Are We Just Consumers?

What do you identify as, a citizen, a consumer or both? When I look around me, I can't help but strongly suspect that most of us take on the role of consumer much more often and more easily that the role of citizen. I wish for a world in which we are none of the above, where we're all just persons or human beings, but that world is still far off in the future. So for now I just wish we'd act a bit more like citizens and a bit less like consumers.

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In the so called developed world we're all citizens; we're almost all members of sovereign states and citizenship is simply the status of a person recognized under the law of a country (and/or local jurisdiction) of belonging to thereof. With citizenship come the civil, political and social rights of a particular country, and those rights are usually not given to non-citizens that reside in that country. As a citizen you can vote, have access to the social safety net if needed and have the ability to open a bank account. As a citizen you're expected to abide by the law, and will be punished or reprimanded if you don't. By their active participation in the democracy, citizens help steer the country on its path into the future. This is all very theoretical, but there you have it: citizens make up the country, vote in the representatives and legislators who they think will best determine the laws under which society functions best. Ideally speaking, that is.

But like I said, looking around I see a whole lot of consumers, and not so many citizens. I see a lot of people obsessing about a new gaming-console, mobile phone, movie, TV-series, who done what to whom in some random reality-TV program, what will Oprah ask British Royalty in her next interview and so on. And when they discuss politics it's almost always very reluctantly and as a consumer, not as a responsible citizen; the viewpoints and choices presented in those discussions overwhelmingly adhere to the consumerist and capitalist propaganda that we consume every day. Many of us have come to believe that having a job and being a good consumer is the same as being a good citizen; we've listened for decades to politicians who said that politics isn't important, and to corporations that seemingly let you make political decisions by consuming their products. Buy the PlayStation 5, because Sony supports Black Lives Matter! Watch Batwoman and Supergirl to show your support for feminism! Buy that expensive coffee because it's produced without child- of slave labor! Buy our eggs, because our chickens aren't caged! And so on. It's mostly fake though: corporations have but one goal and that is to make more profits, not to make the world a better place. Voting works, voting with your wallet is a capitalist scam.

Here's the Wikipedia definition of consumerism: "a social and economic order that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts." That's who we are. Maybe not you individually, but as a society, that's who we are; we're good consumers, the best. And we're increasingly lousy citizens. Unless you're a member of the ruling class; for them we're perfect citizens because we're obedient, atomized consumers. And consumers are easily influenced, they're the perfect audience if you want to manufacture consent. Repeat a good sounding slogan often enough and people will believe it to be true. Ronald Reagan had success with "Make America Great Again" and Donald Trump once again proved the strength of that slogan. "Change we can believe in", "Yes We Can"... We all know them, and we know they're empty slogans now, but as good consumers we bought straight into those brands when they were "hot". It's sad, but there's something seriously wrong with us. No, not you as an individual, but as a society that believes there are only individuals, only consumers with individual wish lists. That's why those empty slogans are so powerful: each individual can read into them what they want.

Like I said, I wish for a world in which we can just be humans. Humans are social creatures with the best communication and organizing skills in all of nature. Individually we're literally worth nothing, and as consumers we only feed the interests of the few individuals who believe they're worth everything. Our societies live or die by their ability to serve common goals and their intent to "leave no man, woman or child behind". As consumers we serve only the economy and its rulers; it's about time we went back to serving society. Ask what you can do for your country indeed; that is ask what you can do for your fellow human being. And as long as we play by the rules of nation states with imaginary lines on a map, that means you ask what you can do for your fellow citizen, not your fellow consumer. Enjoy this video in which a fellow gamer expresses his hate for the word "consumer" ;-)

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