
agencies, research, and other
related services. The early Gospel had been transformed into a
Great Machine whose primary
function was to sell goods. Consumer sovereignty was again seen
to be illusion, and only those
afraid to face new realities could cling precariously to the idea
of the free consumer.
According to sociologist C. Wright Mills,
people in the 1950's, were increasingly told by carefully
designed mass media formulas who they were, what they should be,
and how they could succeed. These formulas were not geared to
the development of a sensitive human
being. People were becoming increasingly lonely and
simultaneously mimicking media
happiness. In Brecht's play In the Jungle of Cities, one person
says, "if you crammed a ship full
of bodies till it burst the loneliness inside it would be so
great, they would turn to ice..." The
modern consumer-citizen was becoming increasingly alienated, and
theorists like Erich Fromm
commented that alienation was becoming total, that it pervaded
the relationship of Man to Man,
Man to his work and Man to the things he consumed.
There is hardly a family that is not under
the constant, everyday pressure about "what the house needs
next". If it is not a new TV it is a new dishwasher, if not this,
then new
rugs or curtains or having the den remodelled, or redoing the
bathroom. For many couples who
are estranged but will not face up to it, all of this consumerism
and household planning often
serves the function that a child does - it keeps the couple
"together". That is, it fosters the
illusion that they are on an adventure together, pooling their
wits and energies to reach a
common goal. Because of this, it is not uncommon to see married
couples in their luxuriously
decorated bedrooms - which they have put so much into that a
harem chieftain would be envious
- uninterested in loving one another, sleeping there like two
celluloid movie stars, cold and
plastic.
Many couples feel compelled to show they
have made it together by what they have accumulated. When the
debts begin piling up, and economic strain becomes a constant
feature of the relationship, rather than cut back on the good
life, the husband, as mentioned before,
begins to work more, or, as is a growing necessity these days,
the wife begins to work. The
cycle is apt to grow more vicious if, rather than admit that
their way of life is the source of the
problem, the wife -- who is forced to work to help pay the bills
-- identifies with ideologies to
justify her activity, and adds to the problem by getting farther
and farther away from its root.
It is important to get this argument clear
in the context of the issues raised by
women's liberation. Many couples are in trouble because there
has been an historical
oppression of women -- particularly economic -- in the
male-dominated household. Along with
this, women have been assigned the relatively menial tasks of
household chores which can be,
depending on the woman, enough to make a brain rot. The
revolution of roles is therefore
progressive insofar as it attempts to allow creative women to
express their creativity, and insofar
as women free themselves from the forced economic dependence and
the host of identity
problems that are an adjunct of this.
To become an independent breadwinner and to
express creative talents requires in most instances that the
woman seek employment outside the home. So the new problems
arise and must be dealt with: Who cleans the house? Who takes
care of the kids? Who controls the
bank book? And so on.
Most married women today are working out of
economic necessity, particularly wives of blue-collar workers,
but this is by no means restricted to that class. Many
blue-collar
men earn more than the clean-nailed white collar male heads of
households.
The major argument given by the women's
movement leaders centres around expression of self, not economic
necessity. When expression of self is viewed in the abstract it
sounds very appealing -- and it is also very misleading. It is
the highest ideal for all women and
all men to seek and express the unique self that is repressed in
modern societies. But how to do
it?
How many men can find expression of self in
their work? Sociological study after sociological study shows
that work is not a central life interest for the great majority
of men. Our
society offers witless, repetitive, meaningless, boring,
exploitive jobs in most instances, and most
women, unfortunately, when they do work are consigned to the
typewriter or some kind of front
work which exploits their looks or congeniality.
It is patently absurd, then, to press the
argument and foster the grand illusion that meaning can be found
in the work world that should not theoretically be able to be
obtained
through intimate contact with family members. But yet, the
undeniable fact is that in many
households there is no meaning to be found, either. This is the
impasse that women's liberation
should be focusing on.
