Materialism. Consumerism. Affluenza. A slow, subtle, self-inflicted, self-absorbed and insensate suicide, at all levels of existence. These are a few of the raison d'etres of both the neologism consumercide, and this, the consumercide.com website.

Consumercide is an uncontrolled consumerism, a psychological condition whereby the individual consumes merely for the sake of consumption, or the attempted fulfillment of needs that won't and can't actually be met through the action of gratituous consumption. (This is, of course, as opposed to consumption as the result of the genuine need for an item or service.) 

Unfortunately, consumercide is still at the heart of our modern/postmodern society, and it continues to motivate us along ultimately unsustainable (e.g.) paths. At a collective level this madness can be seen in the (nevertheless) consensually accepted goal of "economic growth". At the individual-group level, "Retail therapy" is the regrettable norm, at once an addictive behaviour and an icon of today's wasteful and thoughtless western culture. 

In this consumercidal world, endless shopping malls stretch from corner to corner of the planet. Products that no-one in their right mind could truly justify as necessary, adorn every shelf and showroom. Huge family cars --with but a single commuter within, choke the urban streets, and fill the planet with toxic fumes. Sporting pursuits are consumed to insanely fanatical and violent levels, for nothing but mindless jingoistic ends. And so on.

Consumercide has a vast, dark underbelly of psychological abberation such as social alienation, war/darwinian metaphors of existence, a personal detachment from reality*, and avoidance of any form of self-evaluation. It is a pandemic addiction/activity and group delusion, with an altogether mythic pay-off.

Consumercide can (ironically) result in the loss of things far more important to the human psyche than those things gained via the mundane mechanics of consumerism. At its often found extreme, that loss is the removal of the heart and spirit of life and humanity itself. 

Gurdjieff once wrote of the person who exists in such a realm of consciousness; 

He lives in a subjective world of "I love", "I do not love", "I like", "I do not like", "I want", "I do not want", that is, of what he thinks he likes, of what he thinks he does not like, of what he thinks he wants, of what he thinks he does not want. He does not see the real world. The real world is hidden from him by a thick wall of uncontrolled imagination. He lives in waking-sleep. He is asleep. What is called "clear consciousness" is actually sleep and a far more dangerous sleep than sleep at night in bed.

Gurdjieff's intent in these words are echoed in many forms throughout the perennial philosophy of mankind. 

Consumerism for purposes outside of that of what could be demonstrably justified as 'needs' creates problems at many levels: at the individual social, the environmental, and the economic levels to name but a few. Through consumercide, problems manifest in the relationships of humans everywhere, from an individual through to an international level. Consumerism implicitly supplants natural orientations to life with a self-destructive personal role for the consumer, as creativity is subordinated to that of the material consumed and the intents of it's creators. This subordination of central parts of ourselves represents a loss of understanding and wisdom about our role in this life. We then fail temet nosce, to "know thyself", and rather seek solace in empty pursuits dictated by the machine that propels consumerism. We also fail to understand the outside world. this is an embrace of a dangerous and self-perpetuating ignorance about the world, it's injustices and potential pitfalls.

Our motivations are then skewed towards things that the marketer and corporation holds as virtuous, and in doing so, we lose all contact with the real virtues of man. The commonly quoted "rat race" is a social morass in which we are set in patterns of opposition and antagonism against each other, in a race to emulate the "lifestyles of the rich and the famous", even if the only thing we can afford is a can of toxic black sugar-water. This attitude keeps the shopping malls crowded, yet it is a negative outcome for the self, the spirit, the society and the planet. Many at the elite level in government, academia and industry seem overcome with the psychological condition of weitiko disease (the lust and addiction to power and control as an end in itself) and so only benefit from this seed of destructiveness sown within us. But they too have a tall price to pay for the perpetuation of materialism, conflict and ignorance. for we need only look to these people that society holds in high regard, and see the inner distress which is manifest upon their faces, shining through the justifications and self-supplications to their own megalomaniacal ways.

