Individualism and Consumption by Mia Lawrence – Artistic Curation

Do We Need to Lose Ourselves to Save the World?

Part 1: A Face in the Crowd, Individualism vs. Collectivism

• What do you think of when you think of a fiction book? Probably some sort of protagonist or narrator, or most likely someone who’s both. Our protagonist will have a backstory that’s both somewhat tragic but also relatable. They’ll have a normal enough life, but there’s something that sets them apart from the rest; they’re special. Then the protagonist will face some sort of conflict throughout the book, maybe with a few silly things sprinkled in and maybe even some romance. Finally, at the end everything will be resolved, they’ll have gotten the girl, defeated their enemy, solved the mystery, whatever it is. This description is essentially what we’d call a novel. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. The novel has been the dominant genre of fiction books since the 19th century and it is often held in high regards. However, before the 19th century novels were seen as frivolous and unserious, but there was a major shift following the romanticism period. And ever since the novel has been the IT Girl of fiction. But, why am I bringing this up? What does this have to do with collectivism and individualism? Well, the novel has seriously shifted how we write and subsequently how we speak and ultimately how we think. As humans, it’s natural for us to be somewhat self-centered and selfish even. I mean, most decisions we’re making are based around how it will personally benefit or harm us or a mix of both. And, to some extent there’s nothing wrong with that. Afterall, for survival we do need to put our own self preservation first and foremost. But, the problem is when this begins to seep into aspects of life that it shouldn’t. Suddenly, the planet is polluted, 100s of species are threatened by extinction, resources are being stretched thin, and ecosystems are being destroyed. Now, this seems like a huge leap. How can I blame the format of the novel for climate change? And I’m not. But I do want to assess how our hyper individualistic attitudes cause us to disassociate ourselves from climate change, from the responsibility of climate change but also how we are a part of a greater system, politically, socially and ecologically. 

Part 2: It’s Me, I’m the Main Character, The Man vs The Machine

• Everyone loves an underdog, right? And everyone in the 2010s loved The Hunger Games series. Now, if you’re unfamiliar with it, The Hunger Games started out as a dystopian young adult novel series written by Suzanne Collins. It follows our protagonist, Katniss Everdeen. Now, Katniss lives in a country called Panem, which is located in North America and loosely based on the United States. Panem consists of 12 districts and The Capitol. Now essentially, the higher the number the district is, i.e. district 12, the poorer they are and vice versa, the lower the number, the richer they are, i.e. 1. I don’t know why that is, maybe because they’re closer to the capitol? I don’t know. But either way it doesn’t matter. So, a long time ago there was a rebellion against the capitol from district 13, which was subsequently destroyed after said rebellion. And so, as a reminder and punishment sort of thing for rebelling, now every year they have something called the “Hunger Games”. So in these games, a 12-18 year old boy and girl must be chosen as “tribute” from each district and then they’re put into an arena and they all fight to the death basically until one tribute is left standing. And then they’re the winner and they get to live a comfortable, traumatized life for the rest of their days right. Okay. So, as our protagonist, obviously Katniss is going to volunteer as tribute in place of her younger sister who was originally chosen at random. And then for the next 3 novels and then 4 movies, we watch as Katniss essentially starts a revolution, cause she’s the protagonist of course, then finds a few love interests along the way, naturally, and then overthrows the evil president of the capitol and saves all the districts. Yay! That is a gross oversimplification of the series but you get it. So, why did I just spend 5 minutes telling you about The Hunger Games? Well, this is just one of my favorite examples of a kind of “man against the machine” type story. I mean, let’s look even back to David and Goliath, we’ve been obsessed with stories like this forever. But, the problem they pose is quite significant. Super heroes, protagonists, presidents, we always want to just have one person who can save us all. Save us from our dystopian evil leader or save us from our oppressive government or save us from big corporations who refuse to make meaningful changes and stop destroying the planet. Yeah. So, this hyper individualistic thing doesn’t give us more responsibility over the problem with climate change, in fact, it often robs us of it. Imagine me, thinking about how much I hate plastic pollution but then I think well I can’t go anywhere or buy anything without it producing some sort of plastic most of the time. So then I think what’s even the point of trying to use reusable stuff if I’m just going to consume things using plastic anyways. Plus, companies are going to keep using plastic, so what does it matter? I’ll just stop trying. But, then we don’t see any change. I don’t think of what I can do to produce solutions because all of them seem too grand, too hard, too big, they require way too much help. But if I organized at my college, at my workplace, with my friends, online, what would I be able to do? If I was a part of a group, a community, an ecosystem. But, if we all thought this way, if we pushed past our differences and came together for a common good, we wouldn’t be so easy to control, to divide, we’d be far too powerful for that. See, organizing, unionizing, it’s something that easily keeps corrupt politicians and systems and corporations up at night. Because it’s much easier for them to get what they want, if we’re divided. Because even if they’re hurting all of us, we won’t be able to see that if we’re too busy fighting each other. And while that goes way beyond just climate change, these things are intertwined and one cannot be discussed without discussing the other. But, there’s another piece to this puzzle we’re missing. 

