watch now! detail...
suspenseful music i delivered the message.now what? -now let's check the secondmessage. ready. -mum. the doctor'sdeodorant discovery, now contains m-3 to stop odour24 hours a day. remember now. -i know. for securityreasons: mum's the word. perhaps the most incrediblestory of the last million years, is the rise ofmodern human culture. the cities we populate,and the lives that we lead.
explosion it is the world that ourchildren will inherit. but after a century ofexponential growth in population and consumerism, people are questioningthe nature of modern life, beginning to doubt ourmotivations, and predicting environmentaldestruction. this film uses evolutionarypsychology as a tool to lookat modern society.
in understandinghuman nature, our current concernslook smaller, more transient, withpotentially: a solution. sound of passing train we've all got this weird mentalillness called consumerism. we've all kind of gonecollectively psychotic. chasing status, in public, withpeople who don't really care, and neglecting your ownloversand friends, and neighbours, and kids.
you know, this consumptionofmaterial items as a means to acquirestatus is as much of a trapas it is a set of freedoms. the pervasive nature of it has,perhaps, crossed the threshhold of usbeing able to cope with it, and process the information. the high street is actuallya stressful, anxious place. we're getting very little fromit, but working incredibly hardto try and figure it all out.
we have the delusion that we really have deepinsight into ourselves already. we're very sophisticated now inthe early 21st century, but we're going to seemincredibly naã¯ve in another hundred years. our grandchildren will think:what were they on about? why did they care aboutbrands? and having six bedroom houses, if they were only one marriedcouple and one kid?
why did they care about that? there is a lot of baggage andmeaning attached to the word 'consumer'and 'consumerism', but for all the negativeconnotations, 'consumerism' and 'consumptiveprocesses' are merely descriptive words for something that feels verynormal for the human animal to do. they're the result ofa very natural human urge
to experience andto grow and to learn, and to play out dreams andambitions and aspirations; and in that respect consumptioncan be seen as something incrediblynatural and incredibly normal for a stimulus hungry speciessuch as ours to do. and as we now know what cloudsare, we know what thunder is, and we know why plants grow... as things become increasinglyunderstood, the need for mystery and experience, and magic,is still there,
but we need to synthesize andmake ways of experiencing that. i just wishi had a decent kitchen. in a subtle and satisfyingway, this consumption of products andexperiences has now also become aimportant measure for our lives. there is this story thatwe're all very aware of, although no one ever sat usdown and told us the story, but we kind of understand,through media, in many ways. we understand that landscape,and where the milestones are.
for example - your first doublebed, buying your first cot. i don't thinks it's necessarilyproduction and consumption that's driving that. it's just that thisis a human process, and it's a human way ofstructuring and creating sense out of the future,which is totally unknown. the difference is thatwe've chosen to structure it, and signpost it, withproducts and possessions. this is my daughter jessiepassing one of her milestones -
riding a bikewithout stabilizers. you did it! this is alex, my son,taking his first steps. they are hungry for experience, and living in a highlydeveloped society. the means to feed thishunger is unlimited. the planet has been turnedinto a playground for us all. our lives have never beenricher, yet our need for more seemsundiminished.
growth has become fetishised, but more money, more holidays,more work, more choice, more stuff in more housesis pushing us to the limit. scream creepy laughter i think if you took apre-historic human, and transferred them intothe modern world, they would be really surprised that we aren't happierthan we are.
they would think "you're livingin a golden age," "and you're sort of squanderingit on these silly anxieties." there are only two possiblemessages: buy and sell. but even if it did read 'self', the information would still beclear, if you know the code. addictions, depression,and mental health issues are becoming part ofeveryday conversation. we are losing ourselvesin the rush. struggling to keep our headabove water.
the idea that we are 'sensehungry' or stimulus searchers. i think we've madeourselves that way by developing a contemporaryexperiential landscape where the majority of problems arealready solved. there's actually nothingfor us to do. stop or go. on or off. one or none. go or no go.
