Commentary: The psychological conflict of consumerism

The last thing I wanted to do was get a new phone. I delayed it as long as I could.

I endured my battery dying at around 50% for months. I printed out directions and maps (the old-fashioned way) to find my way across town for meetings with friends and sources. I deleted apps and photos in hopes of retaining the use of the metal object so intertwined with my daily life.

But nothing worked. Last week, I grudgingly ordered a new iPhone, audibly complaining for days and not just about the amount of money I had handed over for a device that has me in the palm of its hand instead of the other way around. I was complaining because I was tired of feeding into a never-ending cycle of upgrades and updates — all for a disposable kind of technology that feels built to fail.

That’s not taking into account the less-than-stellar working conditions of the people who make the phones, reports on how Apple has paid no corporate income tax on billions made overseas, and just the general clammy feeling I get when I think about how in the depths of mindless consumerism we are as a society.

This is not a feeling or situation brought on just by shiny new, thin cellphones that feel so indestructible. This is about growing up in a culture where materialism makes up, in bulk, the value we give to ourselves and other people.

In some ways, I consider my generation slightly lucky. We can still remember what it feels like to play outdoors, sign onto the Internet with a telephone cable and pass folded up notes between classes.

These days, even infants have iPads, and they are bound to grow up and be affected by a haze of selfies and hashtags, measuring their worth unlike ever before against the rest of the world, while the likes of Kim Kardashian, a queen of consumerism herself, are defined as role models for younger generations.

The trouble with all of this is that even if you come to realize that you don’t want to use material goods to define your self-worth, you can’t get out. I still have to have a phone, preferably one with an ‘i” in front of it — and let’s not forget the case that I will spend $40 on soon to protect my new purchase.

I still have to have that laptop. And no matter how much I try to reason with myself about how I don’t need new clothes, which I will most likely be getting rid of soon because our throwaway society isn’t exactly making goods we can use over long periods of time, I still want to go shopping because I think it’s going to make me feel great.

Last week, I bought my phone and felt pretty horrible about it. But I also watched an insightful BBC documentary on consumer culture called “The Century of the Self,” by Adam Curtis.

In the four-part series, Curtis delves into how the works of psychologist Sigmund Freud and others have been used by people in power, such as corporations and governments, to control crowds and change the way we think about things.

At some point, a shift in our psychology appeared, on purpose. Falling into the throes of consumerism became normal, natural even. It became so embedded in our daily lives that even when we don’t want to buy that glistening, slick new thing, we must.

That even when we recognize our desire to step back and define and measure ourselves in other meaningful ways that don’t involve money and capital, we cannot.

For me, as I struggle to make these distinctions, new phone in tow, a quote from the film by Paul Mazur, a banker who worked for Lehman Brothers, just won’t go away:

“We must shift America from a needs- to a desires-culture. People must be trained to desire, to want new things, even before the old have been entirely consumed.”

LIANA AGHAJANIAN is a Los Angeles-based journalist whose work has appeared in L.A. Weekly, Paste magazine, New America Media, Eurasianet and The Atlantic. She may be reached at [email protected].