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Stefan Claudiu
The Zeitgeist Movement - Orientation Guide
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distort these notions and mold a new army of impulsive, perpetually dissatisfied,
status
conscious consumers. Advertising agencies switched their arguments from utilitarian ones to those gauged for emotional appeal and
status
. Consequently, today the average American consumes twice as much as he or she did since the end of WWII.10 Now, one of the most powerful forms of `value manipulation' comes from re-associating a person's identity to a particular ideal. Patriotism and Religion are classical examples of this, for through indoctrination at an early age, a person is often conditioned to feel a close personal connection to a country or religion, hence conditioning that person to want to support the doctrines, unconditionally. Another example of this is the concept of "fashion". Fashion takes many forms, from the clothes
people
wear to even the ideologies they perpetuate. To illustrate how successful the commercial industry has
become
in manipulating the values of human beings for their own gain, many
people
today can be seen walking around wearing certain commercial articles, merely for the purpose of expressing a company's brand, contriving some kind of apparent social
status
or "stylistic expression" from them. Signature "Tommy Hilfiger" shirts, trade marked "Prada Bags" and flashy Rolex watches are examples of products where the utility or function of an item has lost total relevance, with importance now derived by what the item "represents". Sadly, what these
people
often do not realize is that they are nothing more than walking advertisements for the respective company, plain and simple. The "
status
" or "expression" really exists entirely in the conditioned `value projections' of that person, and if enough
people
become
manipulated in the same way, a "trend" emerges, which further reinforces the delusion by way of collective identification. These trends can
become
so powerful, that those who do not adhere to the fad, might be deemed "outcasts" and be ostracized. Now, `Vanity' aside, we must also examine the distorted values created in the form of mentalities and worldviews. This constant need of self-interest often spreads like a cancer into other psychological areas, creating and reinforcing such neurosis as "Greed", "Jealousy" and "Ego".
Greed is likely the driving force of the monetary system's perpetuation, beyond just survival. Due to the inherent stratification of goods and services (and hence standards of living) available to those with more and more purchasing power, the human being is groomed to perpetually want "more" material wealth, for the "more" seems to go to infinity. The result is a culture which doesn't have a concept of balance, or a sense of what is actually important, or "enough". Advertising compounds
10
Schor, Juliet, The Overworked American, New York Books, 1991, p. 208 16
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