Part 3: These Items Become Me, Identity in Consumerism

• “A speedy convertible excites us neither because of any love for metal and chrome, nor because of an abstract understanding of its engineering. It excites us because it evokes an image of a road arrowing through a pristine landscape; we think of freedom and the wind in our hair; we envision James Dean and Peter Fonda racing toward the horizon… The artifacts and commodities that are conjured up by these desires are, in a sense, at once expressions and concealments of the cultural matrix that brought them into being” (Ghosh, 10). I have a bit of a shopping problem. Everytime I go online, on social media, I see a new piece of clothing, or a little decor item, or a new makeup product, and I must have it. I imagine my life with it, how I’ll be so much more self-actualized in my identity, I’ll finally become the person I want to be. Now, I know this sounds dramatic and it somewhat is, but just think of how many times you’ve bought something you would have never thought of needing or wanting before you saw it. You imagine your life with it, but this version of you is someone who has the hobbies you want to have, doesn’t have the same bad habits, doesn’t have the same insecurities. I’m not saying people should never buy something they don’t absolutely need, but how many purchases are we making that are just to fill some sort of void in ourselves. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer comments on this phenomenon in the section “Windigo Footprints”. This section discusses at first the folklore of the wendigo, a mythical creature that was said to be a human which resorts to cannibalism due to starvation but then they’re overtaken with an insatiable hunger which causes them to forever continue partaking in cannibalism. But Kimmerer notes that this is a cautionary tale which comments on the real implications of human greed. In this case, consumerism. “It is the Windigo way that tricks us into believing that belongings will fill our hunger, when it is belonging that we crave” (Kimmerer, 308). And Kimmerer is very right in pointing this out. Because, what does consumerism have to do with individualism? Well, I think it’s fair to say that most people want to believe they’re unique, some more than others. Many people go out of their way to have all of these niche interests and hobbies and to curate this perfect personality. We want to be the protagonist, the main character, but that means we need to be special, different, better. As Shanspeare (youtube) notes in her video essay Social Media’s Obsession with Aesthetics and Curated Identities, “It’s like when Tik-Tok gets a hold of something, it becomes commodified in a mainstream and marketable way to make it less about your own expression and more about fitting into a consumerist box” (Shanspeare, 14:20). Shanspeare’s video has multiple parts, the first addressing the history of aesthetics, where the term originated from, what we find beautiful and why, and the impacts of such standards, of what is considered “aesthetically pleasing”. The second part addresses where we find ourselves within those aesthetics, and how we may try to change things about ourselves to fit into such aesthetics, specifically in the cases of body image and consumerism. As Shanspeare notes “This act of ‘self defining’ seems to be the ‘major task’ of modern aesthetics” (Shanspeare,9:35). Identity in consumerism is something that goes beyond, “I need this item so I feel validated” and becomes “I need this item so that others validate my identity”. This makes the pressure so much more intense because it’s no longer about if you personally think you’ve consumed enough to be secure in your identity, but if the world thinks you have. And the world is greedy. It pushes, further and further and further, until there’s nothing left. And then we move on, to the next big thing, to the next place of belonging. So, at this point we understand how identity and consumerism are intrinsically connected, but now we must ask what implications does this have for climate change?