there's not just theindividual, financial, and pyschological cost ofmodern culture - there is also anenvironmental cost. and in a rigorous study, behavioural scientist warrenhern found the human race is actinglike a cancer on the planet displaying all the fourmajor characteristics of a malignant process. ultimately, cancer kills theorganism that supports it.
i think it's becomeincreasingly clear that the kind of growth ratesthat we are getting around the world - 10% and more incountrieslike china and india, a norm of 2% or 3% in mostindustrialised countries, can't be sustained. the sheer through-putof materials, energy, resources that are finite(most of them), that cannot continueinto the long term.
the philosopher john grayconcludes that the human population can onlybe maintained by desolating the earth; creating an era of solitude, in which little remains ofthe planet except us and the prostheticenvironment that keeps us alive. in britain, the averagehousehold is consuming as if there were threeplanets rather than one. you can see that this verynatural human process
is beginning to mutateinto something... perhaps toxic and negative. reading a story modern society is the story ofour age, for good or evil. scientists, philosophers, andpsychologists have been looking at theevolution of the human species in an attempt to understand ourmeteoric rise, and our recent detachmentfrom the environment. it's a little bug.
- i think that the only waythat we are different from other animals, is in thetype of consciousness that we have got. consider that we haveonly been walking around on this earth, as homosapiens,for two hundred thousand years, which is nothing in geologicalterms - reminds us that we are justbabies on the planet. and so we're on a very steeplearning curve. can we have my story now?
evolutionary theory says thatwe have, built in our genes, two prime, sub-conscious,motivators: survival and attracting a mate. the principle tool that humansuse to fulfill both these needs is the brain. our brain has tripled in sizesince we evolved from primates. it is what makes usunique as animals, and research suggests that if we understand themechanisms of the brain,
we begin to understand our wholeculture, consumerist or otherwise. most animals run aroundworrying about three things: food, predators, andgroomingthemselves to get rid of parasitesandinfectious disease. once we've taken careof that, once we have agriculture toproduce food, once we've shot and killed allthe predators around us, and once we've got sanitationand medicine
to take care of infectiousdisease (largely), we can turn our minds towardsthose other obsessions: social status and sexualattractiveness. so we spend a lot more timethinking about that, and obsessing about thoseissues- social and sexual issues -than probably any other animalshave had the luxury of doing ever before in the historyof life on earth. most of our ornaments aremental and behavioral, and that's mostly what we areshowing off in courtship.
we don't really flash hugetails like peacocks. we don't use that much sexualcoercion, compared to other species, so we're relatively peaceful,we're relatively naked, and we do most of ourcourtship through language; and showing off our braincapacities, like our intelligence,personality, moral virtues... burning the calories in yourbrain to produce a good sense ofhumour, or to sing well,
or to produce interesting artor to show off your creativity in any of the natural, humanways that we have evolved to do. in modern consumerist culture,all of that effort, all of that status seekingeffort, all of the mating effort is now channeled intothe economy. it's channeled into the goodsand services that we buy. so, the principal way you're meantto display your mental traits, now, is through your purchases.
the economy tries to captureall of our mating effort into these goods and services, and turn them into ourprops for mating. products have therefore becomea means of promoting ourselves beyond the talking. we use them as a signal. the foundations for thisbehaviour were laid down hundreds ofthousands of years ago as we evolved a cultural traitcalled 'prestige'.
the big difference betweenhumans and other animals, in terms of rankingsand social status, is that they don't have what i'mgoing to define as 'prestige'. they have social status,rankings, some are higher status thanothers, but all of that status, the relative positioning of oneto another, is determinedby dominance behaviors - so violence, threatof violence, and coercion.
