The first component has to do with our shedding of rationality in favor of an emotionality that is linked with a range of survival instincts.
The second component are the shrewd methods that retailers employ in order to provoke and highlight component one within the consumer.
Its a love story about two interdependent halves involved in a parasitic and sympathetic relationship. The retailer wants to survive and needs the consumer, the consumer thinks that what the retailer is offering is the key to their own survival.
Live Science: Black Friday Psychology: Why We Go Mad for Deals
...an innate fear of scarcity that drives people to buy, buy, buy.
Men who engage in conspicuous consumption, like driving around in a fancy Porsche instead of an old sedan, experience a testosterone surge...
...the desire to hoard resources...
Creating a sense of urgency is one trick retailers use...
7 comments:
Can the paradigm ever change? Can we learn to be happy to be human? I mean marvelous and amazing humans who can tell stories an dream dreams and make art and music?
Or will we forever be brainwashed into thinking that acquiring stuff is the path to happiness?
Resource gathering (greed) was very important for our survival over the eons, but why do we give it such overwhelming importance today? The emphasis warps our whole existence! There are other possible models that are much more healthful!
Can we ever relearn? Will our eyes ever open? Can we start down the path toward reaching our potential? Will we always be stunted by wrongheadedness, led like cattle by greedy corporations?
Life could be so wonderful, so easy. C'mon humans!
The model I think of is religion. There's a pyramid. At the top are the few people who actually have used the teachings of the religion to realize the highest potential. At the bottom of the pyramid are a vast number of people who have distorted all of it and in fact are ready to go to war over it. They have allowed religion to make them justify the worst. In between are a vast number of people possibly moving higher up the pyramid and possibly moving lower. Same with materialism stuff. I think the same model holds. A few don't need it and know why from the point of view of a wider more total world view. The vast majority are in it head over heals.
Using your model Jim the high priests of Wall st. have used the system to make themselves rich while destroying the lives of millions is this actually success? It might appear that way because in the short they have all the goodies but look at the world they create for everyone else. I would posit that simply winning all the chips is only part of the game. A smart ruling class distributes wealth and power in such a manner to maximize it's effect for everyone ( a rising tide lifts all boats scenario). The present banksters and pirates on Wall st. and DC are doing exactly the opposite. This isn't success it's merely what it is robbery clothed as success. The ex-leaders of the once mighty Soviet Union remember took a similar path and in the end where is their Empire?
I had to think about Jim's comment a bit, Glenn. His pyramid is a complete chaotic resampling of the populace with the top person maybe being a fully-realized swami baglady.
It works, and it may even exist, but it doesn't make life any easier in a pragmatic way or more human. I'm talking about shifting our mainstream assumption grid which has to do with who gets to be rich or hungry, comfortable or miserable.
I like what you say about total blinkered greed having some Darwinian disadvantages. I hope you're right. I used to say "what's good for all of us is good for each of us," but I don't know. The hedgefund genius's daughters will never walk down that street. His family will never come in contact with people who have no hope or future because he stole it from them.
The pyramid model is the way that consciousness is distributed. I didn't make this up. Its not my concept. It doesn't have anything whatsoever to do with the material although it does not exclude it either. I think one can have enough money or plenty of money even, not be driven to conspicuous consumption, and still have the interests of mankind in general in mind and in action.
I don't think that the Wall Street fat cats are part of the top tier pyramid. I am talking about consciousness and the degree to which a person is aware of the total environment. Greed would immediately exclude someone from the top of this pyramid.
The people that have horded all the wealth and continue to manipulate power in order to maintain and accumulate more wealth are not at the top of this pyramid.
I like imagining the different pyramids mapping over the pop set. The joy pyramid, the wisdom pyramid, the poetics pyramid, the inventiveness pyramid, the math genius pyramid, the musicality pyramid...
Personally, I think most of human behavior is hardwired into us as a direct result of 4 millions yrs. of evolution.
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