"Authentic freedom cannot be purchased or found outside of you. There is no discovering the elusive “it” in money, fame, prestige, possessions or even family. These are three of the most common pursuits of the ego in its effort to sell you on its idea of freedom. Authentic freedom is actually the freedom of knowing who you are, why you are here, your purpose in life and where you are going when you leave here. It is knowing that your identity is not located in the physical world but in the eternal, changeless world of God. Self realisation is authentic freedom. Self realisation is not an acquisition but an understanding that, once found, cannot be lost. All of the fruits of false freedom can and will be lost eventually. They demand specialness and separateness from you, and they all will turn into dust in your hands. Authentic freedom is permanent. It is beyond all comings and goings. And it comes with a knowing rather than a belief. Once you know within that this inner experience of your higher self is the source of your freedom, you automatically have it. You are free from anger, hatred and bitterness. In essence, you are free to love. Your life will be filled with joy because you will have attained self realisation. The self in self realisation is not the ego. So know that losing counterfeit freedom is no loss at all. Your sense of authentic freedom is egoless. You are no longer self absorbed. Freed from self absorption, you enjoy authentic freedom. This new kind of freedom will provide you with a knowing that forever precludes any question of uncertainty. Instead, you will know freedom as an inner connection to the divine--your personal loving connection with God."

Both consumerism and materialism ultimately lead to an enormous spectrum of problems that are well characterised in this new millenium of sickness. I don't have to describe this in any detail, as almost everyone is quite aware of the problems that this planet is experiencing. It would be engaging in platitudes to speak of wars, murder, atrocities, greed, crimes to attain perceived status or gratification, materialism and waste, disregard for other people and planet, politically induced human disasters, extinction of species and poisoning of the whole environment, and the hunger for power that characterises quite a lot of human existence. Some arenas seem to be getting better, some worse, and yet human beings overall attempt at humanitarianism still leaves much to be desired--let alone our attempts at playing God. Anyway, rather than detail these things here, I point towards the site content, where some arenas of battle between benevolence-awareness and consumercide are delineated. 

A central crux of the disorder of consumercide, in terms of action, is how it assists in making individuals quite unaware of all of the things in their direct social-technical-political environment that profoundly affect them, and ultimately cause these (abovementioned) problems to manifest. Whether it be the health of the body, the family, the society, the economic system or the planet, under the spell of consumercide we fail to recognise and address root causes, seeking superfluous, band-aid solutions to our problems instead. Indeed we may be blaming the wrong things for our problems.

The meaning and sustance of this argument is something that will be carried on throughout the themes of the site, perhaps most particularly in the section on consciousness. Although I am reluctant to start sounding like some sort of preacher here, I nevertheless find it useful to make a quote from the Gospel of Thomas (a document rejected by the Catholic Church), of a statement purportedly said by Jesus Christ. (A 'gnostic library' link is in the consciousness section; from there go to the Gospel of Thomas for the source.) ¹

This allegory is the best that I can think of at this moment for defining one aspect of consumercide. To indulge in a bit of manichean logic, the myriad perceived pay-offs of consumercidal activity are analogous to  the small 'fish', but the awareness of consumercide as a problem to be addressed and overcome is the large one. The capability to descriminate a large from small 'fish' is at the centre of our problems, for individual and society alike.

It is a thesis of this site that our political, judicial and knowledge systems are not therefore the real problem, but rather just incidental 'golemic' structures of woeful inadequacy. However, our motivations --our internal psychological states-- are what cause the initial, causative problems that ultimately create widespread disharmony and pandemic structural chaos, centred about the resolution of 'small fish' problems. The chaos perpetuates itself as humanity is continually being educated as to what is 'normal' within a sick, unaware, insane environment. This leads to the situation of "inverted psychological health awareness" inferred by many*, and articulated by mystic author John Baines in the question, " in an insane society, how can you tell if you are sane?"2

Consumercide is thus intended as quite a broad term. It can be a condition attached to any state, whether physical, emotional or spiritual, and it most likely involves addictive behaviour, whether it be of a security, sensation or power based nature.

On this site there is a particular focus towards controversies of medical knowledge. Why are such topics related to consumercide? The simple answer is that the attitude in society has been to mechanically consume the output of the medical profession rather than being independently in control of one's health; to abdicate responsibility and self-education and replace those activities with the desire for spoon fed "truth" and to obtain a "magic bullet".

