Consumerism and One Dimensional Thought

“One Dimensional Man” by Herbert Marcuse is a fascinating book about the consumption of people into consumerism, media, and the culture industry. Marcuse was a brilliant sociologist who coined many new terms and theories that modern sociologists still use today. His book touches many aspects and broad schemes that can be seen in society. He tends to focus on this main idea that people are becoming consumed by television, media, the need to so shopping, and the ultimate pursuit of the American Dream. 

Instinctually humans are driven by similar things; food, water, and shelter. In todays modern driven era these basic human needs are slowly being replaced with items we do not really need. Instead they are being replaced with things we strongly believe that we need, or we would not be able to last without them. For example many people including myself are glued to our smart phones all day long. Whether we are checking social media, listening to music, or texting our friends. Our phones are always in our hands or not too far out of sight. Another example would be peoples spending habits and shopping.Shopping has become this cultural things that people do for any number of reasons. Some shop because of want and need, while others shop for addiction and status verification. 

Marcuse looked at the social world and saw people becoming consumed by products and material items. He witnessed people becoming entranced by products and their ability to completely grab someones attention and change their way of thinking. These products have the ability to alter peoples motives, and desires and targets that infatuation and drive directly at their product. I came across an article about extreme shopping habits on NBC.com titled; “Taking Shopping Habits to the Extreme” by Allison Linn. In her piece she has some views that align with Marcuse. She says that we as Americans have outsourced a lot of goods and services to other countries to up production and keep costs down. This was working for many years until recently we started seeing many toy recalls back to China, and all the environmental problems associated with mass production. 

These problems were enough for some people to stop in their tracks and pull themselves out of one dimensional thought, as mentioned by Marcuse. This incidents opened peoples eyes to the fact that mass consumption and industrialization is taking on a massive form in American society and its a problem that can get very out of hand if not dealt with. Some people are now making small changes in their lives to try and cut down on their role in adding to mass consumption. Now people will shop at local farmers markets instead of huge stores, and make people consider their spending choices more carefully. 

Repost: Campaigning on Marriage Equality

Today in my multiculturalism in the media class, we talked about a very present topic in our society which is the idea of white privilege and power. When talking about something as prevalent and under reported as white privilege it can be difficult at times to put the petty arguments aside and analyze the argument critically. It can also be extremely difficult to talk about white privilege when the majority of people in positions of power are white. It does not make the argument impossible it just makes it more difficult because people do not like to hear negative things about themselves. Because of this people in power often do not like hearing things about inequality because they have no concept of it, because they have always been “equal”. 

While reading through a news outlets webpage I came across something that is happening right now in Australia and illustrates this topic very well. Currently in Australia same sex couples can enter into a domestic partnership or a civil union which are considered de facto unions in Australia. A marriage equality bill has been introduced multiple times to Australia’s parliament but has been shot down every single time. Currently there is a same sex marriage bill being considered that is to be voted on in February. Legislatures of parliament and ad companies are going to run ad campaigns for both sides of the issue to keep things as fair as possible. What is not fair is a loophole in Australia that applies only to political advertising. According to the article; “If the campaigns were to be classed as political advertising, there would be no legal requirement for content of the ads to be factually correct.” Awful things can and probably will be said about the LGBT community designed to inspire hate, and a greater sense of inequality. Meaning that anything and everything offense or not can be said about same sex marriage and the LGBT community and there is nothing anyone can do about it.

This is something that does not sit well with me because it goes back to that idea of white privilege. I can guarantee that majority of the people in parliament weighing in on this decision are heterosexual men and women. Meaning that they have no idea what is like to be a homosexual person living in a world that is dominated by and catered to heterosexual people. The people in power making these huge life decisions for a select group of the population that don't have a strong voice in the community is unsettling to me. The people making decisions lack some insight into what it feels like to be an oppressed population based on who you love.  Once the ad campaigns begin the LGBT community and particularly the youth of the Australian LGBT community could be subject to intense scrutiny, hate, and many other terrible things for being different. I think I can speak for a lot of people when I say that it is hard enough to fit in and feel normal in everyday life, I cannot imagine what it would be like if there was a negative smear campaign airing in my community making me feel like even more of an outsider. 

All I can hope for is that different voices and opinions can be brought into this discussion. I also hope that at the end of the day everyone can realize that we are talking about love.

                                            Campaigning on Marriage Equality 

Today in my multiculturalism in the media class, we talked about a very present topic in our society which is the idea of white privilege and power. When talking about something as prevalent and under reported as white privilege it can be difficult at times to put the petty arguments aside and analyze the argument critically. It can also be extremely difficult to talk about white privilege when the majority of people in positions of power are white. It does not make the argument impossible it just makes it more difficult because people do not like to hear negative things about themselves. Because of this people in power often do not like hearing things about inequality because they have no concept of it, because they have always been “equal”. 

While reading through a news outlets webpage I came across something that is happening right now in Australia and illustrates this topic very well. Currently in Australia same sex couples can enter into a domestic partnership or a civil union which are considered de facto unions in Australia. A marriage equality bill has been introduced multiple times to Australia’s parliament but has been shot down every single time. Currently there is a same sex marriage bill being considered that is to be voted on in February. Legislatures of parliament and ad companies are going to run ad campaigns for both sides of the issue to keep things as fair as possible. What is not fair is a loophole in Australia that applies only to political advertising. According to the article; “If the campaigns were to be classed as political advertising, there would be no legal requirement for content of the ads to be factually correct.” Awful things can and probably will be said about the LGBT community designed to inspire hate, and a greater sense of inequality. Meaning that anything and everything offense or not can be said about same sex marriage and the LGBT community and there is nothing anyone can do about it.

This is something that does not sit well with me because it goes back to that idea of white privilege. I can guarantee that majority of the people in parliament weighing in on this decision are heterosexual men and women. Meaning that they have no idea what is like to be a homosexual person living in a world that is dominated by and catered to heterosexual people. The people in power making these huge life decisions for a select group of the population that don't have a strong voice in the community is unsettling to me. The people making decisions lack some insight into what it feels like to be an oppressed population based on who you love.  Once the ad campaigns begin the LGBT community and particularly the youth of the Australian LGBT community could be subject to intense scrutiny, hate, and many other terrible things for being different. I think I can speak for a lot of people when I say that it is hard enough to fit in and feel normal in everyday life, I cannot imagine what it would be like if there was a negative smear campaign airing in my community making me feel like even more of an outsider. 

All I can hope for is that different voices and opinions can be brought into this discussion. I also hope that at the end of the day everyone can realize that we are talking about love.       

By: Joshua C