The Weird Mental Illness of Consumerism

Rampant consumerism has become the cornerstone of the post-industrial age, and the ever-growing purchasing and consumption of material possessions has become a significant measure of our lives. We consume goods and services as a means to feel good about ourselves,  however, after that brief high that most of us get after acquiring that new car, computer, clothing, etc., the opposite occurs, and we're left feeling more empty than ever.  This desire for, and acquisition of non-essential products is only a temporary "fix", as we try to fill a void that can never be filled with gadgets, "money" and bling, try as we might..

Has our insatiable appetite driven us into “the jaws of the beast?”

“The American economy, having reached the point where its technology was capable of satisfying basic needs, now relied on the creation of new consumer demands--on convincing people to buy goods for which they are unaware of any need until the need is forcibly brought to their attention by mass media." -- Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism

“As a religion, consumerism is even more powerful than scientism, and its influence holds sway in many circles that are antagonistic or indifferent to science. We might characterize the religion as follows. Its god is economic growth for its own sake; its priests are the public policy makers who provide access to growth; its evangelists are the advertisers who display the products of growth and try to convice us that we cannot be happy without them; its church is the shopping mall. Its primary creeds are “bigger is better” and “more is better” and “faster is better” and “you can have it all.” Its doctrine of creation is that the earth is real estate to be bought and sold in the marketplace. Its doctrine of human existence is that we are skin encapsulated egos cut off from the world by the boundaries of our skin. And its doctrine of salvation is that we are saved – or made whole – not by grace through faith as Christians claim, or by wisdom through letting go as Buddhists claim, but by appearance, affluence, and marketable achievement." -- Dr. Jay McDaniel

Read more...

Narcissists Best Suited for Job Interview Success

Well, this should come as no surprise, especially considering the state of our globe. Narcissists, who are most likely to find employment it appears, no doubt, run the show. Being the first in line for job, to be sure they're first in line for promotions, and therefore, climb the ladder, quickly.

The business workplace is tailor made for the superficial charm of the vain and overly self-involved.

This is because narcissists come across as being confident, and engaging when speaking. Narcissists are also able to promote themselves in the interview setting as well.

"This is one setting where it's OK to say nice things about yourself and there are no ramifications. In fact, it’s expected,” Peter Harms, assistant professor of management at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and co-author of the study, said. "Simply put, those who are comfortable doing this tend to do much better than those who aren't."

Narcissists were also highly rated because of their use of gestures and smiles. These gestures and actions were determined to further establish the likability and credibility of the interviewee in the eyes of the interviewer.

“This shows that what is getting (narcissists) the win is the delivery,” Harms said. “These results show just how hard it is to effectively interview, and how fallible we can be when making interview judgments. We don’t necessarily want to hire narcissists, but might end up doing so because they come off as being self-confident and capable.”

Read more...

When Media Makes a Star...They Make You the Sucker.

Why are we so addicted to fame? To celebrity? Why do parents let their kids do anything just to get on TV? Why is the media so addicted to celebrity?  Why are we hard-wired to copy celebrity?  How is celebrity used to control us?

Well, Starsuckers (below) exposes the "shams and deceit involved in creating a pernicious celebrity culture". You will see never-before-seen footage, and undercover reporting that combine to expose the "cult of celebrity", created by our celebrity obsessed media, who work for the "profit-at-all cost" corporations.

Starsuckers reveals:

• Media's constant reinforcement of the importance of celebrity, and its effect on children
• The press addiction to celebrity coverage.
• Celebrity control over the press.
• The illusion of celebrity endorsed charity.
• The publicists who swap out truth for pure fiction.
• Profit, profit, profit.

Read more...

Goldman Sachs, Ayn Rand, Going Galt and the American People.

Now that Goldman Sachs posted a profit of $3.19 billion, and plans to divvy up record breaking bonuses between them, despite their enormous part in collapsing our economy last year, which continues to leave the rest of us struggling, with no signs of recovering in sight - the unemployment and foreclosure rates are still escalating - it's only fitting that Goldman-Backed, Ayn Rand-Inspired Fund (Roark Capital Group) will invest a record amount at this time. Of course, the fund’s investors include Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

But why on earth is Ayn Rand, Greenspan's hero, more popular than ever amongst average, everyday people?

