Why have societal critiques in stories, especially those involving consumerism, been reduced to a complete joke? It feels like people are less receptive to hearing them than ever, with critiques of consumerism being compared to something an edgy 12 year old would come up with or an atheist redditor would say.
you consume to existif consumerism is inherently bad then you must be inherently badits the same as trying to disparage capitalism
>>24723977the only solution to consumerism is a socialist dictatorship so people simply ignore the problem because their cultural brainwashing makes the solution scare them.
>>24723977It's been done to death and usually the critiques are shallow and offer nothing new to point that they come off as slop themselves.
>>24723991They've existed since ancient times. The message bears repeating. Fucking sick and tired of retards nowadays that want to abandon entire tropes in storytelling just because they've been done badly. Reminds me of the people that are sick of "grey morality" just because Game of Thrones did it badly. It's all reactionary retardation and not actual critique.
>>24723981Essentially this.The problem is most people are still creatures of habit, it's easy to go "dude McDonald's lmao" (most of these critiques boil down to some variant of that), but at the same time there are brands and products to migrate to, and if doesn't satisfy anymore it becomes a point of discussion. Anyone who writes this stuff has no idea of any alternative, it's not like it's "consumerism bad because I practice asceticism" or "consumerism bad because I am a true believer in Communism and I believe heavily-regulated state-run media is the superior alternative" (not just "communism good because I am a talentless wagie").
>>24724244>>24723981Saying that people shouldn't base their life on consumerism because it won't make them happy is one of the easiest and most sensible things you could tell someone to do. What the fuck are you guys talking about?
>>24724252Do you think leftists arguments ever make sense?
>>24723977Major redpillModern social discourse is entirely an elite shield and cudgel in one to dictate morality to the lower class (obviously)Do not talk about the utter meaninglessness and omnipresent exploitation of modern life. Do talk about the hecking troons and the POCs and the injustices faced by dead people. Doesn’t matter if they call themselves progressive or whatever. It’s the same old game that it ever was.
>>24724252That's not what most "critiques of consumerism" are.
>>24724278>the utter meaninglessness and omnipresent exploitation of modern life
>>24725459Okay, then what are they?
I enjoy going to the mall and buying affordable clothing that was made using the same dyes that seep into the water in Bangladesh and poison the little children.
Meaning is cheap and plentiful (exploitation even more so) and you can distill it from anywhere. Meaning isn't always pleasant and painless. Most of it is forged by violence.My gripe is that consumerism never goes all the way. It remains in a hypocritical state of indecision. It masks itself under ideologies which betray it's ultimate utilitarian goal: anxiety relief. What I'm trying to actually say is I should be able to buy opiates and other narcotics CHEAPLY and SAFELY. The rest is LARP.
>>24723977Critiques of consumerism have largely been divided between forward-looking and backwards-looking responses, or else you end up bitching and moaning about our currently-best solution without any solutions. Mind you, I don't think consumerism is ideal, but this is how most people will interpret itMost forward-looking solutions converge into Marxism, but progressive critiques of Marxism show that it makes speculative, teleological, and normative arguments under the guise of objective progress (without providing any empirical evidence for why it works). Speculations won't convince anyoneMost backwards-looking critiques call for varying levels of primitivism, but it denies a lot of the progress we've already accumulated and become dependent on. A lot of these critiques also believe that self-sufficiency and independence from institutions is good, and that's a big ask for a lot of peopleMoving away from why people interpret anti-consumer critiques as a joke, if you want proper critiques that don't fall under any of these categories you'll want to start with Jeremy Rifkin's The End of Work. Even though it was written in 1995, it's a timely critique that contextualizes consumerism within our current era of technology. The main thesis is that technology and labor economics are inherently under constant conflict, and so Rifkin looks at the different ways communities are currently responding to this conflict. Where Kazscynski sought to remove technology, Rifkin seeks to remove labor economics. By fundamentally challenging the way economics and work are conceptualized, consumerist attitudes will have to accommodate these new frameworks into something more purposeful rather than keeping the culture of commodifiication
>>24726414Calling out consumerism but then sperging about some flavor of Marxism or primitivism is the "better" answer, see >>24726871
>>24723981>its the same as trying to disparage capitalismRetardation is an outdated bait strategy
>>24725462You don’t even believe modern life is meaningful, no one does. >exploitationI’m not even talking about it in the communist way, not strictly. World is absolutely full of ripoffs, scammers, whores, and manwhores. Everywhere you look. Wagies and consumerism are just the tip of the iceberg, in 2025 you could be in the depths of the Amazon jungle and some Indio is going to try and scam you. That is the world we live in.
>>24723977Get. Me. A Whopper™.
>>24726825>consumerism never goes all the way>it's ultimate utilitarian goal: anxiety relief.>all the way.>ultimate utilitarian goalanon... if you don't find the goal it achieves to be what it truly ough to reach, no-one that partakes in consumerism gives a shit what you fucking things, the "all the way" they seek is what they are actively doing
>>24723997This. Us humans are pretty retarded and need to be constantly reminded of the simple things. A man got famous simply because he told Anons to wash their penis.
