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| The American People |
We take a look around us, and we live in one of the richest countries in the world. Just to give you an idea, you have to be in the top 5% of the worlds richest just to own a car, and we have a lot of people that own two. The amount of TV's we own boggles the mind, but here's a question. How are we doing this? I've heard it said that the USA is full of lazy, fat, superficial, and stupid people. I would like to propose that there is a bit more to it than this view of americans.
First off, we are not lazy. Yes, I've looked around, I know that the amount of people that are overweight is obscene. I'm well aware that the number one American past time is watching television, and yet again I say we are not lazy. There is a cause for this. We are exhausted. A statistic was recently released that said 40% of americans have to work two jobs, just to make ends meat. I'm not talking to pay off their hummer... I'm saying just to make ends meat, and even if it was, why the materialistic priority? Are the citizens of the US really just that stupid?
A lot of this goes back to some decisions made by our top corporations and our government leading up to and shortly after, WWII. During this time Sigmeund Freud's theories were being applied by Edward Bernays (Freud's American nephew), and Anna Freud with the serious intention of controlling mass groups of people. These techniques were the same techniques used by Hitler to unleash the terrible irrational force that lies in people, and that becomes prevalent when people conform in masses. It must be understood, that the purposes of such techniques were not intended to be used for evil. According to Anna Freud, if you could impose a mass conformity on to a group of people by changing their enviroment than the rational mind would be strengthened with the imposed rules, and be able to better withstand the power of the irrational. Where this backfires, however is that in order to strengthen the rational the control of the people lies strongly within the irrational. Every technique wether it be the phsychoanalysts or the behaviorists used to control people relies on identifying sub-concious desires, and appealing to them. The result of this is that the people identify what the person wants them to do with a desire that they themselves don't understand. It becomes a form of false advertising, as in most cases, it has absolutely nothing to do with addressing our legitimate sub-concious desires. Don't take my word for it there is a documentary series called Century of the Self, that describes this. Also any book on Public Relations, Propaganda, or Market Branding would go over these techniques, but how does this tie to the materialism?
These sub-concious techniques are in fact the most common form of advertising. They permeate every area of our lives. In most, if not all, commercials, there is a sub-concious desire that is targeted, but that could never be addressed by the material item being advertised. The result is that we get this idea, that this object will make us happy, so we work our butts off, so that we can have enough to get it, or we just put it on our credit card. After all spending all of our money is good for the economy, right? Not exactly. Isn't it interesting though, that the advertising must be relient on people wanting to be happy? If you are happy and confident with yourself, how well will this work? Many modern marketing strategies though they do not even know to admit it, rely strongly on people being unfulfilled. If you are already happy, and content, an advertisement for something thats supposed to make you happy and content wouldn't really be that effective, unless you genuinely want the product itself.
To sum that all up... our main marketing strategy, is to literally bypass peoples rational mind, and teach them that empty material objects will quench the thirst of their very real desires. But alas, no matter how many times you drink out of an empty cup, emptiness cannot quench.
So now we come back to the average american worker, whom is exposed to these brain washing techniques on a regular basis. The society itself must ensure that people are not satisfied in order for our big businesses, and politicians who are well versed in the same techniques to not come tumbling down.
So what solution could be given? First of all, we have to learn to identify and genuinely understand our desires. If our real desires are met than the false ones will lose their power. Second off we need to re-examine what is really valuable. A good part of the voluntary simplicity movement is based on this idea. Work for what you need, and spend only on things that will yield a value proportionate to the value spent. I go to zenhabits.net daily to help myself go through this self-searching and prioritizing. This still however leaves a question about how much we are working. Unless you take into account that less money spent means less work necessary. So please, while you have breath in you, take the time to really examine what is worth working for.
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