{"id":69,"date":"2012-07-21T11:53:58","date_gmt":"2012-07-21T00:53:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eclectic-consult.com\/mooseblog\/?p=69"},"modified":"2012-07-28T13:54:37","modified_gmt":"2012-07-28T02:54:37","slug":"consumerism-entitlement-and-the-loss-of-personal-and-national-identity-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eclectic-consult.com\/mooseblog\/2012\/07\/21\/consumerism-entitlement-and-the-loss-of-personal-and-national-identity-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Consumerism, entitlement and the loss of personal and national identity – Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In my last post I talked about some of the reasons why gadgets are so appealing from a neurological perspective. I also suggested that modern living (and\u00a0the\u00a0gadgets) are, in part, responsible for a lack of connectedness with the people around us. Interestingly, a part of the reason we get so obsessed with our gadgets and with social networks, is because, neurochemically, they help us to feel connected to others, something that’s deeply inbuilt for humans.<\/p>\n

I also suggested that, by extension, we’re losing our sense of community and meaningful national pride, and replacing it with something a lot more generic. I cautioned, however, against nostalgia, and the assumption that, just because it\u00a0happened\u00a0in the past and we feel a sense of loss, it doesn’t mean that it was better.<\/p>\n

So let’s have a guess at what’s happening – and attempt to figure out where we’re going.<\/p>\n

Going back to the deep human need for connection to others. This is as deep a drive in humans as the need for sex, food and water. One of\u00a0the\u00a0nastiest things that can be done to other human beings is to isolate them, and we suffer remarkably when this deprivation occurs. We are indeed social animals. There’s an interesting irony at work in the modern world: with increasing population we might expect increased opportunity to connect with others, but more people find themselves feeling disconnected, often manifesting in anxiety or depression. The gadgets that are supposed to connect us don’t actually fulfil the basic need, but we cling to them anyway – much like the early behavioural (and highly disturbing) experiments with monkeys that showed that physical\u00a0connection\u00a0was more important than food.<\/p>\n

Population density works against us. We’re incapable of forming\u00a0relationships\u00a0with more than about 200 people – evolutionary\u00a0psychologists suggest that this is because of the maximum size of early human tribes, beyond about 200, other humans are viewed as a potential source of threat. So, although we are excellent at collaborating with those with whom we have an\u00a0immediate\u00a0connection, larger groups make us extremely uncomfortable. If you’ve ever tried taking public transport in a really big city at rush hour (like London or New York), you’ll know what I mean. Humans stop cooperating and start competing. At some level though, we’re convinced that our tribe is more important than others, and so we often collaborate with our tribe to bring down others. This behaviour is seen at just about every level, from cliques at high school, to football supporters, to fanbois, to nations.<\/p>\n

But humans are also moderately clever. We’ve created systems for dealing with large groups (called governments), as well as an economy (for regulating large numbers of transactions) and organisations (for regulating people at various levels as they participate in\u00a0the\u00a0economy). Governments can be very good at convincing people that they’re part of a larger tribe, reducing their discomfort from feelings of disconnection and anonymity. In\u00a0particularly\u00a0scary instances, this results in horrible consequences. Unfortunately, governments are nothing but\u00a0collections\u00a0of people, and we’re also hardwired to try to get what we want, and to rise in the pack. The further we rise, the harder it is to maintain a real connection to those around us – think dictators, or the mega-rich (with a few notable exceptions) – and the higher we rise, the easier it is to treat others as if they aren’t actually human.<\/p>\n

Let’s come down a few steps and bring this back to the individual level, because I’m getting closer to a point. Put together the deep-seated need for connection with others alongside the desire to rise in the pack. Now start to remove the various layers of connectivity that our ancestors used (e.g., local communities), and that were enforced by a lack of technology. At the same time, increase the feeling of anonymity by increasing the number of people without raising the\u00a0connectivity\u00a0to those people (they are now competitors). Last, provide lots of gadgets that inspire desire and that reinforce their perceived importance through neurochemical rewards (making us think they’re important for\u00a0connection\u00a0to other humans but, in reality, isolating us from others).<\/p>\n

All up, we’ve got a great recipe for (i) entitlement and (ii) reduced resilience.<\/p>\n