The relationship between men and women must
be examined within the total
context of a society such as ours, which tyrannically and with
startling ingenuity sells dreams in
the marketplace and fosters an outmoded work-to-buy cycle to make
these dreams a reality.
This is not the nineteenth century. We are living in a highly
technological society which holds a
vast potential for providing us with the necessities of life and
at the same time freeing us from
stupid, meaningless work. The emphasis should be to utilize this
technology so that we have
less jobs and more time to relate to each other as human beings
and benefit from our true
creative expression.
The confusion which is rampant among married
couples misplaces the emphasis and fosters the illusion that the
role problems between husband and wife can be solved in the
abstract. The illusion of liberation is kept going by resorting
to more mindless consumerism
through fashion and vacations, while underlying all of this is a
dulling of the senses and closing
of awareness through alcohol, tranquillizers, and barbiturates
.
A good example of this confusion can be seen
in the activities of the National
Organization of Women (NOW), which, in attempting to solve a
problem of women, actually
perpetuates the reality which is at the root of the problem.
NOW recognized that women do not get credit
as easily as men, and they sought to rectify the problem. As
reported in the New York Post (September 27th, 1971) the
reasoning
of NOW went like this: We want a woman to be able to get credit
in whatever name she chooses
- married, maiden, professional or whatever. "There is a
practical side to this", a NOW
spokeswoman explained. "This way, if a couple becomes separated
or divorced, she will have
maintained her own credit rating, and will not be at the
disadvantage of having to re-establish
credit ... What the liberated woman wants today is a credit card
in her own name, rather than
having adjunct credit extended because her husband is deemed a
good credit risk. And little by
little this is becoming to pass."
The problem of women being dependent on
their husbands and discriminated against is a real one, but the
credit problem is real only insofar as it is the cause of the
problem we are talking about. By pushing for credit for women,
without detailing its pitfalls, women who
identify with NOW will see this as a goal to be achieved and will
fight for credit. The credit
problem, however, is part of the problem of a society which
pressures people to extend
themselves beyond their means without carefully considering the
possible negative
repercussions. NOW, therefore may be unwittingly aiding the
Corporations in their relentless
desire to sell us as much as they possibly can. Credit is one of
their more ingenious means.
The "young mama" - the image of the modern,
whole, married woman pushed by Redbook - is the prototype of the
independent woman who presents no challenge to the existing
reality of the good life. She is a Corporation's dream.
Flipping through Redbook, one finds page
after page of glossy ads comprising about 70 percent of the
magazine, a smattering of anxiety-
producing stories dealing with marriages in trouble and new
morality, and a smattering of articles
such as "How to Redecorate Your Home", the last mentioned being
merely another version of
corporate advertising. The total impact is a not-too-subtle
definition of what the young, normal,
married woman should do to affirm her identity and self-image.
In the process she is made a
nervous wreck with a constant barrage of questions such as "Are
you sure your Tampon keeps
you odour-free?" While pondering this important question, the
rest of the appearance industry
does its work of creating anxiety and offering "solutions". And
here it is important to look at, in
some detail, another major source of strain on married couples in
our society, the fear of growing
old and losing sex appeal. As with singles, the husband-wife
relationship is highly affected by
the physical appearance industry, which has convinced us that it
is shameful to grow old, be
anything less than thin, smell human, or dress in outdated
apparel.
A college student, commenting on the growing
rift between his parents told us: "My mother has been grey since
her early teens; this never bothered my father until recently
when so
much fuss was being made about the ease of colouring one's hair.
He begins to wonder what
my mother would look like in black hair or in a black wig (wigs
being so acceptable today). My
mother, in turn, begins to feel bad that my father no longer
seems to be happy with the way his
wife looks. Also, there is so much emphasis on being thin for
beauty's sake (as well as for health
reasons) that in order to please my father, my mother secretly
attends an exercise class at the
Elaine Power's Figure Salon."
The mother of this family secretly attempts
to slim herself down. Whatever her
motive, secrecy is the symptom of shame. The husband, under the
bombardment of ads, is
beginning to indicate his need that his wife mimic youthfulness
which, in turn, causes
unhappiness. .
