Be pure, be guilty, but carry on spending.

More and more it seems to me that the major social discussions in our society occur where two kinds of consumption interact and conflict.

The foreigner, looking in on any society, cannot see rebellion ‘in general’ – but must conceive of it as being directed towards something specific. One must really understand the ruses and codes of a culture, and share in its commonality, to truly know the irony and rebellion inside it for its own sake.

Thus at home, we always let our definitions of ‘rebellion’ spill further, encompass the complex, while we try to simplify that which we see abroad. (By abroad, I am not including our, albeit partially illusionary, conception of the  East and West Coast of the United States , brought to us by the wealth of in disposable cultural reference points which feed the great mass of us into a daily stupor, though, to some extent, I am including what is found further in-land). At home, we haven’t pinpointed exactly what it is that we must rebel against, and yet we are fully versed in the disruptive and disputative spirit we know it involves. We love the suggestion of unrest. Maybe this is all because we, inevitably when dealing with our own ‘culture’ consider rebellion’s proper definition so much more vital, maybe its because we are more embedded in the comfy folds of our society and so finding the culprit would always entail finding a part of ourselves. And maybe also, its just because we are more used to treating the foreign in a more flippant, off handed way.

When the British headlines scream ‘How your asparagus is causing a water shortage in Peru’, I find it particularly un helpful and indicative of flippant simplification of all things foreign. As if we, as British individuals and consumers, were such mighty beholders in our own powers of consumption. Nature is surely at once powerful and delicate, but this headline suggests that the vast natural resources of a country far away are fully tameable by the expensive green leaved object of current bourgeoisie choice. We risk being too self congratulatory here. Moreover, in giving us this sense of authority, a unconscious and yet heavily wielded power, it also imparts a sense of all consuming guilt without giving us an autonomous alternative short of abstinence.

Now,  don’t get me wrong, I’m not against abstinence, but I prefer it when its autonomously decided upon rather than sneaked into people and driven by a sort of penitential guilt. For the European world, guilt has been traditionally so personalised, so secreted, that I see few productive and ‘progressive’ outcomes that can result from it. Instead of perhaps presenting a quantifiable culprit, thus rationalising the situation, maybe blaming ‘the supermarkets’ ‘cooking trends’ or even ‘British demand’, this headline works directly on ‘the person’. And that person, the guardian reading asparagus eater, immediately feels responsibility. Because  you’re ‘privileged’ (i.e. basically rich, though it might also be trying to confuse some racial or educational measure with this very naked categorisation), so the headline implies, you must repent. Yet, as a commercial newspaper, it shies away from suggesting readers abstain from material products and instead alludes to a less quantifiable category of abstinence. Turn over a few more pages and you’ll find in the ‘fashion’ section, the ‘cooking’ section, the ‘travel’ section, no suggestion that this abstinence should be in terms of actual ‘things’. Instead, when read in the context of the whole newspaper, this headline seems to be suggesting that while its ok to  indulge ones sensations beyond the commonly agreed threshold of necessity, abstinence of another kind is necessary. From where should the intensely personal (rather than communal or social) sacrifice eluded to in the headline come? Perhaps they are suggesting we delve into our deepest psyches and spirits and dislodge our less quantifiable or commercially advantageous desires? A kind of spiritual abstinence compatible with a ravishing commercial economy? It certainly seems to be the way the major world religions are recruiting adherents at the moment. Who says living without a conscious or blatant declaration of one’s religious allegiance makes your life richer when our humanist replacements all mimic the same entreaties?