[Neurons] 2009 Meta Reflections #12

[L. Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

2009 Meta Reflections #12

March 16, 2009

 

 

 

;A WORLD

WITHOUT CONSUMERISM

 

 

 

When the banking-and-housing crisis began in the United States last year and
then when the economic downturn started in the end of the year and into
2009, I began thinking about the role I play when I am a consumer, about the
process and experience of consuming stuff and about the sickness of
consumerism.  It wasn't the first time.  Over the years, I had entertained
such thoughts before especially when I was researching and presenting the
Wealth Creation Training.  But only fleetingly.  With the recent turn of
events, I have been thinking about it in a much more often.

 

We all consume stuff because we have our Maslovian "lower needs" for
surviving, being safe, social, and having a sense of importance in
ourselves.  And we need "true satisfiers" for these needs-the things that
actually gratify the requirements for life, health, and well-being.  That's
what the lower needs are all about.  And as I've written many times, when
you gratify the lower "animal" needs, the needs go away.

 

But this is where we humans have such a fabulous way of messing up mother
nature, distorting human nature, and creating perversions of our possible
natures.  Whenever we try to reach a "higher need" through a lower need and
endow the lower need with the meanings of the higher self-actualization
needs -we begin the psycho-processes.  We psycho-eat, psycho-spend,
psycho-sex, psycho-drive, psycho-consume, etc.  We use these basic
gratisfiers of eating, spending, sexing, driving our cars, and consuming for
the higher psychological needs of meaning, significance, order, power,
beauty, etc.

 

Consuming is natural.  It's a requirement for life.  Being a consumer is
inevitable as long as we are fragile human beings in bodies that are
dependent on so many things (food, water, sun, rest, sleep, safety,
boundaries, companionship, personal significance).  But consumerism is not
natural, not required, and not inevitable.  We could create a world without
consumerism.

 

Consumerism is consuming stuff for the sake of consuming because we have
over-valued the process of consuming.  The more stuff you can consume, the
wealthier you are; the more important you are; the more hip you are; the
more .... (you fill in the blank).  Consumerism confuses the higher needs
with the lower and ultimately treats us as nothing more than an insatiable
animal.  You know that consumerism has you if you have to consume more and
more stuff; if "shop until you drop" is your mantra, if you have to rent a
storage unit to store more and more of your stuff because you don't have
room for it at home.  Consumerism has you if you keep replacing your current
stuff just because it is not as cool, new, different, or unique.
Consumerism has you if you define yourself by your stuff-by your clothes,
cars, home, furnishings, toys, etc.

 

For some, imagining a world without consumerism strains the brain.  I
presented this to one person a few weeks ago and she said, "Well, why would
you want to work then?  Why earn money if it is not for all that stuff?"
And another person who overheard our conversation said, "You're too
idealistic; it wouldn't work.  The economy couldn't work, it is based on
consumerism.  Plus, it would change everything about business."

"I agree that it would be a radical change, maybe a revolutionary change.
Yet the highest expressions of human nature, of self-actualization, is the
being dimension.  It is to be-to find and be what one is within and
therefore to express one's talents and gifts.  Trying to live by getting and
consuming is not our highest and best."

 

After more accusations of being too idealistic, I suggested that it is
consumerism that is not only filling up our garbage dumps with stuff that
won't fully dissolve for a thousand years, but worse, it is using up and
wasting so much of human mind, emotion, energy, speech, and actions on the
low level of mere consumption.  A world without consumerism would focus us
not only on recycling, intelligent stewardship of the earth's resources, but
also on creating lasting products.  That would get us beyond the planned
obsolescence of building things to quickly wear out and to be thrown away.

 

So what would we do and how would we live in a world without consumerism?
We could focus on the higher needs, the being-values -truth, justice,
equality, contribution, meaningfulness, music, beauty, order, and so on. 

 

Last week at Starbucks I had a conversation about the economic turndown.  A
small group of business people all agreed that the so-called "stimulus
package" that the US congress passed is not really a stimulus package, but a
spending package and one that will probably create more dependency on
government.  Most of the conversation revolved around how to stimulate more
commerce.  Most agreed that the market needed to be as free as possible and
most know that 80 percent of all new jobs come from small businesses, not
major corporations.

 

After debating the pros and cons depend buying and selling, I decided to
play devil's advocate and really stir things up.

"I think we are attempting to solve the wrong problem.  The so-called
solutions that we have been offering is actually creating the very problem
in the first place.  Are we not assuming that we need more commerce, more
buying-and-selling?  What if that's the problem?  What if consumerism itself
is the problem?  What would an economy be like, how would business operate
if we didn't make 'consuming more and more stuff' our objective?" 

The way our world works right now is that we engage in "business" to create
products and services.  We do this to create value to people's lives.  And
when sales slow down, we invent new reasons and motivations which we promote
through marketing and advertisement so that people will buy more of our
stuff.  When we reach that limit, then we add some new feature to the
product or service, re-package it as "new and improved" and set out to
market the "new" product and service.  And when that reaches a limit, we try
to innovate some other improvement or difference.  All of this is designed
to get more and more people to buy more and more stuff.

 

Often in this consumerism we consume more and more stuff simply because it
has been packaged and marketed as "new, improved, and different."  And how
often do we buy stuff, consume services, and purchase entertainment simply
for the sake of the consumption?  How often do we make consuming the goal
itself?  We feel blah, or bored or restless so out to the Mall or the
downtown shopping area and shop for no other reason than just to shop.  Have
you ever done that?  Or, what about the consuming we do impulsively?  We go
into a store for one thing and because of the packaging or the display, we
end up buying things and mostly just because it was there and it somehow
appealed to something in us.

 

Five or more years ago in Sydney, I was walking in the city to the place of
a training and a pretty lady with a microphone stopped me.  Her camera man
was next to her and she suddenly approached and asked, "Can I ask you a
question."  I was daydreaming about some NLP pattern (!)  and accidently
said "yes."

"What do you think about retail therapy?  Do you believe in it?  How often
do you engage in retail therapy?" 

 

Shaken from my reverie, the word "therapy" cued me to think about the
healing of wounded hearts, so I went into a therapeutic mode of mind.  But
then there was that strange word, "retail."  And in that moment, on that
sidewalk, in the early morning, I just couldn't connect the two.  "Retail
therapy?"  I was searching my data banks- Gestalt, cognitive, behavioral,
Ericksonian .  . . but retail?  Is that a guy's name?  Is retail like
reframing?"

 

I supposed that I looked lost, so the lady said, "You know, shopping."  Talk
about a shock.  So out of my mouth came what I was thinking:

"Shopping?   Shopping?  Are you kidding?  What does shopping have to do
therapy?"

 

"It makes you feel better!  That's why!"  She said with a huff and in a tone
dismissing me.  Guess I just didn't fit her world.  And to propose a world
without consumerism, well, that woiuld have given her the need for some real
therapy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

L.  Michael Hall, Ph.D.

International Society of Neuro-Semantics

Meta-Coach Training System

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO.  81520 USA

1 970-523-7877

1 970-523-5790 fax

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