Affluenza is the cause of all society's problems. Fetishism of the product is the chief symptom. Why are we all infected and is there a cure? The fact that Britain's children are the worst looked after and brought up in the western world is no surprise when you consider the state of our culture. There are a number of things that have led to this situation and I shall break them down for you now.
Advertising
Not everyone watching an advertisement is going to buy the product associated with it right? The next question one asks is then who does buy the products. Those who are easily influenced and those who already had a desire for the product that they just didn't know about. The former group includes members throughout the age range in any given society of course, but the younger a person is the more likely they are to belong to this group. There are individuals who specialise in influencing people to make certain decisions. In the past the only people using their skills other than for advantage in interpersonal interaction were magicians. Today there are advertising executives that specialise in persuasion, subversion and subliminal influence.
Neuro - Linguistic Programming (NLP) is a technique whereby the association between things is understood to the extent that producing a desired thought in a person's head is possible. These techniques are adopted by corporations and applied to convince more people to buy their products.
The seven deadly sins can consider themselves cut to at least five in the modern world; pride and greed are actually seen as virtues in a capitalist - fetishistic society. Morality changes in every age, with the laws of the time of course, with tradition, with different questions that each generation must answer in the everyday life of its constituents. But universal morality is what philosophers like Immanuel Kant searched for and a moral code like the law depends on everybody following its rules or it is empty. The trouble with the western fetishism of luxury is that it is to the detriment of the producers of the luxuries we consume.
Even our sympathy and guilt have been outsourced to charities, they have been given a monetary value - and its however much we feel like giving. Is it wrong to feel bad about feeling good having given money to charity - because I'm sure that it is wrong to feel good about giving in the first place. Can't we do good deeds to our fellow men in the street and call it community any more? It is easier to work for a business that seeks to make only more profit for its stockholders and then go home, give 1 per cent of our wage to charity and feel absolved? It sure is - but it isn't right. Why can't people make this simple logical leap in their daily lives?
The trouble is we're programmed with Darwinian morality. When we do something wrong as a child and feel the guilt in our stomachs without knowing it would happen before we committed the act that is our morals having an effect on us. When we are in a situation that outsources our morality we also take away the feelings that are supposed to govern our actions in the first place. This is wrong. Can we reason our way into making the right choice every time we face an ethical decision? We are encouraged not to.
Hollow education and culture that focuses more on the frustration of having no focus than anything that will affect society positively are two social ills that will not go away soon and that have become ingrained to the point of acceptance. If we are no longer the moral creatures that nature made us grow up to become then what kind of adults will we make? Imagine you hadn't done anything wrong as a child and then you only do so as an adult. Would you be sick if you one day did make a moral mistake? This is how you should feel knowing the world is in such a state - like the child who didn't learn when growing up - right and wrong have left the realm of the everyday. As long as you work and buy, all is well.
