The forced hypocrisy of modern consumerist culture.
Just wanted to muse about some things that are not at all original.
There is a sense in which to live as a middle class liberal person in the modern world, one is forced to live hypocritically. On the one hand one has to face the realization that modern consumerist culture is built on a form of consenting slavery. Technically speaking it's not slavery of course because people can choose to live in even greater poverty, if not starvation. But make no mistake about it the only reason we in the first world can have iphones, 60" HDTVs, gaming consoles, and so much more at fire sale prices is because someone else is working 70 hours a week assembling them at 100s an hour for pennies on the dollar. Now of course this is how our modern capitalist system has always worked and it's true that capitalism IS an engine for wealth creation. This is not an argument that any form of communism is the solution. But any liberal, progressive, left leaning person in the 1st world has to feel some sense of guilt in living a middle class life knowing that a good deal of the materialist goods that make their lives middle class, are made at a pretty high human cost.
We all know this. We don't like to think about it until it occasionally hits the front page when say 1000 people die in a garment factory in Bangladesh in a fire, or workers at the Fox Conn factory die in such large numbers due to suicide that the factory puts up nets. But these are just the tip of the iceberg and the reality is that the majority of all consumer merchandise is made at a very high human cost, both physical and emotional.
Many do try to mitigate some of these effects by boycotting certain producers or certain retailers. But I think the majority choose to live in a kind of tense hypocritical limbo. They are aware of these facts but choose to put them out of mind in order to live their day to day lives as middle class individuals.
Note here that I am not blaming people for doing this. Indeed I feel that some form of hypocritical awareness is indeed perhaps the only emotionally healthy way we can approach the subject. For IMO the logical alternative would lead one to have to almost live off the grid to avoid such harm.
Also, alternatively the argument that capitalism IS an engine for wealth, and improves the lives of those on the other end manufacturing "our" goods isn't entirely wrong either. My argument that people are willing slaves is of course an exaggeration and indeed people flock in the millions from rural areas of 2nd/3rd world countries to work those factory jobs. Because the money they earn however meager is still much better than they would otherwise. But this is still a troubling argument in my opinion, for the livelihoods of these people are artificially lowered so that ours can be raised to the level that we are accustomed to.
So as I said one is left with a somewhat troubling realization. That to live a comfortable middle class life in any 1st world country, almost by definition means doing so on the backs of millions of others clamoring for the same lives. And yet it's difficult to actually blame anyone in the 1st world for their middle class lives, aside from the super wealthy who indeed drive much of this engine and keep the disparity at the levels they are at.
So as I said I do feel that certain amount of conscious hypocrisy in the way we live is almost oddly kind of the healthiest emotional balance. I'm not saying we do nothing of course. I think we should do as much as we can to force business in the direction of conscientious practices. I think what we really need to do is put the feet of the worlds ultra billionaires to the fire. The concentration of wealth at that level is such that they alone have enough collectively to ease a lot of the burden.
= new reply since forum marked as read