After all, Rand, worshipper of sociopathic killers, apparently, shares the same view of the common man as Goldman Sachs...that average people were "ugly, stupid and irrational." This quote, taken from her first book, We the Living, "What are your masses...but mud to be ground underfoot, fuel to be burned for those who deserve it?" pretty much sums up her view of humanity, with the exception of the elite, of course.

“On the same day that you saw stories about these bonuses, you saw a story about how wages are at a 19-year low,” -- David Axelrod a senior adviser to President Barack Obama.

Goldman Sachs embodies the Randian philosophy so closely the entity should be called The Ayn Rand Corporation. But wait. Isn't most of the population ready to string Goldman Sachs up by their...well, their sachs? Yet, Rand's greatest selling book "Atlas Shrugged" had an all-time record year in 2008, and 2009 sales should shatter even last year's numbers.

It's more than ironic that this woman who preached the virtue of selfishness, and self-interest - the very thing that almost brought the world's economy to collapse - as man’s greatest moral responsibility, and altruism as a vice, who strongly believed that markets work best when corporations are free to pursue their own selfish interests, who believed the the wealthy and the powerful are the oppressed, and whose Objectivist philosophy equated unfettered capitalism with absolute morality is the same woman people are looking to as their savior.

Excerpt from Michael Prescott's blog:

"Was Ayn Rand "a narcissistic, manipulative sociopath" - or at least a borderline case?

Well, consider the portrait of Rand drawn by two biographies - Nathaniel Branden's My Years with Ayn Rand and Barbara Branden's The Passion of Ayn Rand - and by Jeff Walker's The Ayn Rand Cult. These are, admittedly, hostile sources, but in the absence of any biography by Rand's admirers, they are the only ones we have.

Anyone judging by these books would have to say that Rand was narcissistic in the extreme. She lacked empathy. She could be intensely charming (charm and charisma are common features of sociopathy) but was also prone to outbursts of rage and frustration.

She exploited young, emotionally vulnerable people and frequently sabotaged their self-image with her vindictive cruelty. She claimed to love her husband but carried on an affair with a younger man right in front of him, a situation that drove her husband to alcoholism.

She was a hypochondriac. She showed signs of paranoia. She had an addictive personality, smoked two packs of cigarettes daily, and gobbled handfuls of diet pills (amphetamines).

She despised "average" people, whom she regarded as ugly and stupid and irrational, while viewing herself in exalted terms as the greatest writer in history and the greatest philosopher since Aristotle.

She was concerned with no one's needs or wants or suffering except her own. She was able to claim in print that no one had ever helped her, when in fact she had benefited for years from the charity and goodwill of relatives and business associates and friends. She alienated nearly all her friends and allies by the end of her life, and died nearly alone.

She literally drove people crazy; ex-Objectivist Edith Efron once remarked that if you spent any time with Rand, you had to ask yourself if you were insane, or if she was (quoted in Walker). She was a megalomaniac. She was probably manic-depressive. She created heroic fictional characters who are deeply repressed, incapable of normal human interaction, and typically angry or disgusted with the world.

This is hardly a person who should be seen as the epitome of rationality and benevolence - yet this is how her followers do see her. In my Objectivist years I once hesitantly suggested to a fellow Objectivist that there might be a few character flaws to be found in Rand, only to be met with a blank stare and the appalled question, "Character flaws - in Ayn Rand?!" In Objectivist dogma it is always other people who were at fault in their dealings with "Miss Rand" (as they like to call her). Somehow it was always those irrational others who abused, deceived, and hurt Ayn Rand, and her rages and bitterness were entirely justified, entirely rational. How could they not be? Rand was the personification of reason, so by definition whatever she thought, felt, or did just had to be rational - Q.E.D.

When I look at the portrait of Ayn Rand drawn by a variety of people who knew her best, I see a person who is certainly larger and more theatrical than the run-of-the-mill sociopaths in Martha Stout's book, different from them in degree - but not very different in kind.

And I wonder how a movement founded by a woman with such serious disorders could ever have been seen as a way to personal happiness or to a better world."

Greed was calculated by comparing average incomes with the total number of inhabitants living beneath the poverty line.

Read more...

Affluenza: Unsatiable Desire for an Abundance of Possessions

Affluenza, according to author of the book, Affluenza: The All Consuming Epidemic and filmmaker, John De Graaf, is a term describing "a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety, and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more”.

