Before we moved TV had been a regular part of our lives. We had our favorite shows, we watched regularly, and we prided ourselves that we could resist the subtle and not so subtle marketing.
Twenty-one months later I realize how wrong we were. Some basic assumptions and beliefs have shifted in my life. I used to think of shopping as relaxation or recreation. Even grocery shopping let me buy something new and I enjoyed the constant flow of new things into my life. I realize how new things were a message to myself that I was valuable, alive, and appropriately entertained. That is exactly what the advertisers want us to think — the way to feel good is to buy something.
I used to think of factory produced food as superior to home grown stuff. Poverty was having to grow your own food. Prosperity was being able to buy. There were great mysteries in life that I left to the professionals — butchering chickens, making crackers, and breakfast cereal. And that's exactly what the advertisers want us to think — leave it to the professionals. Even the concept of cooking from scratch has changed, now including the comingling of a box of gelatin, a tub of sweetened whipped oil, and a tin can of fruit.
I used to think that environmental degradation, global poverty, and climate change were just too big to affect. I couldn't change the practices of huge multinational corporations, and what difference did my little life make. I carried despair but little action. That's exactly what the advertisers want us to think — you can't make a change so don't try.
For a long time I've been aware that advertising numbs us into being mindless consumers, but I thought that awareness gave me immunity. Now I realize how much it had stained my subconscious. Awareness of advertising is not enough to resist it. If everybody around you is drunk, sooner or later you'll feel wrong for being sober. And so it is with advertising.
Twenty-one months later I don't crave buying new things. When we need something we buy it, but I don't look forward to it like I used to. I find that our amateur homegrown food is not just as good, but is better and healthier and more abundant. For the first time, I truly believe that our lifestyle makes a difference to global issues, because I believe God is big enough to use every good for greater good.
When people look at our lifestyle as eccentric and somewhat crazy, I don't agree anymore. Instead, the standard American lifestyle is somewhat crazy. Why do we think that milk and meat from crowded, sick animals raised on non-natural food is right? Why do we think that a person's value originates with buying instead of with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit? Why do we think that genetically modified crops are superior to God's work? Why do we think that a life well lived, in partnership with the divine, is not the most world changing thing?
Lent is coming. This could be an opportunity in your life to take power away from advertising and give it to God.
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