Sep 9, 2006 3:55:00 PM cite

Angaangaq Lyberth: Answertext will be available soon.

by Angaangaq Lyberth

Sep 9, 2006 3:55:00 PM cite

Anthony Arnove: We are bombarded with messages from consumer culture and those are ideological messages, they are messages that tell us how we are supposed to live our lives, what our values should be, what men should be, what women should be, what our sexuality should be, what our lives should be. And what’s important is that those messages go against the lived experience of the lives of so many people, the values of so many people, and that people are constantly actually resisting those images. But, often people feel that they are somehow beyond the norm, they are outside of the values of the society by having that experience of contradiction. And really, we have to give people more of a sense of their own ability to reject those images, to rebuke those attempts to impose those norms on us, and to create a challenge to the ideologies of consumer culture, to challenge the ideologies that are reproduced through advertising in particular in our society, and to confront the sexism, the racism, the homophobia, the ideologies of passivity and consumerism and the individualism that are inculcated in the media. But, really, I am encouraged that those values are so at odds actually with the interests and aspirations and values of so many people that in fact consumer culture is not nearly as effective as it would like to be, as it thinks it is in being able to influence and shape our decisions and values. And so, there is a real basis for believing that we can challenge it.

by Anthony Arnove

Sep 9, 2006 3:55:00 PM cite

Anuradha Koirala:

by Anuradha Koirala

Sep 9, 2006 3:55:00 PM cite

Anuradha Mittal:

by Anuradha Mittal

Sep 9, 2006 3:55:00 PM cite

Ashok Gangadean: It’s a very profound question. And for me again, it is the question. Because the main question before us now in culture is the culture that’s ego-acentric and ego-based and produces commodities. And in fact make us ourselves objects and commodities that can be bought and sold and put a price upon. We loose a sense of what a sacred person is. And global culture, awakened culture, global spirituality, teaches us as each of us is not a commodity, not a thing, not an object. Buddhist’s wisdom, for example, teaches it’s a profound mistake to think of us as an ego entity or an object or a being. We are an energy field part of the sacred ecology. And when we enter into that kind of consciousness, we see that the old ego-based consumer culture that permeates every aspect of our lives, our education, our culture, seeps through us in every way. And so, it’s hard to get away from that commoditization making ourselves objects and commodities of the marketplace. So what's behind this question? It's the ego-based culture again, in contrast to the awakened integral holistic culture that recognizes our sacred integral nature with all of the ecology. And that's really what this question is very nicely bringing out. Can we shift from a consumer-based to a consciousness-based, awakened consciousness-based, culture, in which we can really realize ourselves and that we are sacred beings rather than commodities and objects that can be treated and objectified?

by Ashok Gangadean

Sep 9, 2006 3:55:00 PM cite

Audrey Kitagawa: Because I believe that public relations firms have firmly understood the susceptibility of people to be influence and persuaded by how they fashion products to become appealing, to become desirable, to become the basis of positive self-esteem, but it is very much wrapped in a whole culture and mind-set of materiality as a way of moving through the world powerfully, moving through the world as a person of worth, that worth being defined by the expensive clothes you wear, the expensive car you drive, the expensive lifestyle that you have, the expensive vacations that you take, and so to the extent that this constant infusion says this is a value, this defines your worth as a human being, so the more you can acquire these things, the more valuable you are, the more your life is worth, reduces it to a material level. And so we constantly strive to be able to acquire these things and think that this is where our happiness lies, this is where our sense of importance lies, and that is a tremendous distortion that is being created, that ultimately leaves us in a greater state of isolation, loneliness, and a loss of values that will ultimately enhance our lives, that be well grounded in our sense of spirituality as opposed to materiality, and this is where the shift needs to take place. But it is also incumbent upon each and every one of us to take responsibility to see how we need to find our own values within ourselves, that we're not going to be impressed upon us from the outside by public relations firms that try to demonstrate the value of our lives to be within the material realm and framework.

