No way out
1 February, 2008

It isn’t easy to be a good capitalist citizen. The relentless consumerism, the endless adverts, the constant choices over what you should buy. It is hard to maintain the post-organismic bliss that you are told is you birthright and can only be achieved by carrying full shopping bags away from the shiny, neon-lit cathedrals that draw the worshippers in with promises of limitless parking and the washing away of your daily sins at the checkout alter.

Religion was the opium of the masses, but we know that we live in perfect, wipe-clean times when the masses can have both opium and religion. Yes, opium and religion, working together to lift us into the ecstasy of capitalist consumerism deliverance. Television is the opium, dulling our senses and telling us what to think, what to want, which way to live. It sets the parameters of our very thought processes, narrowing them down to what we are supposed to have next.

We are injected with acquisitive desire and we slump back into the armchair, our worries and fears smeared from our tired faces, allowing the nagging numbness to creep slowly in. New is better. Better is satisfying. More new. More now. More new, forever. There is a dreamscape for us all. A beach, perpetual white/gold sand, you and a perfect figurine of humanity walking arm in arm, in the latest clothes, carrying the latest iPod, your figurine children in the biggest, best, shiniest car, playing with the latest handheld, drinking metallic liquids from cartoon character-adorned bottles. You know you will be happy forever.

But you are tripping. When you awake from your intoxication, you see nothing of the latest anything. Salvation is at hand, however. The cathedral awaits, and the priest in a stay-pressed, nylon-mix uniform will take you to your chapel. You can pray at the things you cannot afford, lighting a candle in your soul. And, capitalist citizen, your prayers are always answered. Your plastic redeemer with your name lovingly embossed. Silver, gold, platinum. The holy trinity of purchasing power.

Do you know your worth, good capitalist? Our leaders, who long since gave up all hope of being able to control events, have revealed our inner purpose. The glorious shopper is the sole engine of the Western economies. Without you, all would collapse. For the good of the nation, for all our sakes, you must carry on shopping. It is your moral imperative. You are obliged. It is your religion; your commandment: thou shall spend.

One day, the noble shopper will be depicted, a statue outside every cathedral. Dressed in elasticated slacks, a fleece and comfi shoes. A pot belly, thinning hair, double chin, squinting eyes and hands evolved to dive for wallets. Carrying bags of shopping stuffed full of consumables. Political parties will be set up, wars fought. What do we want? Shopping. When do we want it? Now. Plays, films, television series, books, paintings, operas, all glorifying your higher calling.

You cannot fight against the desire to shop. It is too ingrained. You were born a consumer, and a consumer you will stay. But you can chip away at the edifice, in the only way possible: You can decide what to buy. You are constantly told to want better, newer, shinier, brighter. Your life will be better, the robotic voice crackles from the plastic box. But what if you buy only things that you do not want? What will the advertisers do if you buy exactly the opposite of what they tell you to desire?

Will they follow the trend and portray products as being something that you would not want? Old cleaner, twice as ineffective, guaranteed not to remove stains. Die Hard 5.75, definitely the worst film of the decade. Bruce Willis has never acted so poorly. The whole system would fall down around their ears. The perpetual cycle would be broken. We wouldn’t want to shop. We would be free.

But we would no longer be shiny. Our opium would disappear. We would have to find a new religion. There would be no dreamscape. No figurines. No bright future. No white/gold sand. How would we cope with no moral purpose? No higher calling. No deliverance. Maybe we cannot live like that. Maybe there is no way out.