Meeting our inner expectations

"enjoyable for free"

“The most important lesson of the Holocaust is not that bad people do bad things, but that modernity causes good people to get involved in horrific actions, no matter if they are urged or not.”

Reading these words in the Dutch magazine “Filosofie” of this month I got confirmed what I already suspected. They are from an interview with the 82-year old Zygmunt Bauman, one of the most productive philosophers and sociologists of our time (he writes a book every year). His central theme is: modernity. In his book “Sociology of Everyday Life” he introduced the concept of “liquid modernity”. Liquid, yes, that’s the word. In our day-to-day life we have to take hundreds of decisions, on a sea surrounded by choices, and for the first time in human existence we seem to be free in these decisions. We are floating on this sea and have no land in sight. But it doesn’t only hold for us, it also holds for the people who try to influence these decisions, or people who are “in charge”. A few examples:

* In the Netherlands we have a parliamentary democracy, based on the principle that we vote periodically for the parliament. More and more politicians address themselves directly to “the people”, especially via TV., ignoring the parliament. “The people” are becoming a governmental institution by themselves, but don’t bear any governmental responsibility. This is all made possible and stimulated by modern ICT, TV and newspapers. The media dictate more and more what’s important, what decisions we and the politicians should take. In defining what’s important the media follow what their readers like to read about. It’s a circle.

* When we go shopping we think we are free to choose. But we have only choice from the products made by producers who want to combine as much profit as possible, without any concern for sustainability. They simply have to. Also, they awake in us needs we wouldn’t have if the product wouldn’t be offered. Marketing makes use of refined psychological insights to reinforce this need-arousal, marketing has to, otherwise they lose the competition. It’s not usefulness, not beauty, durability, quality etc. that are production criteria by themselves, but profit and via profit, employment for millions of workers and managers. Marketing books dictate that “quality” is defined as “meeting the expectations of the customer”, not “meeting the requirements of sustainability” or “usefullness” etc.

* Privatization has caused a series of changes and complications in public transport, public health care, education, mail services etc. that provide the “customer”( the civilian) with a new, everlasting change circus with fancy brand names succeeding each other in mergers, take-overs and price wars, as if “the consumer” rationally stores all the needed info in his computerized head and chooses the best alternative. Nobody dares confess to colleagues or friends that he hasn’t chosen the most profitable mortgage or insurance or internet provider. No choice by choice-overflow.

* When China develops as a modern capitalist (!) nation (Mao Zedong and Marx would turn themselves in their graves), all Western industries form queues to enter this huge and profitable market. Belgium cancelled a visit of the Dalai Lama of Tibet to Belgium because it wouldn’t please China . Nobody has a choice: employment is the moral reason, profit the primary reason.

* Today's news: in Congo the war is ended; thanks to this "economy" can take its place: the government issued concessions to wood traders to rob almost half of its rainforests: a disaster for everybody. The wood is not really needed but cheaper than its alternatives.

Individuals are not in a position to change anything, but are constantly urged to make up their minds to choose from many alternatives, pushed not by what they think would be sensible or rational, but by commerce. Outside these commercially approved alternatives they have no choice: it isn’t available, it’s too expensive, they have to “sacrifice” too much such as a job, half an income etc. Bauman notes that social belongingness for lifetime, lifetime commitment to a religion, a social group, a family, etc. has been exchanged for “power on/off” and “download/delete” relationships. Mr. Bauman is very pessimistic in the sentence I quoted as the first line of this column. Following his reasoning, we are committed to many, many evil deeds and situations unwillingly because it’s part of our job or income. In this structure, he says, a power beyond our individual control could rise and pursue a Holocaust-like event; yes, there are such events already going on like for instance in South Sudan. Is there another direction mankind can choose? I think there is. All I wrote above is one side of the medal. When you listen to people carefully you notice that many (most?) of them are aware of all this, but that they let themselves float, like on water, to the decisions that are most “obvious”, most “taken for granted”, most “sensible” in terms of continuing a “normal” life for themselves and their families. But there is a deeper layer that shows the objections to these decisions, concerns if this really is the right thing to choose. Let’s follow that inner layer more often, it means that we become more alert and more aware and don’t follow hypes, the cheapest way, our urge to get satisfied. Show the marketers that we as consumers don’t want to get “satisfied” in our “expectations”, but that we want satisfaction provided by ourselves, by the inner layers of our consciousness.