My guess is this insidious disease, "affluenza" began right around the time President Reagan took office in 1980, and Laissez-faire capitalism dominated most of our thinking. By the end of Reagan's two terms, after he had established "nibor dooh" (steal from the poor to give to the rich) economics, that's what I call it anyway, affluenza began to spread faster than sexually transmitted diseases in the porn industry.

Trickle down or "nibor dooh" economics achieved its true goal, evolving the meaning of the word, "affluent" to encompass the ordinary and the "working class" to include the poor, immensely increasing the divide between the "haves" and the "have-nots". The "noble" reason or rationalization is that income disparities and/or inequality vs. economic growth are supposed to encourage those at the lower end of the earning spectrum, and motivate them to catch up, however, they left out the part about the harder the "low earners" try, the further behind they will get creating a class of people Katherine Neuman calls the "Near Poor" in her book, The Missing Class.

In 1979, the top 1% of the US population earned, on average, 33.1 times as much as the lowest 20%. In 2000, the top 1% earned 88.5 times more than the lowest 20%. By now the discrepancy is much greater proving that President Reagan, Alan Greenspan and George W. Bush did nothing more than transpose the Robin Hood story.

Prior to this time, we were slowly emerging from a time when the importance of sacrifice was paramount. Forfeiture of material goods for the sake of something considered to have greater value placed the emphasis on higher ideals such as God, Country, and "humanity" (New Deal). Of course, this era (1930-1945) of sacrifice followed the pain of a market meltdown - the stock market crash of 1929, prior to which times were much like today.

Man is designed to satisfy his needs and desires with the least possible effort. In addition, the more he owns the more he wants. Lawmakers, who have not transcended their greedy natures, are normally the first in line when society prospers, and will try to create law for their own profit at the expense of others...Enron, Bear Stearns, Haliburton, Iraq War, tax cuts for the rich etc.

Bear Stearns is the latest casualty in what appears to be a growing trend of corporate scandals and failures tied to what appears to be poor fiscal management and lack of regulation, but in reality, is a carefully constructed legal system to benefit those at the top . In other words, as Frederic Bastiat says,

"It is easy to understand how law, instead of checking injustice, becomes the invincible weapon of injustice. It is easy to understand why the law is used by the legislator to destroy in varying degrees among the rest of the people, their personal independence by slavery, their liberty by oppression, and their property by plunder. This is done for the benefit of the person who makes the law, and in proportion to the power that he holds."

When legislators create laws that contradict morality, society will either try to stop the "lawful" crime or as our society has chosen, choose to share in it, - affluenza, - thus making "lawful" crime universal. The victims of these greedy lawmakers - instead of fighting the unjust legislation or lack thereof - will try to fall in and end up following the "evil-doers," out of ignorance or in hopes of gain, even if it means suffering the consequences.

As terrifying as it seems, a financial melt down may be the only cure for "Affluenza" as it will force us to reduce consumption and waste, give us a chance "dry out", and figure out what's really important to us. Who knows? People might start choosing work that reflects their values, what they're good at doing and what they love to do instead of going for the job that can fill up their 28,000 square foot mansion with junk, closets the size of bedrooms to store the junk, hummers and garages large enough to store the hummers, entertainment centers that put movie theaters to shame and so on...

Unfortunately, human nature being what it is, usually requires some sort of comeuppance before true justice has a chance.

Read more...

What’s Going On in George Bush’s Mind?

I don't know if anyone really knows the answer but a few politicians, writers, humorists, academics, and psychologists are trying to answer that question.

Pathological narcissism? Delusions of grandeur? Res ipsa loquitur. There have been other presidents, of course, who could readily be described as suffering from these same maladies. (All of them, you could argue.) But not since Richard Nixon has Washington seen a case so severe—or so tragic. Today, Bush’s poll numbers are mired at Nixonian levels circa Watergate. He is similarly isolated, similarly aggrieved, similarly blinded to his own faults and follies. Similarly out to lunch, that is. (Though he hasn’t yet invited Dick Cheney to pray with him in the Oval Office—at least as far as we know.) And he is also similarly unloved and unlamented by the very pols who so recently fetishized and fawned over him.

Read more...