Monday 24 January 2022

 

On 21st century consumerism and human needs. A TorontotheBetter book review of "All We Want" by Michael Harris

In spite of the major critique of mass market consumerism by Naomi Klein and others at the end of the last millennium buy-your-dreams consumerism, as satirized by the choosy chimp on the book cover, is still with us and growing as more previously immune cultures join the frenzy and the Internet opens more windows on consumable goods. In this new critique of consumer values Vancouver author Harris offers a  counter-vision of life based on the more elevated values of what he terms "craft, sublimity and care." He begins his book with a visit to a British Columbia landfill site from which the highlights remaining to readers are likely to be the fastidious eagles swooping down for whatever in the heap captivates their parasitic fancies and the flowery shoots on the summit planted by a maternal landfill keeper. Life goes on, as we say. But for how long, Harris "omenizes" as he tours a temple of consumer discards, where huddle together the losers in our persistence of the un-fittest marathon.  Will the will to continue survive the relics of this and previous continuations?          

As part of this philosophically pregnant reflection on what he calls the mono-myth of consumer culture Harris asks readers to wonder to what extent the advertising saturated culture we live in in the so-called developed world meets our need for the three core values he considers essential to lives well lived: craft, the skill and capacity to participate with sensitivity to the material world, the sublime, a humble recognition of our human limitations before the vast scale and power of the world we inhabit, and care, a selfless giving to others, like sick parents, from whom no tangible reward  can be expected or received. For Harris, craft, the sublime and care are the core elements of a more profound and worthy life than that offered by the consumerism that drenches much of our lives. Together they constitute a standard for living value-centred lives that extends beyond well intended habits of recycling materials, holidaying in woodlands  or funding nursing homes for the aged.  They are existentially necessary for our self-respect and survival.

Since the advent of the industrial age in the 19th century many  have outlined the dangers of consumer based civilization to our spiritual health. Harris reminds us what is at stake for us humans and the challenges of reclaiming civilization from the ravages of consumers’ seemingly endless appetite for more. At some point our extractions exceed our world’s ability to regenerate.  TorontotheBetter was created to facilitate forms of production and living dedicated to the social and economic values of community, ecology and mutuality. A social economy that supports such goals is conducive to the realization of the values of craft, the sublime and caring that Harris identifies in his aspirationally  important book, but it can never replace the morality that energizes them. Can we consume ourselves out of consumption?  Can we sustain  enough to support the sustainability we need to survive is the question Harris leaves us with. Our growing landfills on earth and beyond suggest an answer that amounts to passing the buck, that is leaving resolution to other people and places, however large our world may be and however many other worlds may await to be trash filled. Prettifying trash may pique our conscience but our conscience needs living bodies and minds to harbour it in the ever mounting sea of refuse we feed.    

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