The middle-aged couple is often in a pitiful
position in a society which makes one ashamed to age. They
suddenly find themselves with wrinkles, gray hair and sagging
skin, and
begin comparing themselves to images of youthfulness presented in
the ads. They gradually
begin to look upon their aging as an affliction which can be
washed away, creamed away,
dressed away, but not accepted.
It may be argued that if one looks younger
one feels better, but this logic only holds in a society where
one's self worth is identified with appearance. In the bedroom,
the middle-
aged couple -- if they have had the courage to wash the gook off
their faces and heads -- are
confronted with each other as they really are -- the wigs off,
the colours off, the sheen off, and
only a strong love for each other and an understanding of the
aging process will keep them from
rolling over and dreaming of that young stud or piece of ass who
they know they can get to -- or
at least masturbate to
.
A married woman told us, "I'm losing
interest in my husband with every hair he
loses. It was getting so that I was ashamed to be seen with him,
an old man -- that's how he
began to look as he got balder and balder. So I made him get a
'Joe', that's a wig. If I wasn't
going to stray from the nest he just had to become a young man
again."
Newsweek pointed to the return of "the good
old days" and cites this example of a thirty-four year old
Connecticut housewife who says, "My whole life revolves around
driving my
husband to the station, the kids to school, the kids to the
dentist, the kids to hockey practise, the
kids to ballet classes, the kids to a birthday party. Sometimes
I feel as though I'm on a treadmill.
I'm glad the energy crisis happened. I think, perhaps naively,
that if I spend less time
chauffeuring, I can go back to painting and get to know my
children better."
Newsweek suggested that many people may use
the crisis as a way of restoring community and family life. John
Kenneth Galbraith is quoted as saying that "if the energy crisis
forces us to diminish automobile use in the cities, stops us from
building highways and covering
the country with concrete and asphalt, forces us to rehabilitate
the railroads, causes us to invest
in mass transportation and limits the waste of electrical energy,
one can only assume the Arab
nations and the big oil companies have united to save the
American Republic."
Hopeful as this sounds, it is utter
nonsense. Galbraith has lost sight of the much wider crisis and
the fact that these recent developments must be viewed from
within the context
of our entire way of life. The Connecticut housewife has an edge
on Galbraith. At least she
intuitively feels that she is being naive.
Time's perspective in its December 31, 1973
edition was somewhat closer to the essential point: "as more
Americans stay at home instead of taking to the open road, they
will
buy more liquor, books, television sets, swimming pools, and, say
some pharmaceutical
executives, more birth control pills." More important is that if
the consumer stops compulsively
buying because of a temporary recognition of the nation's
economic and energy problems, and
waits for a better day when he can go on a rampage again, very
little will be gained.
Furthermore, to believe that any major restructuring of life in
the consumer society will come
about as the result of an energy shortage without a major
transformation of consumer
consciousness is to ignore the cold hard facts of American
corporate capitalism and the degree
to which we have become enslaved to its principal message...
Can we really be so naive to believe that we
can turn the clock back, erase the developing patterns of
postindustrial society, and building a new way of living,
thinking, and
feeling without a profound behavioural change, a basic
restructuring of our values about the total
viability of our consumer society and the manner in which
happiness has been defined? Can we
really believe that we all will come to our senses because of an
energy shortage and that the
corporate world will not continue its tactical warfare on our
consciousness in newer and more
sophisticated ways?
The Western World, as we have heavily
illustrated throughout this book, has
almost wholly accepted the illusion of material progress as a
guarantor of happiness. The
common denominator of materialism is an uncritical acceptance of
the glittering competitive and
success-oriented consumer life as the only reality. The
Corporations, their advertising
appendages, and the mass media have skilfully created consumer
illusions, as our everyday
cultural world has built a screen in the human mind, shielding us
from our possibilities as a
species. Our well-conditioned interests in, and overwhelming
concern with the world of material
objects and gadgetry leads us to depend on technical solutions to
all our problems...
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