THE CULT OF CONSUMERISM
By: Jady Kralovic
Tags: Sustainability, Consumerism, Fast Fashion

I’ve been interested in the role consumerism plays in culture and the environment for most of my life. When I was in middle school I discovered what exactly “Fast Fashion” was and I learned about how its practices impact people and the planet. As a deeply empathic and emotional person even at the ripe old age of 12 what I learned deeply affected me. Reading about all the pollution and abuse factory workers suffered in sweatshops was horrible, but the images I discovered of spewing pipes and children, my age, in dark cramped rooms stooped over sewing machines was overwhelming and devastating. It changed my life.

My early experience of the negative impacts caused by consumption made me a very conscious consumer from a very young age combined with my mom being a conscious consumer as well, but for different reasons then myself. In addition to becoming a life long conscious consumer I became intensely interested in the subject of “Fast Fashion” which funneled over into interest in other environmental and social issues. I’ve never stopped trying to learn as much as I can about issues of the environment, sustainability, and people.

Communicating Nature (Corbett, 2006) has become a new resource for learning about the root of various environmental issues. Recently I read the chapter on Consumer culture (85–109 pg.) Which explained how interconnected we and everything is to nature, but culture has created this illusion that we are not, which has created this disconnect which industry has taken advantage of to sell products that we don’t actually need. This same disconnect has contributed to our ecological illiteracy which industry has also taken advantage of. Corbett covered many other aspects that have caused this disconnect and strategies that industry has employed to create the all encompassing consumer culture that now exists.

Other content I consumed this week that commentated on consumerism was a short 8 minute video from Story of Stuff about the “story” of cosmetics. As a person that takes a lot of interest in skin and hair care because I have severe eczema and 3A curly hair which are both traits that I have to look for specialized products for and which I’m picky about the kinds of products I use on them I was intrigued what perspective the video would come from. It commented on all the chemicals in products mostly and faulted companies.

While companies do need to be held accountable for their impacts I do think both “readings” missed a crucial factor, and that is that people have autonomy. Sure consumerism is embedded in our modern culture and we are bombarded to buy useless non-essentials all the time and all companies are not completely transparent about their practices and their products, but what many philosophers have come to conclude is that what makes a person a person is their ability to independently think and make choices. To say the individual is completely off the hook for their choices because they live in a culture and society that encourages that type of behavior is a dismissive excuse. If a 12 year old can think, outside of the inundated hyper consumeristic bubble that has apparently complete control over a person’s actions, to be a conscious consumer I think there’s hope for the rest of humanity. (553)