by Audrey Kitagawa

Sep 9, 2006 3:55:00 PM cite

Avi Primor: I think the main problem is the uniformity. Yes, that's due to advertising. I'm always stunned when I see English advertising in European television. European television transmitters like Euronews or others always speak English when they advertise something. What does that mean? That's uniformity. If we get used to that we will really become standardized and boring. We would all have the same culture or the same low level of culture. We will be poorer. I think we can't really resist because advertising and the globalization are getting stronger. That is why we have to insist to preserve our local culture. That is possible. We just need the will to do that. You don't need to fight against advertising, the efficiency of the world economy or the global industry. They have some advantages. At the same time you have to care about the local culture and traditions. I think this is about the quality of our lives.

by Avi Primor

Sep 9, 2006 3:55:00 PM cite

Benjamin Fahrer: Again in the consumer culture it’s about programming and conditioning, conditionment. We’re all the same, we’re just conditioned differently. We’re all the same part of humanity, but we’re just conditioned in a different way. In consumer culture, we are influenced by this visual and verbal culture, that is always reducing in simple fine reality and there’s something that can be easily bought and sold. It seems that way to me too. It’s sad, sad to think about it. It becomes a part of us when we allow it to be. How do we resist? Ask yourself. We all have different ways of resistance, devotion, faith into what we know is true, and what can help us become better humans, better people. And I highly doubt that means being a better consumer. It'd be better if you buy more. Remember, everything’s on sale. Everything's on sale! Just buy more, business as usual. Don’t reduce and simplify reality, reduce and simplify your consumption.

by Benjamin Fahrer

Sep 9, 2006 3:55:00 PM cite

Benson Venegas: Yes. We really have to change this culture. The importance of changing this culture is evident and fundamental. The question is already part of the answear and it says that this culture really has visual elements that stay in the mind of the consumer and that tell him to buy and to sell. This leads to a compulsive and negative behaviour and consequently people only want to buy and want to have things at the lowest price and as much things as possible. This can affect our perspective of reality concerning the way we want to live and it may affect our perspective of culture. We can resist to this if we be responsable as consumers and use our buying power in a responsable way to see the relation between what we buy and where and how it is produced. This could help us to see the relation between buying and selling products and the fact that sometimes there is a culture of consume.

by Benson Venegas

Sep 9, 2006 3:55:00 PM cite

Bill Joy: I think the primary instrument of the culture that Siri is talking about is television. So my recommendation is to unplug your television, unplug from pop culture. Try not to pay attention to who the so-called movie stars are. Go see the movies because they’re good if you want to see a story. Read a book because—read reviews and stay away from the mass marketing of these things. Get your recommendations from smaller circulation publications that are not so focused on the top movies being the movies that sold the most tickets but the top movies being the ones that are the most vital and can bring the most meaning to your life. So I think unless you unplug from the popular culture and the advertising that comes from it you’ll be explicitly, implicitly, habitually drawn to mass produced entertainment. Even sporting events which are manufactured entertainment rather than direct experience, which is—and more carefully chosen things to read and to see that are much more beneficial in your life.

by Bill Joy

Sep 9, 2006 3:55:00 PM cite

Bora Cosic: It is very clear from its name how the "consumer culture" should be understood. It is not about how we consume, like if we spend beans, closes or furniture, it is that we our self’s are consumed. In this cheep manipulation we are also goods, material of modest value. There is only small amount of spiritual in this conjecture which is negative for spiritual horizon of human population and on the general level of there conciseness. Once again everything depends on the individual conciseness and the resistance towards trivial, untrue and misery.

by Bora Cosic

Sep 9, 2006 3:55:00 PM cite

Brian J. Weller: When you look at the history of consumer culture and this question really points to this, there’s been a deliberate strategy all along to create what I will call now “consumer democracy.” What we’re really doing is we’re marketing consent, we’re marking compliance, and we’re marketing consumption. As McLuhan said, “The Medium is the Message” and how it does this, basically, it imprints messages through very proven and tried and tested principles. These principles actually are the psychological principles behind things like memory; how we imprint data into the mind through use of repetition, through the use of framing language that speaks to needs and wants of human beings; emotional language using simple principles like the law of three (friends, Romans, countrymen). Read my lips. No new taxes. Using repetition. Using crafty and skillful principles that actually create the sense entrainment. So, if we look at information, information actually – think about the word “inform.” Information actually forms us. You know we think of information as something we’re distant from, but actually it forms our consciousness as we experience it. So mass marketing and mass media is really manipulating the global minds to consume and we’re consuming the planet for these four psychologically-imprinted needs. So, don’t try and resist it by the way, because you know resistance in a sense puts our attention on that. I would certainly – what I would suggest is just turn it off, get back to real life, be in the natural world and love real things and grow your food.

