Many would remark at this and say, “This is not a practice! If anything, consumption is a societal practice!”
It is conceded that it is not linguistically correct, but considering the depths that this ‘ism’ has managed to entrench in society, it has become a practice, whether it has been voluntary or involuntary.
Now, what is consumerism? Simply put, it is the rising tendency of many in the populace to buy more of goods and services.
This can lead to a plethora of implications, but before leading to that, the causes of the said tendency must be recognized.
The recent rapidity in the growth of corporations can be cited as one of them. But in order to make a profit, they do have to sell, which is where advertising comes in, to match supply with demand. This phenomenon is not a new one, but it has alarmingly risen over the decade, quite obviously in developed countries, but also in developing countries (such as India itself).
Being a consumer is not a heinous crime, but it can be shown through this that superficial, basal wants, when satisfied, leave one without a sense of awareness about anything else.
It becomes a morbid fascination, to collect trivialities exalting in the form of Mac’s and KFC’s and Louis Vuitton’s. All these have made what we buy one of the most important considerations in our lives, or in the more appropriate terms of Tyler Durden, “The things we own, end up owning us.”
This may seem as an exaggeration, and general consensus would be inclined to a more optimistic attitude, but this skepticism of reality is exactly one of the consequences. It has resulted in a protective buffer, between realities simulated on the Internet, Television, even Newspapers, against the true state of the world.
Another effect of this is this growing malleability of people themselves. Since it can already be seen that they slave away in order to get a paycheck, just so that they pocket the people they receive it from, in the form of a product. This cycle continues, while advertising and consumption makes the mind a null void, almost devoid of independently thinking (although ironically enough, the world is more educated as a whole).
Ignorance is finally the end product to such a consumer-driven society (along with the non-biodegradable waste dumped in massive landfills), leading to a much frightening prospect for our future. Poverty, Environmental crises’, Wars, Governmental issues, along with not so candid problems, occupy lives without the people living them not knowing a scruple about it.
The spiraling problems caused by such a phenomenon is not directly rooted, but it can lead to further degradation of mankind, if left unnoticed, both having moral, and more down to earth stagnancies.
This is a societal issue highly grilled only because it has led man to live in in a fantasy, in an artificial, plastic world, when insufficiencies of the basic, transcending to the more deeply ingrained, have sprouted out.
This article, thus, does primarily intend to bring this to notice, not to act overly cynical and pessimistic, but rather, sway more to a more realistic undertone which can govern their lives, and allow them to reclaim their minds, so that much more pressing problems can be addressed too, before it is truly too late..
Varun Srivatsan
Image Source [http://tcnnorth.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/gnp-shopping-1-122609-rr1.jpg]