only humans have what i'mgoing to call 'prestige' and that is respect, orauthority, or social power that is freely grantedfrom one individual to another. the desire forprestige is darwinistic in the sense that it hasprobably been selected during the courseof human evolution. certainly, since it's somethingthat we don't share with other primate species,that desire for prestige, and then perhaps the signallingcomponent as well,
is something that has emergedduring human history. and i would say that it has doneso because it's adaptive, as you say - if confers abenefit; getting increased goods,services, respect, authority from others, has gotto have benefits, therefore - natural selection over time hasshaped our psychologies, and our behaviors in such away that we both desire prestige and actin ways to try and acquire it. sound of applause
splash engine noise there is one more importantfactor to consider. because the brain's capacityhas evolved to be the most crucialcomponent in the survival and developmentof the human species, it has an in-builtpre-disposition for growth. we are naturally drivento stimulate it. it is why we feel boredomso acutely,
why we are so mentally restless. our huge brain capacity is whatmakes us unique among animals, and in its simplest form,consumption is nourishment. and so brain food is part of ourdaily diet. led by the assistant, the familyprocession forms to enter the vestibule of thechurch, where the rector and cruciferawait the episcopal service. it is fair to say our survivalinstinct and need for personal growth and prestigehas been, up until recent times,
the principle driver forsociety to evolve. harnessing the brain'singenuity, it has led from the agriculturalrevolution to the industrial. from wind and water power tofossil fuel and nuclear power. from economic activity thatstarted local and is now global. the natural need to secure afuture for ourselves, our children, and our species, has accelerated at a startlingpace - with huge success. crash
we are the only species thatchanges where we live to suitus - and when we have agood idea: it spreads. rumbling sound ♪ it's a new thing, it's ♪♪ a fine thing ... ♪ ♪ it's a swing wing, ♪♪ it's a wing ding. ♪ ♪ a brand new transagram ♪♪ fun thing. ♪ it's a what? ♪ it's a swing wing! ♪ get swing wing,made by transagram,
where the fun comes from. it's a swing wing! -- it's a what? if we now look at modern society - we can see how capitalism, not only reflects ourevolutionary tendencies, but also amplifiesand distorts it. marketing is like the air webreathe. it's all around us. marketing gurus have learnt howto push our evolutionary buttons they know status is apsychological pressure point
as is our need to promote ourintelligence, creativity, and emotional stability. it means that, by 20, the average westerner has seenone million commercial messages, and budgets foradvertising for kids has risen to over onebillion dollars. we are now indoctrinatedto consume from birth. sound of cartoons ontelevision modern sales techniques wereborn
at the front end ofthe 20th century. sigmund freud's nephew, edwardbernays, was living in america, and after success workingas an agent, he was put in charge ofpropaganda as america enteredthe great war in 1916. cannon fires he was so successful,that when peace came he believed that if people'sopinions could be moulded at a time of war, then why notwhile at peace?
he coined the phrase 'publicrelations', and set about gettingpeople to buy stuff. fundamental in his approach, was the use of aspirationalmarketing. at the request ofcorporations, worried that people would stopbuying once they had everythingfor a comfortable life - bernays set about makingconsumerism into the way we show both our successand our personality.
fanfare and drum roll the corporations, especiallyin the mid twentieth century, were actively looking attheway they could trigger off psychological impulses deepwithin us, that would cause us to desirenew products that we had never everthought of desiring before. so in that respect it's pushedupon us. but, it's only possible to dothat because as microsoft would put it:
there are securityvulnerabilities within us. the 1950's saw consumerismcome of age; a golden era where scientists,inventors, designers and corporations competed tomeet the desires of the ever-hungry people. marketing culture waseverywhere, and with the dominance ofhollywood films and the invention of television, it wasn't long before the restof the world got to witness
how comfortablythe other half lived. see it?-isn't it beautiful? if i only had a car likethat i'd really be popular. everybody would want tobe friends with me then. dog barks one critical thing thatadvertising does is try to convince consumersthat above average products can compensate for belowaverage traits. shirt right, tie right,and coat right.
