Psychopathy and Consumerism

It is difficult for us, by and large, to see any problem with consumerism. Sure, as a culture we might speak in vaguely disapproving tones about greed and how awful it is that both parents today are forced to work, leaving their children with day care, babysitters or after school programs instead of family. But we don't really see a problem with it. If we did, we wouldn't still be living these lives we lead.

The thing is, we tend to see the way things are at any given point as pretty much normal. For instance, most of the population of the planet for most of human history has not used money in the way we use it now. Yet, most of us see money as being something almost organic. We can't imagine human interaction without it.

The same goes for our particular uses of technology. Ask nearly any child today to imagine life in the days before television and you'll see that not only can they not imagine it, they have the impression that it must have been horrific. This is to be expected. It's naturally how our brains work. The world we see is modeled within the very fabric of our brains. Of course the way things are is the way they were meant to be.

I suppose there is truth in this, that things are the way they are meant to be. Nothing can be anything other than what it is supposed to be. But accepting that fact is a far cry from understanding how things are and that the way they are now is not the way they will always be.

And so, because we are immersed in consumerism, we assume that consumerism is the natural order of things. Yet, a brief tour of known human history will show us that this is not the case. The question is, why is consumerism so prevalent today?

The need to have, to possess, is a trait of the psychopath. Because they do not feel they seek to own. If you cannot love, you are only left with possession as an interaction with other beings. This will either take the form of possession of another through manipulation of their mind and emotions, or competition with others to see who can posses the most. As a bumper sticker I've seen too many times says, "Whoever dies with the most toys wins." It's not really funny.

Consumerism is indicative of a culture embracing psychopathy as the norm. Though the term psychopath and sociopath are used interchangeably in mainstream psychology, for the purpose of our discussion we will use the term sociopath in the way a mainstream psychologist would use the term secondary psychopath. That is, a person who is not genetically psychopathic but has taken on psychopathic traits.

I used to teach inner city kids. Sociopathy was common amongst that group. It makes sense that it would be. They have been placed in a situation in which they are always considered second-class citizens, at best. The only successful role models they have, those who have managed to pay rent, buy a car and provide for others, are psychopaths--drug dealers, pimps and hardcore gangsters. Many become sociopaths out of the need to survive.

On the other hand, I live in a rather affluent area of Los Angeles, though I am by no means affluent, myself. Curiously, the percentage of sociopaths among the population on this side of town seems even higher than in the inner city. In the ghetto, there are still people who will accept you no matter where you come from or what you have. On this side of the tracks, that's very rare, indeed.

Of course, the most affluent area of the city would contain the most sociopaths. In a consumeristic society, who will find the most success? The person driven by conscience, or the psychopath who is able to do anything at all in order to get ahead? The question doesn't need to be answered explicitly. We all know the answer.

We could limit the effect of psychopaths on our society by making the society one that is not so psychopath-friendly. If we held service to others in higher esteem than financial "success" the psychopath would obviously appear the odd man out. But that is not the path we have chosen. Rather, we have joined in the psychopathic race to posses. In doing so, we have learned psychopathic tendencies...we have become sociopaths in order to survive in the psychopath's game.

And we still hold on to the idea that it is the way things are meant to be. It is the way things are meant to be. When a culture makes the decision to follow psychopaths, this consumeristic culture is exactly how things are meant to be. But it is not how things must be. We need only a small fraction of what we desire. We work ourselves to the bone to enjoy a life during a brief vacation that we can enjoy on a daily basis, if we could only rid ourselves of our sociopathic tendencies.

Will we do it? Not to sound pessimistic, but I doubt it. It is not by chance that we have fallen into this pit. We have been lead here by something dark, something that hates life and love, something that we do not want to believe exists. We have never been left to our own devices. We are cattle, and the chief tool the ranchers have to keep us in line is our ignorance of their existence.

We are sleeping sheep, having a dream of a beautiful life with our big-screen TV's, SUV's and nice homes. And, if we don't wake up, we will suffer the fate of all sheep in a tended flock. We will be lead to the slaughter.