A Cornucopia of Consumer Crap

Have you ever had the experience of wanting something, and then attaining it and being left in a gloomy state? I’m not talking about an achievement or a lover – more like buying an IPod or a new computer or Wii. As a kid, I wanted a shiny flip-calendar to put on my desk – you just turned it and the date would change automatically. I saved money, and the day I had enough, I went running to the store to buy it, and I owned it, and there it sat, and I was oh so unfulfilled.

We live in a market economy, and every niche of our lives from the space over the urinal to the back of the handle that dispenses gasoline is saturated with advertising. Conservatives talk about Adam Smith’s invisible hand, and as we run around taking care of our surface needs, we are indeed making jobs and stores, and that is all necessary.

But it is unsatisfying. Not only that, the invisible hand can hit you with its backside too. As we are all merrily running around in our SUV’s, we’re spewing CO2 into the air and ruining the habitable climate. Our garbage dumps overflow, our food system makes us fat, our TV’s make us stupid, our news networks carve out an empty holographic image and call it news. But hey – our immediate desires are fulfilled.

The essence of happiness is not the fulfillment of wants, but denial of them. Saving money creates fulfillment, as does application of our efforts towards achieving a long term goal, like building a deck (or a beautiful stone pizza oven) or painting a house or reading a difficult book and actually grasping some of its essence. Then there is the greatest satisfaction of all – facing fear. Facing down fear. Doing something scary, whether confronting a phobia or a boss or leaving an unfulfilling job or seeing a doctor about that lump or telling a friend an unpleasant truth.

In other words, the market system we have built around us is merely a distraction, and cannot possibly make us happy. And the conservatives are wrong when they tell us that satisfying our private desires creates a greater good for all of us. And they don’t seem to have a clue what “freedom” is. It’s not that I can buy a Ford or a Suburu – it’s that I can breathe clean air and walk on public lands and drink clean water. It’s when a company commits a civic wrong, like polluting our air or water, and we the public, through are democratic institutions, are strong enough to punish them, bring them in line, or put them out of business. That’s freedom: Strong societies exercising their right to control commerce and resources for the greater good.

Markets don’t give us freedom. They take it away. Markets send our jobs overseas, invade our privacy, undermine our personal spaces – when market forces are stronger than governments (“globalization”), all but a fortunate few suffer. Capital overrules democratic governance. We may gain access to alternative sneakers and have phones that take pictures, but we lose our power to govern ourselves.

In other words, markets are not the same as democracy, and democracy is far more important than free trade and free markets. Our society is corrupted now – we’ve shot the wad, spent our savings, and have little to show for it but a cornucopia of consumer crap. Perhaps as we rebuild, we can rekindle the spirit of strength through community, and reinvigorate our public selves. Maybe we can set selfish material pursuits aside, save money in bank accounts, invest in our health and education and social security systems, and teach our children that the greatest happiness comes from denial of self, rather than trying to satisfy every want.

Thus endeth the Sunday sermon.

18 thoughts on “A Cornucopia of Consumer Crap”

  4. Sorry paster Mark, the good Rev. Wright was just getting into the spirit of your sermon.

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  7. Nothing to elaborate on. You spelled it out quite clearly. We objectify our happiness. We need big screen TVs, fast cars, tough trucks, cool game systems, neat phones, porn-star sex, over-priced sushi meals, Starbucks coffee, Nike shoes, big hard rocks for our wimmens at Christmas time, Viagra, Victoria’s Secret, marble countertops, and a whole bunch of other crappola that doesn’t satisfy. They are things that prove us to be better, the best. Goals that we achieve and only leave us wanting more, though they are not goals at all. They are objects. They don’t inform us of what we are, but what we own. YAY US!

    Who we are becomes slave to what we own. Caesar or nothing. And when we’ve painted ourselves into the corner of having it all, or being a failure, (Either Or), what have we achieved when we have it all? A complete removal from what we are in place of what we have. How can that possibly be satisfying?

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  8. You can take the man out of the Church but you can’t take the Church out of the man.

    See, all that Catholic learnin’ done ya good, now didn’t it Mark?

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  11. A flip calendar? Most normal kids would have wanted a sled or a bicycle. The only thing I can think of that might be worse than wanting a flip calendar would be a slide rule.

    As for the rest of your Ram Dass baloney, have you tried running around your neighborhood naked?

    Wulfgar:

    That was some wish list. You need to stop watching The Shopping Channel.

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  15. Budge:

    I am happy to hear I was not the only one forced to read Alan Watts in the 1960s. I guess that Ram Dass crack got you reminiscing.

    Wulfgar:

    If I were you, I would not encourage people to extract any meaning from a stupid screen name.

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  16. Then there is the greatest satisfaction of all – facing fear.

    I’m in fear every time I log onto this site, so I must be happy.

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