Fundamentalist Consumerism and an Insane Society

[raccoon]

By Bruce E. Levine

Levine's ZSpace page

At a giant Ikea store in Saudi Arabia in 2004, three people were killed by a stampede of shoppers fighting for one of a limited number of $150 credit vouchers. Similarly, in November 2008, a worker at a New York Wal-Mart was trampled to death by shoppers intent on buying one of a limited number of 50-inch plasma HDTVs.

Jdiniytai Damour, a temporary maintenance worker was killed on "Black Friday." In the predawn darkness, approximately 2,000 shoppers waited impatiently outside Wal-Mart, chanting, "Push the doors in." According to Damour's fellow worker Jimmy Overby, "He was bum-rushed by 200 people. They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me." Witnesses reported that Damour, 34 years old, gasped for air as shoppers continued to surge over him. When police instructed shoppers to leave the store after Damour's death, many refused, some yelling, "I've been in line since yesterday morning."

The mainstream press covering Damour's death focused on the mob of crazed shoppers and, to a lesser extent, irresponsible Wal-Mart executives who failed to provide security. However, absent in the corporate press was anything about a consumer culture and an insane society in which marketers, advertisers, and media promote the worship of cheap stuff. (And expensive stuff, I would add.)

(snip)

While people can resist the cheap-stuff propaganda and not worship at Wal-Mart, Ikea, and other big-box cathedrals—and stay out of the path of a mob of fundamentalist consumers—it is difficult to protect oneself from the slow death caused by consumer culture. Human beings are every day and in numerous ways psychologically, socially, and spiritually assaulted by a culture which:

--creates increasing material expectations
--devalues human connectedness
--socializes people to be self-absorbed
--obliterates self-reliance
--alienates people from normal human emotional reactions
--sells false hope that creates more pain


URL: http://www.zcommunications.org/zmag/viewArticle/20446

[TechBear_Seattle]

1. Does anyone else remember when "consumption" was a hiddeous way to die? n/t

[raccoon]

3. Maybe it is now for many people, though not in the same sense of the word. nt

[tom_paine]

2. Excellent article! K & R! You know, it is so interesting how many facets there are to this thing

It's all really interconnected, cheap-stuff propaganda, fundamentalist consumerism and religions, and the current ongoing Bushification of the World (I am speaking long-term here, although it certainly is possible that Obama could turn this thing around).

There can be no doubt that this article encapsulates one HUGE aspect, maybe the biggest single one, though there are so many sides to this Extinction Event it is hard to decide which of them is the biggest single reason The American Experiment in Self-Government is in such peril, even now. You see that "Stimulus Debate"? talk about principles of advertising and PR manipulation flicked on like a switch to turn the entire M$M, pretty much all of it except 2 hours of new shows on MSNBC primetime!

Anyway, it's all connected. Everything on this Earth is ultimately connected, but that is waaaaaayyy too metaphysical for cold, hard facts of life such as Bushification/Nazification or Bushiganda/Naziganda.

Can Obama turn this around? Somehow I think not.

[glitch]

5. I am still hoping he can, with our help.

Good post about the interconnectedness of fundamentalism and consumerism and our imperative need to evolve.

[tom_paine]

7. Yes we can. n/t

[Karenina]

4. See: "The Century of the Self"

Worth the watch.

[Triana]

6. Hungry Ghosts. (and addicts) n/t

[salguine]

8. Well? This is only the natural result you get when corporations are the government.

[GeorgeGist]

9. --- spends income on profit

for which they receive all-of-the-above. Heckuva job, Stupid.