can't be popular unless youknow how to dress. so that if you're not thatfunny, or verbally creative, you're not artistic, you don'thave any of the romantic skills that are naturally attractive,you can compensate: don't worry! you can get an engineeringdegree, earn respectable money, buy a bunch of stuff and stillbe viable, and attractive onthe mating market. i think that that's a delusion,it doesn't actually work. you might attract a spouse for awhile but they'll get bored,
and they'll leave you, anddivorce you, and look elsewhere for somebody who'smore interesting. so what's happening now, is that consumers areneglecting to develop the crucial, romanticallyattractive traits. saying "i've got a porche outfront" - it might interest people of theopposite sex, at a superficial level, but itdoesn't pack the emotional punch that leads people to fall inlove with you as a person.
psychology research supportsthis argument. it has found that in studyingmarketing for music, while we are sold the idea it iscool to listen to certain bands, being a mediocre singeror musician, is a lot more romanticallyattractive. music i think the advertisingis trying to insinuate itself into the kids and the teenagersand the youthful consumers at an ever younger age.
its realized, for example, thatif you sexualize young teens if you make them think aboutmating, earlier and earlier, you can capture more of theirmoney, or their parent's money. music i mean a brand, as a familyor as a collective, is a wonderful thing. you get to assign membership toa group that has certain values, and an image and profilethatyou kind of like the feel of. but at the same time, youget tobe an individual within it.
but what's also interesting... you know if everything costs thesame - the brand is everything. i think the marketing revolutionis convincing every consumer that you've got to be the centerof your own world. you haveto be an ardent narcissist. as people withdraw intothemselves, and devote all their effort intosocial status and attractiveness in the process of that theyoften...kind of... forget to reproduce at all!
they lose the darwinian plot. traffic noise i think to a certainextentour evolved predispositions to seek status and todesireprestige, are operating in a context, now,that is very very different from the one in whichthey originally evolved. we talk about the man-made andwhat we think of is motorways, and buildings, and phillipsscrews. but, actually, the man-made isalso the meanings, and values,
and systems and social structurethat come with...all of that. when you look into anelectronics store, and you look at black, shiny,digital gadgets which are aimed at a particularperson who is looking to wear thatsuper hero costume and become the "organised,busy person". that's what that prop - it'snot a product - it's a prop - that's what thatis for. it's way for you to selfactualize and fulfill that need.
feeling like you're part of thei-pod generation is also a kind of shelter, because by acquiring the productand putting the headphones in and walking the street in thatway, you become part of a group, and you're safe now! grounded within something thatis perhaps real! here's the biggest t.vadvertising campaign ever seen in the history ofthe stocking business. we're going to sellstockings of adgelon yarn
to millions and millionsof women from coast tocoast, through repetitive selling inexciting t.v. commercials. here's a preview. ♪ it's new, new, new, and two for you. ♪ we have become lost in thismodern landscape. living to consume. consumerism isn't aconspiracy, it is very much a reflectionof the human mind, and this is why we findit so comforting.
when you've got an emptinessinside you, that is basically insatiable because you've never dealt withthe real cause of that emptiness and as with any addiction youkeep on stuffing that emptiness full of stuff that can't satisfyit. you know, the ikea truck kind ofdrives away and you realize - you're still the same person,but you've just got more stuff. and i think maybe it's that kindof realisation that what you thought was going tohappen hasn't happened,
in which sense we're barking upthe wrong tree, if we're looking for meaningand satisfaction through materialconsumption. i think that marketinghas very little effect on the fundamentalparts of human nature. it's not really changingthe structure of the brain or the nature of humanintelligence or personality. but marketing is having a hugeeffect on the way people thinkabout themselves.
on the kinds of display strategythey learn and they invest in, and in that sense it's very,very powerful. i think marketing is really atthe heart of modern 21st century culture. consumerism is another exampleof virtual reality and the problem with so much ofwhere we're at just now is we've allowed virtual realityto become more than just a game. choral music concentrate on the forehead now.
we can feel the tension there. keep relaxing, and value theability to make your mind blank. do these things to un-tense, and we will approach each daywith a better outlook. poised, relaxed, that's the wayto let yourself go, and have a better time going. the environmental effects ofunfettered consumption are well documented. but if we are to lead ourchildren into a hopeful future,
we need to understand how,psychologically, we have become untouchedby destructiveness. i think we become dissociatedfrom the wild when we discard our relationshipwith hands-on experience of elemental reality - of fire,air, earth and water. and when everything getsserved up to us on a plate because we've got a highlymechanized, computerized, globalized supply system inwhich we have lost touch with where things come fromin the natural, living world.
and as a result of that losingtouch, we're no longer able to care somuch, because we just don't feel itthe same way. the irony is that as humantechnology and history progress, we get increased masteryover the environment. with agricultural revolution, instead of having to wonderaround for miles, looking for hunted meat, andberries, and fruits, and nuts. we focus just on our littlepatch of farmed land.
we plough it, we get a reliablefood supply. with the industrial revolution,you withdraw even further into your little bourgeoisiehouse. and what you care about are themechanisms that surround you. the refrigerators, washingmachines, you know, the telephones...all of that. now your reachis greatly extended - you have more technical controlover the environment with the industrial revolution.
with the marketing revolution, you withdraw even furtherinto yourself and you just worry about thebrands that surround you. you're not even worried aboutthe technology any more. you don't know howthe plumbing works, you don't know howyour car works. you just know what kind of carit is, what kind of refridgeratoryou've got. so there is a gradual withdrawalof focus from the environment
and into yourself and yourown narrative. it seems our ignorance of hownature works, and what it does for us,is exacting a terrible price. more people are chasing fewerresources, food production is near thelimits of growth, oil has reached its peak, the world's populationwill pass nine billion by 2050. strong nations are reaching intoweak nations, to take what they need.
forests are cut down, and theoceans emptied; biodiversity is alreadycollapsing. but as long as our economiescontinue to grow, we pretend not to notice. we're like the peopleon easter island, in thrall to our culture, throwing up structuresthat prove our mastery, ignoring the damage we are doingto the planet we share. drum roll
we've always done it.only, now, we have reached the limits ofwhat the planet can provide. can the science ofsustainability save us from this on-goingdestructive tendency? i would see sustainability assimply the ability for... our species,our human species, to survive long-termin its environment without damaging the carryingcapacity of that environment... the capacity of the environmentto support what is there.
i think that the issue oftimeis crucial to this. we've got thisvery short-term mind-set, and part of sustainability hasgot to go as far as changing that psychologicalmind-set towards a culture of permanence for, not the next few years,not the next few decades, but for hundreds of years,thousands of years. that one. -do you know thetime alex? say yes or no. no. -you don't?-no. i don't.
daddy, do you know thetime? it's no good to say we'll puta label on a product, and say it's a bit greener thanthe other product, and expect everyone to startbuying the right thing. the problem goes deeperthan that. if you go to a wasterecycling center, and you look at what's there,you will find that, particularly with electronicproducts (e-waste, if you like), you will find that what's therestill works in a basic sense,
it still does what it wasmeant to do. the computers still compute, the fridges still make stuffcold, they still work. and i think what it throws intolight is that there are different kindsof durability, and that other things havebroken, like desire can break. fascination can break, mysterycan break. things can lose mystery andlose fiction very quickly, and all of these fantileproperties,
that advertisers use, verycleverly, can break. they can die out, they canfade away. and so the challenge, theintervention, if you like, is about thinking how to designproducts, and market products, and consume products that havea sustainable kind of meaning, and a very durable set of valuesand desires so that we (perhaps) don't fall out of love with themso quickly. like the way a pair of denimjeans, for example, picks up patina and ages throughuse, or can have rips or stains
that only the ownerreally knows what they're about. and that links back then,of course, to narrative. we are only really going toaddress consumption properly, as a society, as communities. individuals can do so much, butultimately will just lost hope, and will find it too much likehard work; to bear that burden of having todo the right thing when we go shoppingall the time. we need to complement the smallstep changes that individuals do
with a bigger vision that,ultimately, can only be introduced byfar-sighted industry people. and it needs industry, to thinkabout new business models too so that their profits in thefuture don't depend on selling cheap,throw-away rubbish. but so their profitability isbuilt-in to providing products that last, and maybe their profits arepartly dependent on them providing usa good service
to keep those goodsworking for longer. large producers are saying: "wewould now like to consider making products that people wantto keep for longer." "we know how to make a washingmachine that works for 30 years, we know how to do that." "but what we don't know how todo is design a washing machine that somebody wants to keep for30 years." "because we haven't trainedconsumers to consume that way." there is a shift, andthere arechanges happening,
and design, sustainable design,is at one edge of that shift. i think that the politics ofsustainability is only one part of it. there is the old feminist maxim:the personal is the political, the political is the personal,and you need both sides of that. you need to look at what a humanbeing is, what our inner lives are about,in order to understand what the potentialitiesfor political change can be. the two majorpresidential candidates
vote just likeall the other citizens. one of them, in new york city,describes himself as a lawyer. the other, up in the country,where his home is, gives his occupationas - 'farmer'. drawn to power and prestige, politicians display all thetraits that have got us into this messin the first place. the very competitivenessof their nature marries perfectlywith modern society
and they are unlikely to findthe answers we need. sadly, when you think of security, you think of how manyresources we have in the world, and certainly there isplentyto provide for all, and it seems odd that we haveso much striving and insecurity given that's true. but social status is sort ofa zero sum game. no matter whether you liveon the richest island,
or the poorest islandin the world, your social group will alwayshave a low ranking person, and a high ranking person,and everyone in between. so, there's always a context for that strivingto be higher status because it's a relativecondition to the whole group, and we are, i think, shapedby evolution to desire to behigher status. our brains are programmed forsurvival, prestige,
and, above all - growth; and we have created a society that reflects andfacilitates this. humanity, and its grip on theenvironment, will continue to grow untileverything the planet offers is consumed. it is just how evolution works. you know i was giving a talkin america, and afterwards somebodycame up to me, and he said
"let me tell you a story". he said "i used to be ahippyback in the days when hippies were real hippies;" and two of my hippy friendswanted to go to cuba to meet the great che guevara." so they got there and theymanaged to get an audience, and the first thing they said,as they shook hands with him, was they apologized for beingamericans. and the great che said to them,"don't you apologise
for being americans, you see,you are the lucky ones." "you get to live inthe belly of the beast". his point being that, stuck outin the caribbean in cuba, there wasn't a lot he could doto impact upon what was going on in the mainstream of the world. whereas when you are actuallyin the belly of the beast, you are on the cutting edgeof the potential for change. and i would say that's how, as ahuman species, we are just now. right now we are living in thatuncomfortable belly of the beast
we are living in the jaws of thetiger, but that is a powerful place forbecoming aware, and for deepening what it meansto be human, to carry the future forward. is this a symbol ofour children's future? a future of struggle as ourworld unravels at the seams? is this how things willget changed? the philosopher arthurschopenhauer said - we are all just animals
getting along with our lives. can we grow to be somethingother than this? sound of a moving train one of the problems is that thecurrent economic system is based on volumeand production. the very simply principle thatthe more you produce and sell, the more money you make. and it's a constant accelerationof production, and part of that is market shareand keeping up with competition,
and out-doing, and beatingcompetitors which is survival, it's darwin, it's normal. but part of it is also ablindness to other possibility. i don't think it is possibleto disengage the emotional appeal...the emotional aspect, from an evolved disposition that was selected because of itssurvival and reproduction value. our brains, if you will, ourminds, are shaped by the thousands of years thatwe lived in an environment
where those who were moreconcerned with their status, who who put more effort into it, are the ones whosegenes we've inherited. and so it's not something thatwe can step away from. but i also do think that it'snot that those things cannot be shaped and modifiedby our ideology, they certainly can. we are probably the mostflexible species in both the way we think, howwe derive satisfaction,
as well as our behaviours; and so the fact that we havethese evolved tendancies, i don't think that we shouldthink of that as a 'sentence' if you will, that we cannotchange what we value, or how we behave. rain falling erich fromm talks about thedistinction between 'having' and 'being', which is important in thiscontext,
because although the twoare linked, and you could say that theykind of play off one another and feed off one another insome instances, there is an importantdistinction, that 'being' describes a...notnecessarily an acceptance but more of just a state ofengagement with you and your life, and how thingsare, your kind of being. as fromm says - 'you aredoing not doing.' whereas 'having' is more...positing those internal values,
and aspirations, andexistencieswithin things around you, and, i would say it's amoreremote process is having, but it's also a very unstable,and stressful process, because you're essentiallyinvesting yourself in everything other thanyourself. your existence is basicallyvomited out of you onto this table full of things,objects that are trying to sort of help you exist, butactually don't do that at all. can we be free?
or, as milan kundera questioned:can we live lightly? can we live instinctively? free from constraintand without expectation? it is not to be mistaken asa flight of fancy, more what it is, to standin a virgin wood, and feel shivers down the spine. this is the real issue, because transition towns,recycling, alternative power, enduringdesign,
they are just attackingthe symptoms, they are merely allowing us tocontinue living the way we are. they are buying us time, theyare not embracing the root cause -- our psychology. in a funny way, i don't find itdepressing and i'll tell you why i think that whatwe're seeing now is an inevitable stageof evolution. we are something that has neverbefore been evolved on earth as far as we are aware.
so we are at the cutting edge ofevolution, and in one sense, i see the present times we arein as being... ...almost inevitable. it's something that had tocome out of evolution, and evolution is going tohave to deal with it. i would suggest mainly incultural terms rather than biological terms. so that's what we are calledto work out now, and we are working it out forthe whole planet,
not just for ourselves. i actually think runawayconsumerism, is a temporary historicalglitch. a kind of exception tothe human norm. for a couple of million yearswe did perfectly well socializing and attractingmates, and raising kids through this informal,face to face interaction, through ordinary language. and then we invented all of thisstuff, all of this technology,
the economy, the free market andwe realized - "oh maybe it helps us geta little bit of an advantage". i think that's actually a superficialresponse to technology, and i thinkwe'll grow out of it. i think once people understandtheir own psychology better we won't care as much aboutconsumption. and i think the result will be:we won't waste as much matter, and energy, and we will treatthe planet a lot better.
we must acknowledge that we havebecome captives in a consumerist system. we cannot see the bars, orunderstand what keeps us in, but even if we have doubts, weare swept along by the stampede. things do need to change, we are wrecking the planet, butwe must understand that revolution doesn't comefrom within a system. revolutions are born ofyou and me. they may be as simple asa change of heart.
they may be as difficultas saying - 'i've had enough,'. have we all got tobecome hippies? laughs aren't we already all hippies? i mean it's interesting thewhole 'hippy' thing. i mean, leaving aside the whole'dirty hippy' stereotype, you know, the kind of personwho's lazy, and couldn't care less, leaving that aside, because idon't think
that's what the whole hippything is about. the real hippy thing is aboutbeing able to dance, being able to move from yourhips, if you like. and i mean that metaphorically. i mean that in life, i mean that in the senseof going with the flow of life, being able to turn on towhat's around you, to tune in to the deepundercurrents, and to drop out of whatyields death,
and to drop in to whatgives life. and we get our politics wrong when we don't take thatinto account, because we think it's only aboutoutward competitiveness and consumption that matters. we don't realize that there'smuch more to us, something much morebeautiful to us. is that done now daddy?-is that what? is that done?
