Is LifeStyle Addiction Stronger Than Our Survival Instinct?
Dave Betke
Sustainable & Cause Marketing | Founder of GreenShows & GreenMeets | Using Branded Merch to Make a Difference | Helped Save a 65,000-Acre Forest - Ask How? ??
Consumerism and Survival Instincts: A Critical Examination
Our consumer society offers endless goods, services, and entertainment, catering to every desire and creating a constant stream of stimulation and gratification. Yet, this indulgent lifestyle may overshadow our basic survival instincts, much like severe substance dependency. Has consumerism become more powerful than our inherent drive to survive?
Parallels with Addiction
Addiction mechanisms reveal similarities between substance abuse and consumer behaviour. Whether it's alcohol, opioids, or the endless scroll of social media, both trigger the brain's reward system, releasing dopamine and creating a cycle of craving and reward. Over time, more stimulation is needed to achieve the same satisfaction, pushing us toward risky behaviours. This pattern mirrors compulsive behaviours seen in substance dependency, potentially leading us to sacrifice fundamental needs for fleeting pleasures.
The Role of Marketing
Marketing professionals have honed their skills in tapping into these cravings. Designing advertisements that trigger our brain's reward system makes us yearn for the latest gadgets, clothes, or experiences. This strategic exploitation of vulnerabilities keeps us hooked on the cycle of consumption. Marketers may deepen our dependency on this unsustainable lifestyle by equating happiness with material possessions.
Impaired Judgment
Dependency can impair judgment and decision-making, often leading to choices that harm long-term well-being for immediate rewards. Our overconsumption of resources and reliance on fossil fuels might reflect this tendency. Despite knowing the environmental damage, we continue down this path, possibly driven by marketing strategies prioritizing profit over sustainability.
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Withdrawal and Relapse
Quitting addictive behaviours often leads to withdrawal and relapse, driving us back to old patterns. Restlessness and anxiety may push us back into overconsumption when deprived of constant entertainment and material gratification. These subtle withdrawal symptoms could indicate a deep-rooted lifestyle dependency, exacerbated by marketing tactics enticing us back into the fold.
Environmental Toll
This dependency harms not just individuals but the planet itself. Our insatiable appetite for new products leads to habitat destruction, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation due to waste and pollutants. Climate change, driven by our addiction to energy-intensive lifestyles, disrupts ecosystems and threatens human civilization.
Breaking the Cycle
Acknowledging this lifestyle dependency is daunting. Yet, we must find the strength to break this cycle by scaling back consumption, embracing sustainable practices, and challenging destructive cultural norms. The question is whether we will sacrifice comfort for survival and overcome this dependency to rediscover our place in the natural world.
A Call to Action
Our obsession with consumerism numbs us to catastrophic environmental consequences. To protect humanity's future, we must confront this dependency head-on by rediscovering our connection to nature, embracing sustainability, and challenging harmful norms. Reclaiming our survival instinct can help us build a future worth fighting for.
The survival instinct is only activated when there is an immediate threat to life. Abstract dangers probably do not trigger it strongly enough. Greed and avarice are then much more dominant impulses. Anyway the impact of #climatechange also will be a question of #SuvivalOfTheFittest successively from poor to rich... tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/energie/oxfam-klima-ungleichheit-100.html (11/2023) www.dw.com/de/dasgupta-die-armen-sind-die-verlierer/a-17532309 (2014) To be compensated with a fair taxing: https://tinyurl.com/Harris4APTtax
systems change collaborating/ solarpunk undertaking/ fun thought sparring / bartending/ arting? from so-called costa rica currently based in Prague, CZ.
4 周I'm not sure consumerism is the root cause as much as it is a mechanism capitalism needs to stay alive and growing. So yes, capitalism certainly has the power to have us neglect our most basic survival instincts, planetwide. Dave Betke We both agree in breaking the cycle. Awareness along can't deliver. The way I have found to turn that awareness into changed behaviors saw me understanding our role in the planet and the deeper arts of growing things. How did you turn your awareness to action? So I reflect on Kevin Drolet's point of Maslow, and what drives us to do what we do. And maybe what we believe is not the whole picture of what does. Even Maslow seemed to agree: https://gatherfor.medium.com/maslow-got-it-wrong-ae45d6217a8c We don't need any more sociocultural patterning that drive individual toxic behaviors that at scale threaten planetary health. re: Maslow article, considering the fundamental deliverable of continuing our species, and how we are raising new generations and into what, if our view is newborns come blank, we'll build systems to impose them with labels. If our view is we come self-actualized, then we'll build systems to liberate ourselves into our full potential.
Sustainability Communications Strategist | Content Creator | Climate Scientist
4 周Another great article! I think ultimately what people want to purchase comes down to the stories we tell ourselves, which in part are the stories we are told by marketers. 'You will get the girl if you wear this aftershave'. 'you will feel better about yourself driving this car' etc. I think the key is to change the story!
Writer, environmental steward
4 周I think addiction is a superb descriptor. Under shareholder capitalism, addiction is almost always exploited by those who stand to profit by the continued addiction. So the question, then, should be: WHO are the drug dealers of consumerism, how do we stop them, and what alternative can we offer addicts to wean them off safely?