You Are NOT What You Buy

Everyday, we are bombarded with messages – buy this and you will be happier/fitter/sexier.  We need a shift away from these extrinsic values, which encourage self-focus, acquisition, and passive consumerism. As an alternative, we need a renaissance of 'intrinsic values' such as personal (not economic) growth, emotional intimacy and active community involvement – the key to wellbeing. Of course, such views aren’t particularly new, but their urgency is now being felt more than ever with a global depression under way, climate chaos approaching, and the impending peak of our energy and food supplies. Something has to give.

The idea of wellbeing is more complex than just ‘happiness' – in fact, it is more about leading a flourishing, meaningful or virtuous life. The Greeks referred to this more holistic view of wellbeing as ‘Eudaimonia’ - a state where public and personal interests are in accord. In Aristotle’s view, to be a truly flourishing individual you must be an active participant in the flourishing of community. Thatcher had it all wrong – there really is such a thing as society. Not just in a self-interested manner, but in a deeper way which respects the lives of all.

The novelist Ben Okri summed it up so very well recently, when he said: “The meltdown in the economy is a harsh metaphor of the meltdown of some of our value systems. Individualism has been raised almost to a religion, appearance made more important than substance. The only hope lies in a fundamental re-examination of the values that we have lived by in the past 30 years”.

And how might we do that? Personally, I’m with Vaclav Havel who believes "that the only option is a change in the sphere of the spirit, in the sphere of human conscience. It’s not enough to invent new machines, new regulations, new institutions. We must develop a new understanding of the true purpose of our existence on this Earth. Only by making such a fundamental shift will we be able to create new models of behaviour and a new set of values for the planet." This calls for what Professor Tim Jackson of the SDC calls "the re-emergence of some kinds of meaning structures that lie outside the consumer realm."

Having worked closely with business and politics, my view is that right now there is a terrifying vacuum of values, vision and leadership in our political discourse. And it’s hard for business to do the right thing when it’s designed to make money and little else. Our politicians are, to borrow a phrase from the wonderful Thomas Homer-Dixon, like drunk-drivers in the fog. It’s time that we, the citizens, took back the controls. A renaissance of grass roots citizen advocacy is all that can save us now.

Luckily, just the kind of renaissance we need is beginning with groups like CRAGs, Low Carbon Communities and Transition Towns - described by a friend of mine, Jeremy Leggett, as "scalable microcosms of hope." My local Council – Somerset - is now a ‘Transition Council’ – grass roots advocacy in action. With websites like moveon.org, getup.org, localeyes.org, dosomethingaboutit.org.uk and 38degrees.org online digital democracy is giving people a new voice and real power in politics.

What do I think all this citizen power needs to call for? Well, it's nothing short of a radical updating of our current operating system - no sticking plaster will do. Jeremy Paxman has told us that we are witnessing the "end of capitalism." Our current form of corporate-consumer-capitalism has been shown to be what many of us knew it was: a fundamentally flawed system.

We urgently need a Green New Deal to act as a transition phase to a steady state, economic development (not growth) paradigm, which aims to maximise the wellbeing of people and planet – not the bank balances of the rich. And we must beware the snake-oil sales-people trying to flog us the dead-ends of green consumerism and cheat-neutral ‘offsets’. Those are phoney solutions. It’s time to wake up, get angry (in a positive way), unite and become a citizen. It’s our only hope.

Jules Peck is a writer and citizen with over 20 years’ experience as a wellbeing and sustainability adviser to senior corporates, NGOs and political citizens. He would welcome your feedback on the book he is writing with a friend Robert Phillips about these issues at www.citizenrenaissance.com

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