Professional vested interests, scientific arrogance and economic and information parasites of various forms have fostered and inculcated such thought patterns about disease until they have become part of the western psyche, and such beliefs are inherently unhealthy. They are an abberant reality, manifested--in an idealist sense--by the direction of our conscious attention.

Media is an important area to analyse, as it is a chief weapon with which the elites continue the disinformation. We can be thankful to an extreme for the internet, which has become the fundamental and critical tool which allows us to promote realities that are not mirrors of what elites wish us to think. It is no wonder the net often suffers disparagement from mass media and government.

Mainstream and alternative media and activism against consumercide is the fundamental way in which we can begin to reverse this whole diseased condition that we find ourselves in, beginning with grass roots individual realisation and community activism that focusses upon the problem of consumercide. It is when people begin to really understand and feel the waste and destruction of consumercide, that society will be poised to evolve above the security, sensation and power needs so often involved in that fruitless pursuit. Popular media such as the "Montgomery Burns" character of The Simpsons, or the meaning behind the movie American Beauty are but two examples of the philosophy that needs to be truly rammed into our collective psyche (or spread as thought virus) in order that we might see the error of our ways, and to teach the next generations not to repeat this vile history.

There are alternatives to consumercide, but they are far less obvious in wealthy societies than they are in situations where people have been trapped in an existence of poverty by the forces of greed and gluttony for money/power... forces such as 'imperialism' for one (acknowledging the huge limitations of the term in capturing the forces at work). To 'bible bash' again for a moment, the statement that "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God" comes to mind as a way of stating this. I offer this statement mostly in it's mystic interpretation; that the credo to "know thyself" is not something that can be easily done at all whilst immersed in the trappings of modern society such as material wealth, status and power. If we immerse ourselves in such things as ideals and ends unto themselves, cocooning ourselves from the impact that our own greed is having upon society and the world, and willing to take the "blue pill" of mass media promoted ignorance, then we are a central part of the problem. In any case, material wealth in combination with profound ignorance of ourselves holds us back from the wisdoms inherent deep within us. Intellectual activity without soul can perpetuate this captivity. (I refer back to the consciousness section again... e.g., see links to commentaries on Dr. Dyer's work. Also in philosophy, works by idealists such as Hegel or even Nietzsche's Übermensch are relevant.)

A particularly good discussion of how there are positive social and spiritual "blowbacks" (to use the CIA term in an ironic way) from the socio-economic oppression foisted upon the "developing world" is found in the Development Dictionary by Gustavo Esteva (ed.). This point will not be discussed further here, but rather elaborated in an essay to be posted on this site at a later date, and (consequently) listed as a topic both below and in the international relations section. This relates directly to the awareness and avoidance of consumercide.

As The Dead Kennedy's Jello Biafra might say, in addition to this, "we've got a bigger problem now". That problem is best described here by reference to the international relations section of this site. The rapid escalation of the New World Order, Risk Society and a global corporate controlled police state forebode a dark near-future, where consumercide is the only option. For example, check the Codex Alimentarius information (external site); here is one situation which threatens the loss of our rights to even know about, let alone practice looking after our own health. Here, powerful players in the arena of medical politics are attempting serious violations of both the individual bodily and conscious space.

There are a lot of angles to consumercide, and consequently plenty of analytic frameworks from which to get a bearing upon the problem, and its future. The analytic framework that I like, discussed briefly on the home page of this site (and to be elaborated in detail in the science studies section) is but one of them. There is also so much high-grade information on the web that has already plumbed the depths of what I see as consumercide; hence links have been the first things to appear on this site as it is constructed, in an effort to avoid the "reinvention of the wheel".
 

Notes
1:this site's direction is non-denominational, attemptedly non-dogmatic, yet not at all atheistic.
2: The concept that wider society is insane is widespread in contemprorary western literature that follows the perennial philosophy tradition. Besides Baines, A Course in Miracles is one other example; see Dyer's reference to it here.
 

also see
consumercide.com