>>24723981That's not what consumerism means you fucking moron
>>247239771. Hypocrisy - over the past 20-25 years regular everyday people are being told to tighten their belts, do more with less, etc, and they’re being told these things by a class of elites with unimaginable wealth living extravagant lifestyles, who in most cases attained that wealth by taking advantage of consumerism (or being born to someone who did). Everybody wants to rule the world but nobody wants to rule by example.2. Hyperbole - in the post-covid era people are putting very little stock into alarmism. Peak oil was supposed to have happened how many times now? We supposedly keep entering recessions yet demand for new homes continues to skyrocket. Y2K. Acid Rain. The Chinese Century. Brexit. Frexit. Holes in the ozone layer. All these warning signs of a civilization in decline come and go, having never transpired or ended up being insignificant. Even if they did, what would we do to mitigate them? Stop using Amazon? Junk all our cars and buy horses? Unrealistic solutions to problems that (for the most part) don’t exist. Consumerism is full of flaws but we’re also living in the most comfortable, stable and prosperous time in world history and until a comet hits the earth or a (not fake) pandemic wipes a third of humanity out we’re not going to rock the boat too much.
>>24723977Because consumerism won, completely. When there is nothing substantial to be done against the subject being criticized, people prefer to only think of it in humor. Since jokes against consumerism are the only viable form of criticism, people respond to real critique with jokes as well.
>>24723977Consuming is fine. The problem is relying on others to provide for you instead of providing for yourself.
>>24723977there is literally no alternative. Fukayama was right
>>24727956Then maybe you should stop it.
>>24727973>That is the world we live in.No, it's the world (or more accurately, the worldview) you live in.
>>24723983>cultural brainwashingOr a cursory knowledge of history.
>>24728359There is no such thing in human life as not relying on others
>>24728293Consumers will literally destroy the planet though.
>>24728645Tell me about this world with meaning and no scammers.
>>24728686There are some scammers. They are not "everywhere you look," unless you choose to look in the seediest places.And meaning depends on interpretation. I find plenty of meaning in my life, thanks. That you don't is a sad reflection on you.
>>24728663No, the planet will adjust to accommodate a manageable proportion of consumers. The rest will die off.
Because critiques of consumerism are always some masturbatory fantasy without a salient point to make. Pointing out the pitfalls of consumerism is a tired pastime of the 20th century. You'd have to venture so far into hypothetical to make an original point that your premise would have little to do with actual consumerist society. If somebody publishes a critique of consumerism in the present day they're either laboring under the delusion nobody's made their point before, or the point they're making isn't interesting or relevant to anyone.Criticism of consumerism is a completed genre of literature. Everything worth saying has already been said, and a whole lot not worth saying on top of it.
>>24728694>t. Mark
>>24728700The planet isn't gonna adjust to anything. At one point there will be nothing left. By the time the die offs start the whole system will come crashing down.
>>24728744By the time planet Earth is truly depleted humans will have long since found some other planets to consoom. >By the time the die offs start the whole system will come crashing down.Die offs are probably going to start this century but fortunately everyone is replacable, especially the people most at risk (thirdies). The system lives.
>>24728744The adjustment is happening already. Crops are starting to fail, pushing up the prices of things like coffee and chocolate. This is a foretaste of the shortages to come, especially in the face of exponential population growth.After the global famines and the mass starvation, a much smaller human population will find a sustainable existence. Biospheres are resilient things, and life on earth has already survived worse things than the present global warming.
>>24723981>consumerism is when you eat foodWas /lit/ always this stupid?
>>24728848Everybody consumes. But socialists need to reduce everything they don't like to an "-ism" (nationalism, capitalism, consumerism) as if it's some kind of ideology. Ideologues see ideology everywhere. It's their favourite form of projection.
>>24728817Just mass starvation until people ignore the government and start growing their own food.
Repetition is a cornerstone of discipline, critique an ascetic practice. Content-addicts think they're inhaling a wide breadth of information but under the media the message is usually the same. Like our food, strangled of nutrients, our media gives us little information. Our books are diet-books, no sugar-books.As for alternatives, most boil down to individual fantasy. Depends on taste. Some will spout the words 'care' and 'community'. Our eyes roll. Communists are just part-time workers.Ultimately, the world usually chugs along on it's own line, without us. We are living through the reign of the object.
>>24728879>everyone that disagrees with me is a communist!I ask again, has /lit/ always been this retarded
>>24728905I specifically mentioned socialists, not communists.Have you always been this retarded?
>>24728907I specifically mentioned consumerism, not eating foodHave you always been this retarded?
>>24728909Cool it with the antisemitic remarks
>>24723977>edgy 12 year old would come up with or an atheist redditor would say.Name calling to deflect from the fact people know they are mindless consumers and don't actually want to stop being mindless consumers.
>>24723977Because the leftist ruling class that has dominated the media space dropped the mask that it actually cares about consumerism. Anti consumerism has become conservative and rightist coded. >>24723981Word games. It means consuming shit not just for bare subsistence but for pleasure. And capitalism is obviously good but it’s dependent upon costly cultural technologies and social structures and responsible institutions to not decay and the decadent people of our society no longer want to take responsibility to maintain those things. Also capitalism can erode traditional folk culture and traditions that keep society functioning in exchange for material wealth. Though it’s nowhere near as bad as industrial managerial totalitarianism.
Bump
>>24728913>I specifically mentioned consumerism, not eating food>consumerism is when you eat foodI ask again, have you always been this retarded?
>>24730661I guess I am, according to you conservatives are socialists, and since socialists are idiots, I must be an idiot
