Our addiction to consumerism and its contagion force

Consumerism is certainly one of the most important causes of pollution. Packaging, plastics, paper, cartons, dyes, batteries, devices of all kinds, mechanical, electronic, computer, caddies overflowing with products of the food industry that feed our obesitys more than our metabolisms, plus all the energy it takes to make and transport all this fatras, it represents a balance of pollution never equalled, and that can only fly even more with the emergence of developing countries… We tend to buy to buy, to own objects for the pleasure of possessing them, to surround ourselves with all kinds of gadgets quickly fallen into disuse. Manufacturers who flood us with novelty are forced, for reasons of competition, to flood us with advertising. Supposed to inform us. The perverse effect is that in us we set up irrational desires for objects that we could very well do without.

We see on TV a new mobile phone, ours is suddenly more than an old relic. We’re bragging at the lines of a new body, so the car that enchanted us only got defects. A new hamburger pierced by a hole makes us salivate in front of the screen, we must absolutely try it, even if we add its equivalent calories to our superfluous pounds…

Without publicity, there would probably not be this madness of consumption. It’s a state of mind that makes us rush to run supermarkets or specialist shops. Television is probably one of the major drivers of the consumption madness that has taken over the world, with its huge cost of environmental degradation, overloaded landfills, dioxins and other collateral damage.

What can we do to deal with this situation? Human ecogenetics proposes to analyze more closely the psychological mechanisms that make us the toys of the system. Why does a few seconds of attractive images appear on a screen, or on a magazine page, find in us such a reply? It is because we are complicit in the process that we are the victims. So what are the elements that make us lower our guard and allow us to settle in our sensitivities the desires that are instilled in us?

Why, once we are behind our wagon, cannot we resist the temptations exposed in the rays? It is clear that if we had enough money, we would give ourselves even more gadgets and utensils, quickly found in the attics and dumps once more fascinating ones have taken their place. It is a rather neurotic frenzy, therefore linked to all kinds of frustrations, which we see in watermark behind this table of abundance.

The question is simple, but the mechanisms underlying the need to consume are far from clear. They probably have more psychopathology than the functioning of our reason. Better knowledge of them, and the precise identification of their causes, will help to tackle the problem at the bottom. Knowing the cause of a false need, and knowing that we are victims of a system that induces this fragility in us, already frees us in part.

As soon as the mechanisms of an optical illusion are known, appears the desire to correct the shot and not let us be deceived any longer. The satisfactions we experience surrounding ourselves with superfluous objects are a form of illusion. If we understand the springs in depth, the will to free us from them will win us despite us…