Are You Unhappy? Is It Because of Consumer Addiction?

[marmar]

Are You Unhappy? Is It Because of Consumer Addiction?

By Charles Shaw, AlterNet. Posted April 11, 2008.

The pattern of out-of-control consumption in the U.S. is not too different from the well-known behavioral patterns of substance abusers.




"An addict is someone who uses their body to tell society that something is wrong." --Stella Adler (1901-1992)

In last year's powerful independent documentary, What A Way To Go: Life at the End of Empire, producer Sally Erickson pulled from her 20 years working as a therapist in private practice to attempt to explain why so many people, perhaps even you, are so unhappy.

The film from writer-director TS Bennett is an epic exploration of a Middle American, middle-class white father of three coming to grips with climate change, resource crises, environmental meltdown and the demise of the American lifestyle. It is as compassionate a film as it is utterly terrifying.

Through a pastiche of revolutionary thinkers including Derrick Jensen, Daniel Quinn, Jerry Mander, Richard Manning and Chellis Glendinning, What A Way To Go concludes that industrial civilization -- and its end product, consumerism -- has disconnected us from nature, the cycle of life, our communities, our families and, ultimately, ourselves. This unnatural, inorganic, materialistic way of living, coupled with a marked sharp decline in society's moral and ethical standards -- what the French call anomie -- has created a kind of pathology that produces pain and emptiness, for which addictive behavior becomes the primary symptom and consumption the preferred drug of choice.

"What most of us experience when it comes to addiction," says Erickson, "is a pattern of continually seeking more of what it is we don't really want and, therefore, never being fully satisfied. And as long as we are never satisfied, we continue to seek more, while our real needs are never being met."

"Addiction in one form or another characterizes every aspect of industrial society," wrote the social philosopher Morris Berman, and dependence on substances or corporeal pleasures is no different from dependence on "prestige, career achievement, world influence, wealth, the need to build more ingenious bombs or the need to exercise control over everything." ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/82013/

[Solly Mack]

1. Ooooooooo.....control over everything....

I want some!

[Demeter]

2. Being Surrounded By Addicts Is No Picnic Either

and that's the source of my unhappiness.

[fasttense]

3. Interesting concept.

I've always looked at shopping as just another chore. It has always amazed me that people shop as a leisure pursuit. Now I understand the appeal if they are using it as a form of drug.

When friends ask me to go shopping with them, I usually turn them down. I never understood how my two sister-in-laws, my older sister, and one of my nieces, can declare at our family reunions that they are going shopping. As if shopping compares to swimming or even playing checkers.

I'd rather get together to eat, cook, work on hobbies, play games or sports, or just talk. What is "fun" about shopping? It is boring repetitive, un-educating and tiring. Frequently what I'm looking for I can't find at the price I want to pay. To me this is just frustrating.

It seems humans have an infinite capacity to overindulge in just about anything.

[Igel]

4. I've come to loathe shopping.

Books, food, gadgets, music. Doesn't matter. I've come to loathe it.

I react to commercials and advertising with a bit of nausea.

Had to bite my tongue last night. Two weeks ago today our DVD player broke, and we got a new one a few days later, simultaneously preempting the HDTV converter issue for our household. The result: We get additional channels. One is Qubo, which our toddler has taken a fancy to. Qubo has cheese Ronco-style ads. Qubo had an ad for a "pancake puff pan". Essentially little balls of cooked pancake batter that you can fill with, oh, Bavarian cream or pepperoni. Oh, joy, I thought, as my wife suggested they sounded tasty. I said no; I do the cooking, we don't have enough space for anything else in the kitchen.

Yesterday my wife ran out and bought one. She couldn't resist.

It's like a Bloom County episode in which Opus is in a stupor or daze and rushes to order Ronco products en masse.

[Sentath]

6. The bonus Turnip Twaddler was a low blow

On the lighter side, the pans look like they might work and if you can find the ingredients I hear fantastic things about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takoyaki">takoyaki

[NJCher]

5. article says...

For this process to begin, consumer society must first "hit bottom." Let us hope this happens soon. As Sally Erickson reminds us, the patterns of behavior endemic to consumer society are so much more dangerous than substance abuse, because they are perpetuating a culture that is literally eating itself out of house and home.

The other day there was a thread on DU by someone who worked in retail and who said retail action was but a trickle of what it once was. This poster detailed all the measures he saw going on at his establishment and it indeed sounded drastic. Maybe the U.S. consumer culture has "hit bottom."



Cher