It doesn’t sound very accidental, just not necessarily conscious or planned. Your description of the Sprint Store reflects some kind of dispositional aversion to much of the consumer scene.
We all get excited by gadgets and clothes. I mean, who among us does not love nice things? It’s hardly a sin to appreciate quality, or even luxury on occasion. That’s just part of being human and caring about the finer points of your experience.
I think what I find so disturbing about the modern condition is how many natural human desires are compressed/sublimated into the all-consuming practice of shopping. Advertising works by linking metaphysical needs — freedom, love, acceptance, security — to physical products and purchases. These messages are so omnipresent in our society — repeated not just on billboards and during halftime, but also in news (as you noted), embedded in entertainment, etc — as to amount to a kind of propaganda.
It’s this consumer ideology (and the ugly realities it props up) that I think are really problematic.
The critique I have of Buy Nothing Day much of the associated kinds of activism are that they are essentially reactionary. This is an ok first step, but it has to be followed up with some vision of progress for it to be truly persuasive to the public at large. That’s where my interest is, evangelizing an alternative way of looking at and understanding ourselves and the world, and developing the post-consumer culture around that.
Doesn't sound accidental
It doesn’t sound very accidental, just not necessarily conscious or planned. Your description of the Sprint Store reflects some kind of dispositional aversion to much of the consumer scene.
We all get excited by gadgets and clothes. I mean, who among us does not love nice things? It’s hardly a sin to appreciate quality, or even luxury on occasion. That’s just part of being human and caring about the finer points of your experience.
I think what I find so disturbing about the modern condition is how many natural human desires are compressed/sublimated into the all-consuming practice of shopping. Advertising works by linking metaphysical needs — freedom, love, acceptance, security — to physical products and purchases. These messages are so omnipresent in our society — repeated not just on billboards and during halftime, but also in news (as you noted), embedded in entertainment, etc — as to amount to a kind of propaganda.
It’s this consumer ideology (and the ugly realities it props up) that I think are really problematic.
The critique I have of Buy Nothing Day much of the associated kinds of activism are that they are essentially reactionary. This is an ok first step, but it has to be followed up with some vision of progress for it to be truly persuasive to the public at large. That’s where my interest is, evangelizing an alternative way of looking at and understanding ourselves and the world, and developing the post-consumer culture around that.