Media Hypnosis in Advertising and Politics by Kenneth Graham

Author:Kenneth Graham [Graham, Kenneth]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Kenneth R. Graham, Ph.D.
Published: 2013-01-26T23:00:00+00:00

Artificial Desire

The cycle begins with the accumulation of stuff, so much stuff that many people earn their living by helping others to organize their closets and garages. According to a recent estimate by Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees, authors of Our Ecological Footprint, if everyone consumed at the level of the average North American, it would take four extra planets to provide the necessary resources to survive.12 All of this material accumulation is the result of higher standards of living as reflected by consumer spending. At the beginning of the twentieth century the average US household spent a bit more than $750 per year on goods and services. One hundred years later that amount was approximately $41,000 which, expressed in 1901 prices, would have bought more than $2000 worth of goods, a tripling of purchasing power. The United States has become a goods-oriented economy based on mass consumption spurred on by advertising and easy consumer credit. As a result, consumer spending has become the largest component of US gross domestic product, accounting for 70 percent of the US economy, and that makes most of us happy. We like our stuff, but, as with population growth and fossil fuel consumption, the unending spiral of desire has negative implications one of which is simply the sheer amount of waste that it generates.

Consider the largest object by volume ever constructed by human beings. Some might guess that it is the Great Wall in China, or the pyramids at Giza, but the correct answer is the Fresh Kills rubbish dump on Staten Island, New York.13 Opened in 1948, it covered about four-and-one-half square miles. It is closed now but if it had stayed open it would eventually have grown to be the tallest structure on the East Coast. It was already higher than the Statue of Liberty when it shut down. At its operational peak 20 barges, each carrying 650 tons of trash and garbage dumped their cargo there every day. That was for one city. For the nation as a whole government figures reveal that the production of trash (solid waste) has grown much faster than the population. In 1960 the population of the United States was approximately 179 million people and the amount of solid waste generated by that population equaled approximately 88 million tons. Forty years later the population had grown by 57 percent to approximately 281 million people, but the amount of trash we generated grew 269 percent to 237 million tons. The good news is that much of that waste now gets recycled. In 1960 only six percent of the waste generated was recycled, whereas today that figure is about 44 percent.14 Worrisome, however, are the increasing amounts of potentially harmful waste by-products that are polluting the air, water, and food supplies.

An alarming amount of pollution is generated just by pharmaceutical and personal care products. The United States Geological Services reports that steroids, prescription and nonprescription drugs such as acetaminophen and ibuprofen, antibiotics, hormones, and fragrances have been detected in water samples from streams susceptible to contamination.

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