Friday 13 November 2009

Marketing and the Media: The Sirens of consumerism

"Yes, I sell people things they don't need. I can't, however, sell them something they don't want. Even with advertising. Even if I were of a mind to."
John O'Toole

In the West all but the very few are fortunate to have their basic needs for food, shelter, warmth and safety met. We are consequently pre-occupied not by what we need but by what we want and what we want, is predominately influenced by marketing and the media. Both have been proven to very effective in moderating both our desires and behaviours. This in and of itself is not a bad thing; in times of great hardship when a collective effort has been required both have played a major part in mobilising people toward a common cause. For this reason my concern does not lie with either activities but with the predominate purpose to which they are being applied. The vast majority of marketing and media effort is directed at increasing our desire to purchase things and therefore to consume more natural resources over and above what we actually need.

One could see the media as simply a vehicle for the marketing messages but the media industry is massive and it uses marketing to perpetuate itself and as such is just as malignant. Everywhere you go in the world you will notice their footprints to a greater of lesser extent. If one pays attention to almost every type of advert underlying it is a message which attempts to get people to identify themselves with the product, they are really attempting to sell to your ego and not your rational mind. This is the case for almost everything from automobiles to toilet tissue. The people who are doing this are really very, very good at what they do and if we ever decided that we need to get the global community to change the way they view themselves in relation to the world at large, such people and practices would be vital to the cause.

Of all the current vehicles for the distribution of the current consumerist propaganda today, television must be the most potent. In many countries a license fee to own one still exists, it amuses me to see signs on people's doors requesting door to door salespeople not to call, whilst the inhabitants spend ever increasing hours, paying to watch the best salesperson of all, in not only their living room but now in many other rooms in the house. It is not just the adverts on commercial television enticing us to consume more but also the myriad of lifestyle programmes encouraging us to revamp our living spaces, wardrobes, gardens and just about everything else one could imagine. Furthermore with the advent of digital TV, marketeers can now target groups based on specific areas of interest which is proven to deliver a higher sales conversion rates.

Celebrities also concerns me deeply, not only because they are used as paragons of virtue, to convince us that if we only looked like them or bought the things they did, that we too would be better people but also because it is a sign of what we currently value as a society. The plethora of celebrity based magazines herald these people as idols, people to aspire to be like. If we all lived a celebrity lifestyle things would be many, many times worse than they are today and our demise would be absolutely unavoidable. Who we see as celebrities indicate what we truly value as a culture and contentious though it may be, I believe that suggests that what the majority of people really value, is money, and I find this incredibly sad. If we are to change, we must address this issue and I hope marketing and the media will one day play it's part in furthering this cause and in helping people become aware of the non-financial richness of life.

Time: The great task master

"Clocks slay time... time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life."
William Faulkner

The ancient Greeks had two goods of time; Chronos being the god of the linear march of time, as marked out by a ticking clock and Kairos, the god of the right moment in time. Which commands the majority of your attention?

Whilst I’m sure scientists would disagree with me, I see time as purely a human construct and as such entirely relative. We may have devised a unit of time based on the time taken for a physical phenomenon to occur, as with the atomic clock but what dictates whether a period of time is considered long or short? Observing the world of modern man, so much of what we do is focussed around being time efficient and this it seems creates both unnecessary degrees of stress and consumption. Perhaps the only truly time critical event is finding sufficient food, water and shelter before its absence becomes uncomfortable. I find it ironic that although we have more and more time and work saving technologies, we seem to have less free time available than ever before.

If one looks at the work that goes on in business, before the advent of all the so called Information Technology work was done relatively efficiently. With the advent of IT one might have expected a significant increase in productivity but it seems that little has actually changed, yes more information is produced and analysed but because of the increase in speed of transaction afforded by IT, this information usually passes it sell by date before any conclusions can be drawn from it. It also appears that we have an innate tendency to mistake quantity, rhetoric and appearance for quality, substance and insight; "death by Powerpoint" and "vapourware" are all too prevalent in today’s business arena. Perhaps it is time for us to slow things down and be a little more considered before we act. In so doing we might actually begin to notice the opportunities to improve our lives that already surrounded us rather than rushing to develop or invent something else.

