Does Consumerism Make Us Crazy?: Scientific American
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About Me
- willworkforplay
- I take my dog everywhere, I like to drink wine, and have the best friends in the world. I wear perfume (Opium d'ete) every day and try to observe as much as or more than I talk.
2 comments:
There are a number of things to disentangle here: the Romantic idealization of "Nature" at the expense of "Culture"; the difference between consumerism (thought to be bad) and the desire for beautifully crafted things (thought to be good, even if you buy them); the conviction that the sacred may be better sought through unmade (aka natural) things than through made (aka artifactual or artistic) things; and, last but surely not least for someone whose life is spent making the things that others consume (books, movies), the value of making itself if you consider that it is a bad thing for others to spend their time contemplating (watching, playing, reading) the things that one has made. What happens if you rephrase the question to read not "does consumerism make us crazy" but "does art make us crazy"? Is "the natural" indeed a better (or, as the letter seems to be suggesting, the only authentic) way to self-realization as a spiritual being?
Sorry, final thought: or it is that some products of art (books, paintings) are less alienating, more integrating than others (computer games, movies)? And this is not even touching the problems of home decorating vs. hiking.
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