DON’T BUY INTO OUR DYING

The main factor that will destroy all that’s natural on this planet given time is not somewhere ‘over there’.

It’s located right where you are sitting. It’s the non-essential purchases you and millions like you are making.

The habit of buying ever more luxury products from electronics to cars to clothes has been instilled in almost every culture, certainly every western culture.

Don’t think it has been accidental, for it has not.

With the advent of public relations, created almost single-handed by Sigmund Freud’s nephew Edward Bernays everyone has been targeted using near-Pavlovian techniques of psychological manipulation. The arrival of television conveniently coincided with the use of these techniques. The ad-men and women in the early days studied the mentality of humans intently to discover the buttons and triggers that would make them feel they needed (not necessarily wanted) the products manufacturers wanted to sell.

Prior to this revolution in selling products’ a simple list of qualities was used in ads, displaying what was on offer along with a very basic slogan. Except in extremely rare circumstances this was to disappear completely and be replaced by the most powerful psychological elements considered appropriate in each case to generate an almost subliminal desire for the product.

It would make you feel stronger, more in control, more confident, sexier, dynamic, cool, intelligent, knowing... whatever seemed to match the product in question whether that was a cigarette or six-pack.

Bernays was the master of the art in those early days of the industry he developed. A cigarette company came to him saying women were not smoking enough. Bernays thought about how to change this for the company. In those days women smoking in public was frowned upon and Bernays fixed on breaking this taboo. He did this though associating smoking cigarettes with female emancipation.

The annual Easter Sunday Parade in New York of 1929 became the key factor in his campaign for the cigarette company. At a certain point in the parade a group of women would all light up a cigarette. Bernays had arranged for as many journalists and photographers to be there at that moment and suggested that the descriptive phrase, ‘Torches of Freedom’ be used for these cigarettes in any articles written.

‘Once the footage was released, the campaign was being talked about everywhere, the women's walk was seen as a protest for equality and sparked discussion throughout the nation and is still known today. The targeting of women in tobacco advertising led to higher rates of smoking among women. In 1923 women only purchased 5% of cigarettes sold, in 1929 that percentage increased to 12%, in 1935 to 18.1%, peaking in 1965 at 33.3%, and remaining at this level until 1977.’ (Wikipedia)

Bernays went on to mount many successful campaigns, and not only to psychologically promote merchandise, he was also involved in helping manufacture consent for U.S. military action in Latin America.

Today those of us who have observed America’s recent wars of choice can easily spot the intimate connection between the manufacturing of consent effected by the liaison between politicians and mainstream media, but a high level of naivety still exists regarding this among the general population.

Bernays ushered in the era of mass manipulation we still exist within. Now it is all-pervasive however with any number of influential agencies involved, not the least of them the CIA and U.S. military. Hollywood is particularly susceptible to influence from this latter infection of influence.

The western world now exists with a virtual propaganda soup. (Bernays by the way used the word freely and considered it a positive rather than a negative factor.)

The propaganda is not overt, in your face, manipulation but rather inherent in every narrative, ad, deferential interview, political announcement, shock jock rant and every slant, framing and bias across all elite spheres whether they be corporate, political, military or media.

The Western World was built on sales. Selling its exceptional success. Selling its values. Selling its demands, threats, bribes and punishments as standard fare for others to get used to or get targeted ruthlessly until they were made good and used to all of the above at the rate specified.

The lifestyles, needs and desires, the habits and norms of westerners were carefully molded and encouraged to maximize sales. Even the Sixties counter-culture didn’t faze those charged with developing potent advertising for long. Slowly but surely they enticed the “hippies” back into the fold and bit by bit they engaged with normality once more, they again became part of the human race and good consumers once more.

It was back then that ‘ecology’ became a buzzword of course. We started as a race to realize all this development and infrastructure building that was going on could not possibly have zero effect on the planet and its environment. But the PR industry had an answer to these worries... create doubt. Just as they did with worries that cigarettes might have something to do with developing cancers. Creating doubt about the scientific facts was the most effective weapon to hinder any calls for change or limit to consuming product.

This technique continues until today regarding climate change. happily the tobacco industry was called out and made to confess that it knew cigarette smoking was one of the main causes of cancer. Unfortunately, climate change deniers like Trump are a more difficult case and proving conclusively that economic growth has been the primary factor is impossible to prove conclusively. This allows manufacturers to push ever higher sales with no to little concern of the ultimate price to be paid.

But just look around you. You are buying in much greater quantity than your parents and vastly lesser amounts in turn than their parents. Do you pay any attention to the cost of all of us buying as most of us do without limit, except what we can afford? And of course many have huge debts because they don’t let lack of cash hinder their desires.

Do you see where the cycle of endless growth fueled by ever-increasing consumption is going?

Are you aware of all the rare earths and other valuable resources that go into even the new so-called green technologies, for instance the batteries for electric/hybrid cars?

The latest PR scam of industrialists linked to eco-activists was exposed by the documentary film, ‘Planet of the Humans’ which certain people linked to the scam successfully had temporarily banned using a cynical campaign and highly dubious legal technicality.

They want you to keep on consuming. Endlessly and more and more. They will use multi-millions to shut the mouths of those who seek to enlighten you to the psychological scams they are now using within the ‘green movement’.

They want you to stay addicted. Stay connected. Stay endlessly unsatisfied, hungry for more, never content, introspective, self-interested and greedy, always looking to be one-up, always within the cool elite, always buying and buying into the machine that feeds the needs of the 1% for ever more.

Meanwhile we kill the planet... or rather kill the ability of the planet to sustain us.

We are seven billion. In a cosmic eye blink we will be ten. Then 15, 20, 50...

We need to think about that more and not be shushed to product-induced sleep with the very next seducing product, and the next, and the next in a mesmerized coma of endless consuming.

If so we will sleepwalk with a permanent bubble of buy-messages constantly orbiting our brains... right up to the point of planetary collapse... however far ahead that may be. It is ONLY a matter of time. And the further we travel the harder it will be to turn around, the greater and stronger the normality of our product-addiction will be.

Why not at least stop for a while. The pandemic gives us that chance for a limited time (we hope). Buy less. Be more. Experience voluntary simplicity and realize the treats that are seldom now have so much more pleasure in them than when they were a daily experience. Go walks in the fresh air. Forget buying that new laptop, don’t replace your decor or still-functioning devices or furniture. Learn to be content as your parents and grandparents were. Refrain from going into debt. Replace, restore, rehabilitate and share.

Please... enjoy all those simple pleasures that you often bypass on the way to the mall.

Re-connect with feeling, with being, all outside of the ersatz world the marketers and sales forces want to push on you and addict you to.

Try to be the you that won’t cost the Earth if you can.