I believe we pay far too much attention to the passing of time and the need to do things quickly than in deciding how best to spend the present moment in time. This fixation has led us to be overly concerned about the length of our lives at the expense of the quality of our experience. In turn this I suggest has resulted in a reduction in concern for the nature of our relationships with each other and the things around us. I am left wondering if an objective assessment of our medical practices would question the resources and priority we give to life extension compared to the minimal attention given to social enrichment.

Before industrialisation our sensitivity towards time was linked to the natural cycle of the sun, moon, tides and seasons which reminded us all of our dependency on the natural order of things. Nowadays our perception of time is increasingly driven by the apparent urgencies of the commercial world. Whilst we cannot and should not attempt to control the natural world we can and should moderate the commercial one. The principal theme in this blog calls us to recognise the consequences of our fixation on economics and consumption, these are delivered by commerce which is a model we designed and can therefore redesign. There is no reason why a better system could not be developed which not only improved the qualitative experience of our lives but also increase the amount of non-work related time we can then choose how best to enjoy.

Returning to Chronos and Kairos, I believe that Chronos is telling us that our time is running out and that Kairos is calling us to action now, in this moment. The change can be instantaneous, as an individual all one needs to do is commit to a reprioritisation of what one values. Yes, it will take time, probably a number of generations to undo the damage we have done but the joy is in the journey, attending to what is truly valuable about life will continually yield rewards.

I am left wondering how different cultures and philosophies approached time and also have a desire to better understand the history of man in the wider ecological timeline.

The technological paradox

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity."
Albert Einstein

Would that Albert Einstein were still alive today, I feel sure that he would be a great help in unravelling the problems we have created for ourselves. Whilst the scientific approach has in a sense opened Pandora’s Box, technology has to date, represented its contents. Technological innovation was the father of the industrial revolution and capital gain its mother, their child I propose is ecological devastation. In its infancy let’s say the last 300 years the infant appeared to bring enhanced quality of life to all it touched but has this really been the case? What has happened to the social infrastructure, the family, is our quality of life better than it might have been without it? Don’t get me wrong, those halcyon days were not truly so but might we have taken a different developmental path, more supportive of social and ecological equality?

Certainly in developed nations, at the material level things have improved but I question if the qualitative experience of life actually has. We are a social animal but technology seems to have resulted in social fragmentation rather than integration. Now, more than ever, the outward signs of the haves and the have nots are all too clear. Technologies such as the Television, the Internet, mobile phones, MP3 players and computer gaming, whilst claiming increased connectivity on one level, actually isolate us from personal face to face interaction on another.

Technology has been the great enabler of our excess; through mechanisation, it has enabled the mass production of low cost consumables and intensive agricultural practices. The impact of technology on agriculture has been fundamental in both the support of population growth, the over exploitation of land, the migration from the countryside to cities and has resulted in the loss of our collective connection with, and sensitivity, to nature.

I see technology as paradoxical because on the one hand, physically, at least in the short term, it has made life easier but on the other, emotionally, I feel it has had a leaching effect. I find it astounding that millions of people around the world are choosing to live an imaginary life as an Avatar in cyber space rather than actually going out into the world and relating, not only to each other but to the world at large. This is Plato’s cave writ large and symptomatic of the scenario painted by the Matrix trilogy of films, it seems we are becoming a community of virtual ego’s just needing to be fed the right blend of fantasies to keep us compliant. I do not advocate abandoning technology but I do suggest we consider how we might use it to augment our lives rather than act as a substitute to reality and richness of them.

How important technology needs to be in the long term is debateable but it is clear to me, that we will need technology to contain and perhaps reverse some of the damage we have already done.

Science and the double edged sword of reason

“Science is the tool of the Western mind and with it more doors can be opened than with bare hands. It is part and parcel of our knowledge and obscures our insight only when it holds that the understanding given by it is the only kind there is.”
Carl Jung

I must confess to feeling extremely ambivalent about science; on one level it has contributed immensely to humankind, almost everything man made has been touched by the hand of science but on a more systemic level it has also been responsible for the global population explosion, over exploitation of natural resources and perhaps most damagingly a sense that we can control life itself. If we look at medical sciences alone, global life expectancy is two to three times longer thanks to the scientific revolution which at the level of the individual is seen as a good thing but without a compensatory reduction in birth rates, at a global level this is far from desirable.