Part 4: I Need That and That and That and…, Overconsumption and Climate Change

• Unravel is a Hindu short film which gives the western world a quick glimpse into the magnitude of our overconsumption. We watch as boat-fulls of clothing are transported across the ocean and end up in Northern India, where the clothing is then recycled into yarn by the local textile factory workers. We are shown not only the full process of the clothing recycling process, from slashing to unraveling to weaving, but we also follow along as multiple women share their stories. There is power in these stories, their remarks at how new the clothing seems, how wealthy and glamorous western women must be, how the clothes must have been thrown out after just one use. How could they not have been? These women rarely want for anything, maybe just to see some parts of the world one day. The way they speak of western women is quite strange to hear as someone living here. Our lives really don’t seem so lavish most of the time. But maybe it’s just the perspective on what’s luxury? There’s always something greater to aspire towards. We can see the cultural differences in what consumption looks like. These wants we have aren’t intrinsic, but they’re also not necessarily our fault, just a product of our environment. If we recall back to issues on identity, a huge part of many peoples self-worth and sense of individuality and belonging is derived from their appearance. But the fashion industry has some serious environmental implications. According to Princeton, the fashion industry consumes one tenth of all water used industrially to run factories and clean products. To produce just one kilogram of cotton it takes 10,000 liters of water which translates to approximately 3,000 liters of water for one cotton shirt. On top of that, textile dyeing requires toxic chemicals that subsequently end up in our oceans. We also haven’t even mentioned synthetic materials as 35% of all microplastics are from synthetic materials. As of 2019, the current report shows that 62 million metric tons of apparel were consumed globally and 57% of all discarded clothing ends up in landfills. So, it’s safe to say that fashion is not sustainable but in the past few decades consumption just seems to keep ramping up further and further and we have to question why? Well simply, it’s profitable.

Part 5: There is No Constant Viewer, Deconstructing Capitalism

• (music plays) Oh, sorry, I was just listening to one of my favorite songs, Money Trees by Kendrick Lamar. Here, have a listen. (music resumes)
• Consumption, capitalism, money, it’s a huge piece of our society, love it or hate it. So, of course it’s going to be mentioned in mainstream culture. Money Trees assesses multiple issues, but here Lamar namely discusses the lust for money from the perspective of a lower-income person. Lamar references “thirst” several times in his work. This thirst is his desperation for money, both from feelings of genuine need and greed. In the chorus he sings “It go Halle Berry or hallelujah, Pick your poison, tell me what you doin’.” This insinuates that we must choose, between the culture, the money, the greed (Halle Berry) or our self, our spiritual (hallelujah). He says pick your poison after the first line though, meaning you can only have either one and the mentioned “poison” is the absence of the other choice. If you choose money, belonging, consumption, you may lose a piece of yourself. However, if you choose yourself and the spiritual, you will lose belonging and you might not even be able to afford to live. During the second verse, Lamar raps “A Louis belt that never ease that pain, But I’ma purchase when that day is jerkin’.” This shows Lamar understands that while material items will not cure his sadness or suffering, he’s still going to give into the temptation, almost as if it’s an addiction. But how do we stop this trap, how do we quench the “thirst”, as Lamar stated, or “hunger of the Wendigo”, as Kimmerer wrote? The answer is unfortunately much more complex than I’d like. But, firstly we must understand that it is not our consumption, the material that defines us. Those things can be a fun outward expression, but we must recognize at what point it has become self-destructive. At what point it has destroyed people, forests, ecosystems, marine life in far off lands we may not see now, but we will see soon if we do not have an awakening now. You already are an individual. You don’t need a record player to prove you’re into those vintage bands. You don’t need those new shoes to prove you keep up with the trends. You don’t need to document it all, to consume it all. You don’t need to live like there’s someone watching you, seeing if you live up to the performance of self. You are all of your hobbies, all of your interests, your likes and dislikes, your little quirks, without having to become someone who looks like they’re that person. You already are that person.

*Note: Written in Script Format, Video Uploading Soon.