It seems to me important to distinguish these two terms. The first is a description of a CULTURAL phenomenon, and the second of an ECONOMIC system. Consumerism is effectively a doctrine of Physical Hedonism, in which happiness is the goal of life, and is to be found in the acquisition of external objects, where human beings, more or less, are to be understood as well as objects, with prices.
Me, I will never have a trophy bride, since I can’t foot the bill. Nor will my own self esteem climb as a result of driving to work in an expensive car, and driving home to a “castle” situated with other “persons of quality”. I refuse to put a value on myself, based on my material success. I’m not opposed to money–I would like a lot of it–but if I were rich, it would simply enable me to pursue more aggressively the projects I pursue now part-time, and some of which–like some experiments in biology I have in mind–that I simply can’t afford the parts and pieces for.
I went to see “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” yesterday. It was morally appalling, and I found myself in vague discomfort start to finish–with only a few laughs to punctuate it–but found myself pondering one of the characters, a 7th grade girl we first see reading Ginsberg’s Howl. She was the prototypical outsider. You see them in every school. They are of above average intelligence, and when they reach a certain age, they realize our world is in large measure mad. We have rejected the sacred demands of traditional culture, and worked feverishly to insulate ourselves from all material discomforts, and have in general seemingly chosen willful superficiality over the dignified struggles of yesteryear: in war; in fighting for your family; in sincere and deep religious devotion; in dedication to your community.
Those who notice this almost invariably gravitate to the counter-culture, and leftist politics. Why? Socialists claim they oppose the vapidity of Consumerism. And people like Ginsberg are qualitatively different. They seem deep. Suffering seems deep.
Yet, this is only partially true. Suffering in the pursuit of a difficult end, based on self chosen principles, creates depth. Pain, by itself, does nothing. It breaks you down into a nullity, then you do drugs, and lose your mind, as did the “best minds” of Ginsbergs generation.
Once you accept the basic notion of Quality–which I define as richly textured latent information–then you can accept the idea of movement towards or away from quality. To this, though, I would add that you can have qualitatively positive movement, and negative movement. Your personality, in my own terms, is an emergent property of the self organizing nature of human consciousness, oriented around principles you choose.
You can move towards Evil, which is to say, towards self pity, resentment, anger, hate, pleasure in causing others pain; and you can move towards Goodness, which is to say towards the rejection of self pity, persistence in the face of difficulty, and growing awareness of light and the possibility of joy, which leads to love, and a genuine desire to alleviate the pain of others, and to take pleasure in so doing.
Ginsburg moves you towards self pity, and the rejection of transcendance, and he is the rough direction most people go who want to reject Consumerism. This is unnecessary.
Capitalism is simply a method. Its means are defined by what people want. If people want local businesses, and genuinely rich diversity of options, they will get them. Capitalism will FOLLOW wherever the people lead. If you reject a life based on consumption, then Capitalism will adapt.
To claim that the homogenizing, maternalistic Nanny State will correct the maladjustments of suburbia is stupid. It is a fundamental misundertanding of what is being proposed.
I am a conservative Liberal. This is absolutely different from social conservatism. I want for all people the capacity for them to lead the lives they want to lead. I think the evidence is clear that most groups are happiest living with their own kind. Black people are happier living with other black people. They understand one another. They know what to expect. Mexicans are happiest living with other Mexicans. White Lutherans are happier with white Lutherans. Etc.
I see a future in which we accept gay cities–where everyone is gay. And Christian cities, where everyone walks to the same church. We have room for Muslim towns, with prayer towers, and a Muezzin calling the faithful to prayer. They simply need to accept, in writing, word and deed, the primacy of our Constitution and laws. They cannot exact “cruel and unusual punishments”; they cannot ban “blasphemy”. If they want to priviledge Allah above our national government, they join in that most Christians. As long as they follow our laws, and do not encourage anyone to break them, this is acceptable to me.
This pattern can be continued. My own vision for a post-consumeristic future is one in which we decouple the currently overweaning Federal Government from the States to a great extent, and sort of atomize into countless groups, living in small communities, how they want to live. Drugs should be able to be legalized; and prostitution; and abortion should be able to be banned: all in some places, not others, depending on local tastes and mores.
What ties us together? Goodness, as I have defined it, and as someone smarter than me may redefine it in the future.
Currently, we suffer so much from loneliness and social isolation. This is the clear, empirically verifiable result of multiculturalism, which aims not to protect and reconcile difference, but to eradicate it outright, regardless of what the fools pushing this agenda claim.
None of this pain is necessary. None of it.