At the root of the issue with modern science lies the reductionist principal which implies that everything can be understood by breaking it down into its constituent parts. This has led to a fragmentation and narrowing of the scientific field, into numerous focused disciplines each striving to make progress within its own field, without sufficient reference to the wider whole. An example of how this approach can be questioned would be the development of fertility treatments, on one level we are assisting an individual in propagating their genes but on another we are actually defeating the natural selection mechanisms which would seek to eliminate the underlying genetic defect from the human gene pool. The context in which we are developing this science is not only a world of over population but one in which there are numerous orphan children around the world who need loving parents and a home. This is just one example of where scientific reason can actually become irrational.

Science, in and of itself, is a search for understanding and as such is a very laudable pursuit. I suppose the true issues arise in the application of that knowledge. One cannot question a scientist for exploring things, assuming it is done ethically, but the scientist who develops its application must be held accountable. I believe it is should be incumbent upon every applied scientist to consider the wider implications and uses of their work.

Perhaps the most dangerous yet intangible aspect of science is the impact it has had on how we humans relate to and see ourselves in, the world at large. We have conquered every physical domain, we have the ability to control almost every disease and we have developed technologies which increasingly make us feel independent of the natural processes around us but truth be told, we have done nothing but delude ourselves, everything man has done scientifically in the last 300 years has set us apart from and made us feel immune to the natural order of things. Well, the time of reckoning is upon us and we are about to reap the whirlwind, the wholeness of nature is far greater than one species alone, particularly one who is arrogant enough to assume that it might actually control it. Everything we have done has had a consequence, it just that there has been a latency in response, but a response there will be and it will not be a positive one. Now more than ever we need scientists to turn their attention to the bigger picture, to collaborate across disciplines as never before and to convince the rest of us with a lesser understanding of such matters, of what we must do to minimise the human suffering that awaits us and to take the necessary steps to re-align ourselves with the natural order of things. We no longer need scientists to develop technologies and cures, we need their counsel and guidance as to how to live our lives, science was born out of philosophy and therein lies its true application and calling.

The influence of political systems

“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.”

Groucho Marx

Politics undoubtedly has a huge impact on everything that happens in the human world and will be instrumental to the achievement of any change in our collective behaviour. Unfortunately all political systems are to some extent or another undermined by the human flaw of self interest which influences us all. We like to think that governments act for the good of all but this is far from being the case and more often than not they actually serve the desires of a relatively small privileged few. Whilst in some cases this is the direct result of corruption more often than not it derives from a desire to give the people what they want. The issue being, that what we the people want has been manipulated by corporate marketing and the media to serve an agenda which further widens the socio-economic gap. Politics and economic are now more closely entwined that ever, no matter what fundamental political ethos a government advocates, they all now seem to be subservient to forces of market economics.

If we are to radically change our approach to living in the world, politicians must lead the way, they are not simply governors of our nations they must also be more strategic and long term in their thinking. When historians look back at the late twentieth and early twenty first century, how will they judge those who we entrusted with our future? It seems to me that even the most enlightened of them still defines the problem as continuing to achieve economic growth and development, whilst reducing the detrimental impact on the earth. The true leaders of future generations must focus on how to change the very course of mankind towards living in a harmonious and sustainable way which minimise our footprint on the earth. This will involve enormous cultural and sociological change and it will be a rare person indeed who can gain the support of the world’s citizens to take this challenging path.

I would call this politics with a big P, truly furthering the development and evolution of mankind. What I see in the world of politics today is that of the small p variety, little more than horse trading; squabbling about access to mineral rights, fish stocks, carbon quotas, the positioning of national borders and the dominance of one dogma over another. The image of Nero fiddling whilst Rome burned comes to mind. I notice with some amusement how the UK government boasts of reducing carbon emissions whilst neglecting to mention that this has been achieved by the off-shoring of almost all its manufacturing capacity. In fact, with the increase in UK consumption of factored goods the actual true global carbon emissions attributable to the UK is rising significantly albeit in places like China and India. Politics today and perhaps since it first began, seems to be a game of smoke and mirrors but that will no longer do, mother earth has spoken and it is time for the children to go to bed and the grown ups to go to work. I have absolutely no doubt that the people with the necessary, vision, wisdom and courage exist to take up this mantle but I suspect none of them are listed amongst the political throng of today.

