The dominant force in our lives is something we scarcely talk about as a force
it's called consumerism.
Consumerism is the stifling of our moral imaginations.
So we might go to the shop and we see some smoked salmon in a packet,
and it's just this orange jelly-like stuff which oh that looks nice that looks tasty
all packaged nicely and there might be a little thing at the top with the Scottish flag
some tartans and bagpipes to say oh this comes from bonnie Scotland
and it's all healthy and lovely there and the air is clean.
And so it creates a sort of backstory but it's a backstory which bears,
almost no relation to what's actually going on.
That here you've got these salmon in these cages in sea lochs
being treated appallingly in terrible conditions
literally falling apart even as they're still alive.
Being eaten to death by sea lice having these horrendous treatments
given to them to try to stop the sea lice.
Being fed on what's basically ground up fish meal which is harvested
by these massive super trawlers.
Scooping up entire shoals of fish and the dolphins that are hunting those fish
and whenever a super trawler passes by,
dead dolphins start washing up on the beaches.
Because seals want to come and eat the Salmon the seals are shot
and orphaned pups then starve to death.
And we have these whole sequence of horrendous things happening
in order to deliver you this orange jelly-like substance in a packet.
But we don't think about those things because our moral imaginations
have been stifled by the fact that this thing
has been completely removed detached from its context.
And then we don't think about the future either
about what happens to the packaging once we've throw it away.
Where is this place called away? There is no 'away'
It's still on this planet something has to happen to that packaging,
it might be burnt in an incinerator it might be dumped in landfill.
We don't think about what the impact might be on the people of future generations
on people who live far away from us.
What we require in the 21st century in the midst of our environmental emergency,
is a whole new moral compass.
But far from developing this whole new richer moral sense
this dominant force in our lives consumerism shuts down
even our existing morality stifling our moral imagination.
And how is it projected into our lives how has this become
so dominant so effective how has it effectively shunted out of our minds
so much of what was there before and placed in our minds instead
this object this service this thing you can buy.
Well to a large extent with the help of celebrities.
"We're both Chance the 'wrapper',
no iI get it."
A celebrity is the mask that the machine wears.
Because if your corporation consists of a private equity company
which is just really a filing cabinet in Panama City
no one's going to attach themselves to that,
no one's going to think oh yeah I feel loyal to that corporation,
I want to buy more of its products.
That corporation needs a face and the face is the celebrity that it uses in its adverts,
the celebrity influencer on YouTube or Instagram or Tik Tok,
who says hey look I just bought this amazing product
hey you could really benefit from this as well.
Now there's long been an element of this,
the Hollywood stars who promoted cigarettes,
this has been going on for a long time.
But now it's accelerated to the point that you can scarcely escape it
almost every aspect of our life has been monetised.
And what consumerism does is constantly to create new needs,
constantly to create new wants which didn't exist before.
And once we want that thing well our lives are incomplete until we've got it.
On phones now many of the phones have automatic beauty settings,
which make you look more conventionally beautiful,
than you might consider yourself to be.
They give you cheekbones they slim you down and then you look at the picture of the phone
and say oh yeah that's me and then you'll see yourself in the mirror
and say oh I'm hideous!
I'm not the thing which I thought I was I'm not the thing which is in that photo.
So then you become insecure about yourself and you start to commodify yourself
and say I've got to buy these products I've got to buy the makeup, buy the Botox
buy the plastic surgery which turns me into this thing which my phone says I am.
And then you're comparing yourself all the time to other people look at that beautiful celebrity
who's so slender who's so beautiful who's so much more desirable than I am.
And they might well have been enhanced also either digitally or by cosmetic surgery.
And so you have this arms race this constant race against your own insecurity,
which has been implanted into your mind by consumerism and that too
then shuts down your moral imagination and it turns you into the detached object.
Removed from the past removed from the future removed from the world around you.
Where you become the consumable thing that is effectively being bought and sold traded
by the corporations who are selling stuff to you to make you look like the thing
which you see on your phone when it's been digitally enhanced by the beauty settings.
This thing consumerism which we're told enhances our lives which makes us richer
which makes our lives better actually destroys our peace of mind,
it destroys our sense of self-worth it destroys our sense of security.
Now there's been a lot of psychological research done on this,
which shows that people who are most invested in celebrity culture.
Who read the celebrity magazines who follow the celebrity gossip the celebrity news
are on the whole much less connected to their own neighbours.
The celebrity has effectively taken the place of their friend and neighbour in their minds.
The fake neighbour has displaced the real neighbour.
They're less likely to be involved in politics they're less likely to vote,
they're less likely to protest.
Celebrity culture displaces so much of the rest of our moral world.
and what it does is to weaponise consumerism.
Even our descent gets commodified even people who become heroes
in the field of political dissent then get adopted by corporations
and sell us that descent.
Our resistance becomes a consumable,
everything gets degraded by this relationship until it loses its meaning.
It destroys our relationship to each other because when we commodify ourselves
we commodify other people as well we start to think what can they do for me,
rather than what's it like to be with them.
We start to monetise our relationships even our relationships to the natural world
this whole natural capital agenda which says oh we won't value things,
until we put a price on them.
So a primrose has to have a price an elephant has to have a price on it
otherwise it's not worth anything and we can't account it.
Everything becomes a consumable as consumerism driven by the demands
of capitalism extends into every aspect of our lives and the lives of those around us.
It destroys our humanity it destroys our place in society,
it destroys our place in the present in the past in the future
it detaches us it removes us it objectifies us,
it destroys our minds.
I think one thing that the pandemic has taught a lot of us is that
it's not enough just to have virtual relationships,
it's not enough to exist as a consumer alone.
We actually desperately need to reconnect with other people we need to reconnect
with the physical world with the natural world once more
people are experiencing a real craving for that.
So perhaps this is now a great moment to reassess
who we are and where we stand.
To reassess our relationships with each other and the rest of the living world.
To overthrow consumerism to reconnect to rekindle our moral imaginations.
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