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Consume This©2002 David Boyne
Photo: © Bill Emory |
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I could be wrong, but I vaguely recall that my second
grade teacher, Miss Talmadge, taught a course called
Citizenship. I may even have passed it.
Yet in the decades since then, almost no one has ever
referred to me as a citizen. Instead, advertisers, businesses,
bureaucrats, economists, politicians (including the
President of this country), and baseball team owners
continually refer to me as a "consumer".
This makes me wonder two things.
First, when was this mysterious alchemy that transformed
me from a citizen into a consumer performed? (I suspect
that it happened in high school, when I was too stoned
to notice.)
And second, what exactly is a consumer?
The dictionaries I consulted said a consumer uses up,
a consumer destroys, a consumer eats. By this definition
my dog—who lives by the motto "Eating is believing!"—
is a consumer.
One dictionary I consulted defined a consumer as: "A
heterotrophic organism that ingests other organisms
or organic matter in a food chain." (A heterotrophic
organism, as surely we all know, is an organism that
cannot synthesize its own food and is dependent on complex
organic substances for survival. Enron, Hollywood and
the IRS are examples of heterotrophic organisms.)
I may be a little cranky today, but I can think of some
powerful reasons why some people would want to dupe
a whole lot of other people into thinking of themselves
as consumers, rather than as citizens.
Consider that citizens are difficult to manage, are
often downright unruly, obstinate, and skeptical, have
secret agendas, and occasionally rise up and wreak bloody
havoc on the status quo. Citizens read newspapers, which
they periodically throw to the floor in disgust and
exclaim, "Those sons of bitches!" Citizens
vote. (Often in the same ill temper as they read newspapers.)
Citizens are responsible for the French Revolution,
the American Revolution, and the House Un-American Activities
Committee. (In my opinion, this gives citizens a .333
batting average; quite respectable for any player in
the Major Leagues of history.)
Consumers, on the other hand, are easy to manage, easily
ruled, easily manipulated, charmingly gullible and have
no agenda other than to consume, i.e., to eat. Consumers
watch television, passively, while eating the products
they are watching being advertised on television and
chanting, "I want that. And that. Oh, and that."
Consumers don't vote. (Hell, they don’t even complain.
Although they will whine when hungry.) Consumers are
responsible for nothing, unless you consider trillons
of dollars in credit card debt and the blithe destruction
of a habitable planet while seeking to satisfy an insatiable
appetite as achievements.
An important point: consumers produce nothing.
People produce things; whether a better mouse trap,
weaponized anthrax, an antidote for inhalation anthrax,
paintings on ceilings, poems on gravestones, or a political
philosophy that evolves toward the ideal of helping
one another as much as possible while leaving one another
alone as much as possible.
I could be wrong, but I suspect that consumers are nothing
more than human lab rats, created by the Mad Scientists
of Advertising only to consume, to produce offspring
who will consume, and to then die.
Take tobacco.
It has been widely known for years that tobacco causes
cancers and lung diseases, that tobacco is addictive,
and that the tobacco dealers knew this before any of
us. It has also been known for years that tobacco dealers
chose to keep this knowledge to themselves while working
to increase the addictive power of their product, and
replace the "consumers" they were losing to
assorted cancers and diseases by devoting more of their
profits to inducing non-smokers (preferably young ones
who would consume lots of tobacco before it killed them)
to become smokers.
Armed with this knowledge (and maybe a few pitchforks,
lederhosen, and blazing torches just to set the mood)
you would think that citizens would revolt, would do
everything in their power to break their addiction to
tobacco, and to punish "those sons of bitches"
who had willfully, knowingly profited from poisoning
them and their loved ones.
Well, citizens would. But would consumers?
Nope. Veteran tobacco consumers continue to pay their
dealers for the privilege of killing themselves and
those within close proximity of them. Wannabe tobacco
consumers are getting out their wallets, forming ques.
But it ain't just the tobacco dealers. Take the oil
dealers…please.
Or take the car dealers. A citizen (of either sex) buys
a car to efficiently, safely, and economically transport
themselves and maybe some possessions to distant places.
Citizens don't buy a lot of cars because A) there are
fewer and fewer citizens on this planet, and B) when
a citizen buys a car, they keep it a long, long time.
A male consumer, on the other hand, buys a car believing
it will get him laid. A female consumer buys a car believing
it will make her popular, which in a way is the same
thing as getting laid but without the sex. And when
the car a consumer buys fails to improve their social
lives after 2.3 years, the consumer buys another car;
convinced by the car dealers that this is the car that
will get them laid, make them popular.
Or take the health care dealers. A citizen goes to a
doctor expecting dialogue, consultation, expertise,
education and a participatory relationship. (Most doctors
consider citizens to be a real pain in the ass.)
Consumers go to doctors expecting immediate relief from
whatever affliction is keeping them from eating, from
happily consuming. One thing consumers like to eat is
drugs, which is good, since most doctors like to prescribe
drugs, as doing so doesn't require much talking, consulting,
educating or participating. This way, doctors can service
the maximum number of consumers in the minimum amount
of time, and do their part in transforming a profession
into an industry.
I could go on, but I have a short attention span and
my thoughts are beginning to wander. This may well be
a result of my high school... education.
Oh, one more thing, just to be clear: I’ve nothing
against The Mad Scientists of Advertising. In fact,
I adore them. Someone once said (I forget who, as I
first heard the statement when I was in high school.)
that you could gauge the amount of freedom in a society
by the amount of advertising going on in it. Like, wow,
I so totally agree.
Advertising is all about trying to make people behave
the way you want them to behave by using the arts of
persuasion, as opposed to using the arts of force.
This is why I fundamentally believe that we only lose
our citizenship, and are transformed into consumers,
when we think of ourselves as, and allow ourselves to
be treated as, nothing more than "heterotrophic
organisms that ingest other organisms or organic matter
in a food chain".
The next time an advertiser, business, bureaucrat, economist,
politician (including the President of this country),
or baseball team owner refers to you as a consumer,
I suggest you simply tell them in words that they, as
avowed experts on consumerism, will understand:
"Bite me."
I call that practicing good citizenship.
And were she alive, Miss Talmadge, that stern New England
spinster who was my second grade teacher, might even
be proud of her former student.