by Brian J. Weller

Sep 9, 2006 3:55:00 PM cite

Catherine David: That's a likable question. I think it's alarming if someone is no more able to decide what he needs and what is just encumbering. I think the only solution , and it's not an intenable or impossible solution, it's to consume less and I think for some people the consumption is a phenomenon of spontaneity, for others it's a phenomenon of constraint as I don't think that everybody only consumes for strictly economical reasons. And furthermore every individual has to manage it's relation to being and having. Some people are more interested in being and others in having and that has not necesserily to do with its economical possibilities. And I don't think we are this destitute and I'm absolutely not convinced that we need five pairs of Nike to be able to respire and to have the feeling to exist. So you have to be self-confident, if not this problem can really occupy yourself. So it would perhaps be advisible to take medical or psychoanalytic advice.

by Catherine David

Sep 9, 2006 3:55:00 PM cite

China Keitetsi: Answertext will be available soon.

by China Keitetsi

Sep 9, 2006 3:55:00 PM cite

Constantin von Barloewen: As I said just before, that has to do with the fact that informations of mass media is ever more strongly under control of a commercialization of all areas of life, also a commercialization of contents of mass media, because it concerns companies, large companies, which are represented at the stock exchange. Large medium companies are industrial companies which must work profit-maximizing and the broad mass, the so-called broad public has always the predominance before quality of contents and it is a large danger, that this purely quantitative and consumeroriented orientation of large mass media quality of contents and also alternative quality, may it be politically or ecologically or artistically, placing it in agreement. If one considers that in Germany for instance the WDR in Cologne, in the 70's, essentially promoted the very young german film as a public medium, it comes more and more into the background. That would not be thinkable with todays commercial channels. Innovation, courage can be agreed in mass taste very badly. One serves only the product, the largest number of listeners and this maximization of the ratio, this dictation of the ratingses prevent the fact that transmissions can be made, which are really substantially contentwise responsible. It is still a large danger, more in America than here in Europe, because here are still some public channels, which are also ratio-certain, but not in the measure of consumerdependently, not as strongly as the commercial medium companies in America, only in the film industry, the Independent Cinemas, the Independent film companies could offer a way out. It is very hard to find balance between the aesthetics of the particular, which naturally always is levelling aesthetics of the individual and the requirement on an consumeroriented mass medium, which has to obey the law of the large quantity, that is naturally levelling and levelling here means levelling downwards.

by Constantin von Barloewen

Sep 9, 2006 3:55:00 PM cite

Dedi Baron: Answertext will be available soon.

by Dedi Baron

Sep 9, 2006 3:55:00 PM cite

Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas: The very end of, you know, making profit directly influence consumer culture. That program influences people ways of thinking, acting and behavior, the personality and lifestyles and media, like television are being used to make it as part of our culture. Added to this, of course, is the commercialization of culture which, you know, is easily built-ins, but the big thing here is really the use of media to influence personalities, the behavior into a consumeristic attitude. Like, for instance commercials, you cannot attract buyers if you don’t have commercials and those are the things that sometimes influence our personalities and our culture. So I would say the role of television again is very crucial in influencing the consumer culture. And sometimes the question is, those people who have no televisions, if you compare their attitude and those societies without televisions has less cases of, you know, teenage pregnancy; and it’s maybe because of the lack or the absence of sexually motivated commercials being shown on the TV. Sometimes it’s good. It’s neither good nor bad to having a television at home; and this is where, you know, family should manage really the presence of televisions at home because it really creates your culture, the consumeristic culture.

by Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas