Economy
Going cold turkey in the shops
Published 02 December 2002
Observations on Buy Nothing Day
Christmas is around the corner. Early-bird shoppers throng the shops. So just what did the Canadian advocacy group Adbusters think it was doing, declaring 29 November "Buy Nothing Day"?
The Adbusters founder, Kalle Lasn, said he aimed to "make people realise to what extent this impulse to buy is a bit of an addiction". The figures are not yet in to gauge just what impact the spend-freeze had on our economy - and our mental landscape. But what is certain is that Adbusters found support for their day-long consumer abstinence among environmentalists and faith leaders who came out in support of Buy Nothing Day: rabbis and bishops were attempting to reintroduce the idea of "having enough" into our culture, to protect both our environmental and our mental landscapes. The reasoning was simple: only when you go through consumer cold turkey do you realise how strong the spending habit is.
Adbusters believes this urge is so strong within us because we have been conditioned to search for emotional gratification in consumption. As Lasn pointed out, the average westerner is subjected to 3,000 commercial messages a day - quite a few Pavlovian bells. This intense conditioning is the reason that "75 per cent of Americans are in a consumer-ist trance". For some years, Adbusters has been trying to wake people up from this trance, using culture-jamming techniques such as spoof ads - one of which for Buy Nothing Day was aired on CNN (CBS and ABC refused to sell the group airspace).
But is our consumer trance such a bad thing?
As Edward Bernays, the father of public relations, argued in 1928: "Propaganda is the modern instrument by which . . . the invisible governors [that is, admen and PR consultants] . . . help bring order out of chaos."
The problem, say the anti-consumerists, is twofold - this way of living screws up the environment, and it screws us up, too. On the environmental side, excessive consumption, particularly of energy, is the main reason for defor- estation, rapid species extinction and global warming.
On the mental side, seeking emotional gratification through buying is a project doomed to failure.
Even advertising firms are beginning to admit this. A report from Publicis in 2001 declared sadly: "We always want more than we've got and are thus never satisfied or fulfilled. We can gain esteem through our possessions, but can never rise towards greater personal fulfilment." This, according to the report, may be a reason for the epidemic of emotional disorders plaguing the west.
Don't spend, then - for greater sanity and greater emotional peace.
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