Buying Your Way Into Heaven

It’s bewildering that anti-consumerist ideologies such as the Green movement, paradoxically manifest themselves within the consumerist matrix.


Classmate Charlotte’s assertion that consumerism – specifically to western populations – is the obsession that gives people the reason for living, I doubt is something that can be attributed solely to westerners.


Consumerism is not a western, cultural infection, but an inherent human activity. Throughout time people consumed, creating the civilization we live in today. The current 'western', Madison Avenue version, is an extreme show of opulence, made capable by technological advancement and Man's elevation from mere survival to the fulfillment of needs. This 'obsession', with similar cultural and financial capability, would be practiced by all of humanity. It is a collective expression of our progress as a civilization; an inbuilt part of being human.


The Green movement suffers from a strange paradox; promote Green living and the reduction of an ones consumption, by creating brands and products that albeit adhere to ecological production standards, still create and promote consumption. This conflict, 'Buying Green' inherently undermining Green ideology, only serves to reduce the ability for the Green movement to succeed in it's intentions.

“There is a very common mind-set right now which holds that all that we’re going to need to do to avert the large-scale planetary catastrophes upon us is make slightly different shopping decisions,” said Alex Steffen, the executive editor of Worldchanging.com, a Web site devoted to sustainability issues in an issue of The New York Times.

The genuine solution, he suggests, is not to Buy Green, but to significantly reduce one’s consumption of goods and resources.