We need to talk

by T4P friend & Schumacher North team member, Ellen R

On 23rd October, Schumacher North are hosting a conference on the theme ‘Beyond Consumerism’. The term ‘consumerism’ is interesting: it refers both to something abstract (a structural feature of the capitalist system), and to something immensely  tangible – a set of things which people do through which they seek to meet vital human needs such as personal worth and dignity, acceptance and social inclusion.

Also, this month and next, TIDAL are hosting their ‘Big Conversation‘ – a series of discussions around how to build capacity and increase the power of movements for social and environmental justice and sustainability. We might see this as a conversation about how we can wrest human needs and desires from the grip of consumerism, and channel them instead to build a movement for change.

Consumerism is a topic sometimes avoided by activists, for fear of seeming to moralise against pleasurable activity – or to suggest that we can simply change our individual behaviour, without confronting a global economic system whose inherent logic is to exploit and to ransack. But that economic system cannot survive without hijacking our needs in order to stimulate a continuous escalation of wants – not only to make us buy stuff,  but also to persuade us that our activities are freely chosen. It does so by holding over us the threat of personal  failure and exclusion if we refuse to conform.

Identifying this brings about a real possibility of resistance. Of course, mere resistance is no substitute for the immense and daunting task of building truly participatory political processes and ways of providing for our collective needs. We’ve a lot of creative ideas for approaching this task – many of which will be explored at the Schumacher conference. But the ‘visions’ we create of a more just and sustainable way of life can often seem remote from people’s immediate concerns, failing to capture the emotional commitment needed to bring more people in.

For a social movement to take off, people must come together to identify common underlying causes of their ‘individual’ anxieties. The pressure to consume is often where we feel the immediately oppressive impact of an unjust and unsustainable system, and identifying this may connect more people with a real desire for change. But because this pressure plays so mercilessly into our human social anxieties,  having supportive personal connections is also essential. Making such connections easier must, I think, be a priority.

It is also in the context of relationships that the sustained conversations occur which give us inspiration, identity and purpose. Few people want to exchange the things which give them pleasure and a sense of belonging for a ‘network’ and a ‘to do’ list. If the Big Conversation is to ‘grow the movement’, we must integrate it with our personal lives. Maybe a good start would be to spend less time in the meeting room and more time meeting together as friends…

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Tags: activism, consumerism, Relationships, social movement