Our world has become vulnerable due to the COVID-19 pandemic and during the lockdowns, we’ve had to survive on far less than we’re prone to buy. Today in America, supply-chain shortages from lack of raw materials, ingredients, equipment, transportation, labor, to soaring prices, empty shelves and consumer panicking are controlling our limitless appetite for buying, which is really not a bad thing.
The American economy dictates to ‘buy’ or our economy dies; it’s wired into a patriotic culture, one of overindulgence. We overspend, cram our shopping carts, buy bigger, and buy now. We believe bigger is better, and want bigger houses, cars, and TVs – but is it better? We are now socially addicted to consumerism thanks to centuries of propaganda conceived by the early 20th-century nephew of Sigmund Freud, Edward Bernays, who was born in Austria but lived in New York. Bernays was believed to have become America’s greatest convincer and manipulator of people’s desires by convincing and training consumers to buy something more, or that, they want something they do not need. He turned his uncle’s psychotherapy into the desires of wants such as “promoting cigarettes as soothing to the throat and slimming to the waistline,” and “if you want to be secured or loved or sexy, you will need a new car, jacket, or hairstyle.” His campaign appeared to have used fear tactics to sell products like disposable cups where he scared people into thinking that “only disposable cups were sanitary.” He even founded the Committee for the Study and Promotion of the Sanitary Dispensing of Food and Drink. Today, Bernays’ contribution is choking our planet with disposable cups and excess stuff. So how can we undo this era of psychological warfare?
I heard a great economist Kate Raworth ask this question “If we could bring back Edward Bernays and say this time you are on our team, what would he do to undo our over-consumerism in America?” It is my personal belief that if Bernays was on the side of greening, he would say slowing down of overindulgence is not a bad thing, that our excess stuff is accelerating the degradation of the planet, that an economy based on mere consumption is not sustainable, to buy smart, opt for quality, not quantity, live eco-friendly lives like Europeans, drive smaller cars, consume less, and be opened-minded to new things and it will create a healthier and sustainable environment.
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