David Foster Wallace on Consumerism
The subtleness in consumerism is driven by many messages. The idea that the world is now one giant shopping mall, and all one wants to do walk into it and come out with goods, Veblen or Giffen. There is also the sense that all we want is to do what we want and gratiate our appetites.
David Foster Wallace on Consumerism
What he talks about clearly is 3 things:
- loss of community
- loss of sense of transcendence.
- the fallacy of happiness understood as the mere uncensored pursuit of every hedonistic and emotional impulse. The myth that we worship pleasure, and the idea that having a lot of money is also being able to buy a lot of stuff.
The subtleness in consumerism is driven by many messages. The idea that the world is now one giant shopping mall, and all one wants to do walk into it and come out with goods, Veblen or Giffen, unexpectedly gratiating our appetites.
The freedom of choice and having the right to have things - sounds very crude and simple, but this is what makes it easy to market to people. "Most of the problems in my life have to do with my confusing 'what I want' and 'what I need'." This kind of confusion is perpetuated across all mediums.
He also reminds us that the culture is becoming more and more hostile (not in a violent way) because of the speed of information now (information consumerism), therefore feeding the angry wolves inside of us (mostly). The truth is that resisting stuff is very difficult now, with the extent behavioral marketing gimmicks are designed to hijack our chimp brains. The general allure of goods, and the need to show what we have accomplished, soon as it happens, has almost become a primal instinct modernity nurtures.
David shares about the role silence plays as a form of rebellion counteracting the effects of over consumerism: "My guess is the forms of rebellion that will end up changing anything meaningfully here will be very quiet and very individual and probably not all that interesting to look at from the outside."
I will end this reflection by sharing an anecdote from Luke Burgis, in his book, Wanting: "Each one of us has a responsibility to shape the desires of others, just as they shape ours. Each encounter we have with another person enables them, and us, to want more, to want less, or to want differently. In the final analysis, two questions are critical. What do you want? What have you helped others want? One question helps answer the other. And if you’re not satisfied with the answers you find today, that’s okay. The most important questions concern what we will want tomorrow."