Democracy is held up by many as the ideal model for a political system but I find it somewhat floored, in as much as it assumes that the mass populous knows what is best. Collective thinking is so often a compromise and is typical founded on the popular beliefs of the time, which is fine when things are stable but when significant changes in direction are called for, the collective inertia can be devastating. Most democracies have a 4-5 year electoral cycle which is little more than an endless beauty pageant, the winner being the most charismatic proponent of what people want to hear and believe, leaving little hope for the election of anyone who actually aspires to change anything very much. The power of our longing for the security of the status quo cannot be underestimated. I wonder if we shouldn't consider a two tier approach to global politics where there is a global government for global issues and national governments subservient to it, responsible for the governance of individual nations within the wider parameters designed to protect the global interest. How this could be achieved, I do not know but we must recognise that the greatest issues facing us in the twenty first century, do not respect national boundaries and as such, the attention to them cannot be moribund by national or corporate entrenchment.

I wonder if my expectations from politics and politicians are too high, perhaps politics responds to change elsewhere and is simply the executor of greater ideals whose time has come.

Tuesday 10 November 2009

Economic myopia

This is my first attempt at a blog so please bare with me......

I had attempted to write a book with the title 'Growth' Stuff and No-Sense: Will this be our epitaph or our awakening?' but trying to keep a track of the latest developments in the interconnected web of disciplines associated with humankind's activities has proved to be beyond me. In these increasingly complex and often turbulent times, I thought it might be more sensible to try blogging as a way to express myself, as and when I feel that I need to. It will immediately become apparent that I am no expert, I simply offer my thoughts and opinions for your consideration.

I thought I'd start with a observation or two surrounding the 'credit crisis' , 'economic downturn' or 'financial depression' that is so often spoken about. The fundamental problem, as I see it, is that financiers, business people and politicians alike all seem to be suffering from a ubiquitous misapprehension that money is 'real' rather than a system we originally designed for ascribing and trading things of, true value. To illustrate we are told that between 1997 and 2007 the World experienced unprecedented stability of year on year growth however in the same period the productivity of the Earth in terms of actual biomass (the stuff of life) fell year on year, couple this with an exponential growth in the human population then the money side of the equation is not only inverse but disproportionate to the experience of the majority of the World's population.

Small wonder that there was a 'bubble' waiting to be burst. What now concerns me is that the response of the 'good and great' in the World is not only to prop up those who led us here in the first place but also through quantitative easing to pump more money into the system to convince those who elected them or will pay their bonuses that things will soon be back to normal again, if only those with the least money in the economy are prepared to foot the bill through increased taxes over the next decade. This all relies on the myth that the development of a society and the experience of life is predicated on the consumption of non essential goods, when in fact it actually leads to the fragmentation of society, undermining of actual self-worth and the gradual yet inexorable destruction of the planet which actually sustains very life itself.

Why are governments trying to build their way out of this situation? Unemployment continues to rise as does the gap between the 'have's and have not's'. This was and may still be a key opportunity in our history to change not only how we relate to the planet but also to each other. What better time to eliminate waste, to develop truly sustainable process and to employ those out of work on projects associated with ecological solutions? If we are going to spend money let's spend it on addressing the cause not the symptoms.

My contention is that those with most influence over the global economy have developed acute myopia with a huge scotoma covering the contribution economics might make in undoing the immense damage post-industrial man has visited upon the Earth. The Earth's system of which we are but a small part, is complex and interconnected resulting in bounded instability, cause and effect thinking cannot cut it anymore, we must ensure we take a multi-disciplinary approach to understanding and moderating the impact we have, economics will undoubtedly have to play a part but as a servant not a master.

I do not consider myself to be an evangelist quite the opposite, this to me is a fundamentally pragmatic view, assuming that the desired end result is a future for humankind on this Earth. Rest assured the Earth will only tolerate our abuse for so long before it's inherent feedback systems remove the irritation, namely us.