Focus on Words

Unit 6 Consumerism
Before you read
1. What is it that makes us buy the things we buy?
2. Why do we go for one product or another?
3. Do we usually shop with our head or our heart?
4. Do you understand the expression Keeping up with the Joneses?
The Dazzling Dream
Consumers are puppets of the marketing industry When we engage in
consumerism, we are engaged in chronic purchasing of new goods and services, with
little, or no, attention to whether we need them or not. We mostly do not care whether
they are durable, what is the origin of the product or the environmental consequences
of manufacture.
We have become dazzled by the dreams created by sophisticated marketing that
sells consumerism. These dreams dazzle us and hide from us our true, innate dreams
for connectedness, fulfilment, family, community and spirituality.
We are being manipulated but we deny that manipulation, thinking we really need
the goods and services we buy. We are probably all aware of the manipulation of our
children’s desires by advertising and marketing companies.
Consumerism robs us of precious time. Time is exchanged for money to buy
things that there usually is less and less time to enjoy. We spend our time working for
‘things’ and in the little time we have to relax, spend that time in front of the television
where we watch dull filler programs inserted in between commercials whose purpose
is to create more desire for more things.
Television does not exist to entertain us. It exists to sell to us. The job of people
who program television is to capture the public’s attention and hold it long enough to
advertise a product.
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