Sunshine Coast Hinterland Times

The current financial crisis has stimulated Hinterland community worker Howard Buckley to question whether we can switch off, or at least turn down, the pressure of our consumer society, and engage more deeply with our community.
Forget narrow tags like Baby Boomers, Generation X or Y as descriptors of how Australians live. What is driving much of how we live today in Australia is consumption.  It affects all generations, ages, cultures, genders, etc.
In his book “Affluenza”, social researcher, Clive Hamilton quotes an anonymous source in defining consumption in Australia today: “In rich countries today, consumption consists of people spending money they don’t have to buy goods they don’t need to impress people they don’t like”.
So what is driving our society to consume and focus more and more on “me” and more importantly what can we do about it?  The answer to this is multi-pronged because the problems are multi layered. 
One of these layers is the lack of interest people have in their capacity to bring about change in their world, which inadvertently causes them to focus on themselves. 
Barry Jones, political commentator and former federal minister says in his book, ‘A Thinking Reed’ that, “The political process has been deformed, parliaments have lost much of their moral authority, the public service has adopted the cult of managerialism and been increasingly politicised, universities have become trading corporations, the media is preoccupied with infotainment, while lobbying and use of consultants ensures that vested interest is more influential than community interest”. 
I know this sounds depressing, but if the picture Jones paints is right, apathy will become the dominant attitude. Apathy leads to a sense of powerlessness and leads people to try and find their own power source or sense of control. 
Unfortunately, with the strength of marketing and the media’s obsession with “dumbing” down everything, many people will look for their power through their purses. 
This is the big problem – what happens to the people whose purses are empty?  You guessed it – a  further alienation and disconnection with the society in which they live. 
Our society’s modus operandi for happiness is spend, spend, spend, but the ability to do it is not there for everyone. Result – unhappy, seemingly unfulfilled people who think that they have not been given a fair go.  And they are half right.
The perpetual cycle of wanting driven by fierce, unregulated marketing is what keeps people enslaved to the perception that they need more than they have. And what of those who challenge the sacred cow of ‘let the market decide’?  Commies, socialists, Keynesian traitors – the lot of them. Yeah right! (as Wall Street melts).
Michael Leunig, the prominent Australian cartoonist, offers a more soulful analysis to the apathy around us.  In his cartoon called “Gunk” he depicts a world in which everyone is covered with this gooey, sticky material that prevents us from actually touching each other. This “gunk” is the antithesis of actually connecting with people and causes people to become disillusioned and unmotivated. 
The fear, stagnation and lack of ideas and inspiration keep people in a social paralysis that increases apathy and disinclines people to participate in community life.  At the end of the cartoon he describes gunk as “100% bullshit and we’re covered in it” (‘Goatperson and Other Tales’).
So what is a way forward for a person who wishes to degunkify their world?  Thomas Moore, in his excellent book, The Re-enchantment of Everyday Life offers an alternative to the isolation and disconnection of materialistic individualism. 
“A person is more than an individual, more than a self.  A person is one whose vision and identity include various communities – neighbourhood, town, region, nation, world. 
Paradoxically, we may gain a stronger sense of self when we extend ourselves generously and courageously into our community.  As anyone who has served community knows, that extension of oneself can be thrilling.  Community makes the heart come alive and in that particular way brings charm and deep satisfaction to a person’s life”
What is required more than ever in these times are people prepared to defy the “me” generation and passionately get involved in community. This is not some romantic notion of heroically changing your community but a more grounded process of connecting with other people in your community to build hope and human- kindness  – no matter how small.   Connect with someone you don’t know, be kind to a stranger, talk with a lonely person, spend some time and money on someone else, focus your attention on other,  and watch the gunk dissipate.