Huh? OK that needs a bit of explanation…<\/p>\n

i) Entitlement comes from the belief that we’re more important than those around us and, by extension, that we deserve more. So if we’re disconnected from those around us (and besotted with the need for shiny new things in an attempt to fill this need), and because other people aren’t seen as supportive (because we have no connection to them), we’re likely to experience the belief that they are competition, making it a lot easier to justify uncivil behaviour – we don’t know them, they’re taking what we want, and we should be able to get it… Entitlement makes it that much easier to behave in ways that seem advantageous to us, but that end up reducing our sense of community and\u00a0connectedness\u00a0even further. When we’re pushy and rude, others respond in a similar way, demonstrating that the world is a competitive and unpleasant place, and reinforcing our antisocial behaviour.<\/p>\n

ii) Resilience is the human ability to adapt to unexpected and difficult situations. It requires psychological flexibility and the psychological resources to cope with and overcome obstacles. The flexibility comes from being able to view the world from a variety of angles, and not to react automatically or stereotypically when presented with a challenge. The resources come from our connectedness to the people around us, and both their example to us, and our willingness to learn from them. Without\u00a0connections\u00a0from whom we can learn effective, human-centric behaviours, our reactions are distinctly limited; the\u00a0outcome: low or no resilience.<\/p>\n

And what happens when we become a nation of entitled psychological weaklings? We shop…<\/p>\n

No\u00a0seriously. We’ve now got access to almost unlimited goodies. Credit is easy to come by, and the items that would have been considered toys of the mega-rich 20 years ago are commonplace. Every time we buy a new object, we get a neurochemical reward. We feel special for a short period of time. But it doesn’t last and we feel empty, so we want more. Instead of finding\u00a0meaning\u00a0in our lives by fostering deep human\u00a0connections, or by working to achieve\u00a0something\u00a0bigger than ourselves, we become mean and spiteful, hankering down in our goodie bunkers, lusting after more and begrudging others what they have.<\/p>\n

We’re facing an epidemic of loss: of humanism, of patience, of\u00a0identity, of manners, of ourselves.<\/p>\n

OK – this is a big downer, I’m depressing myself. The world isn’t nearly as bad as I’m making it sound (I hope) – so let’s flip the coin and talk about what can we do – read on for Part 3!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my last post I talked about some of the reasons why gadgets are so appealing from a neurological perspective. I also suggested that modern living (and\u00a0the\u00a0gadgets) are, in part, responsible for a lack of connectedness with the people around us. Interestingly, a part of Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[15,1,4,5],"tags":[22,17,21,18],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":64,"url":"https:\/\/www.eclectic-consult.com\/mooseblog\/2012\/07\/17\/consumerism-entitlement-and-the-loss-of-personal-and-national-identity-part-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":69,"position":0},"title":"Consumerism, entitlement and the loss of personal and national identity – Part 1","date":"17\/07\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Let me start this post with a caveat: I really like technology and the resultant gadgets. I love the way they enable my life, but I\u00a0often wonder just how much of this is illusion. I have developed a lot of adaptations to care for my growing bevy of gadgets -\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Business"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.eclectic-consult.com\/mooseblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Consumer-300x214.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":83,"url":"https:\/\/www.eclectic-consult.com\/mooseblog\/2012\/07\/28\/consumerism-entitlement-and-the-loss-of-personal-and-national-identity-part-3\/","url_meta":{"origin":69,"position":1},"title":"Consumerism, entitlement and the loss of personal and national identity – Part 3","date":"28\/07\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"In my last post I looked at some of the issues associated with being human in the modern world, and why they can limit our ability to function well; in particular limiting our resilience and raising our sense of entitlement. 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So, I've been travelling for 10 days or so, and one thing that's come to mind over-and-over\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.eclectic-consult.com\/mooseblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/20130622-084157.jpg?fit=200%2C300&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":262,"url":"https:\/\/www.eclectic-consult.com\/mooseblog\/2012\/11\/12\/the-manufactured-self-and-the-illusion-of-meaning\/","url_meta":{"origin":69,"position":3},"title":"The manufactured self and the illusion of meaning","date":"12\/11\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The more I practise as a psychologist, the less I'm convinced that humans are everything we think we are. In fact, I'm more and more sure that we're a walking bundle of illusion. This notion has been worrying me lately, because the fact that we take ourselves so seriously has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.eclectic-consult.com\/mooseblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Magic-wand-300x281.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":350,"url":"https:\/\/www.eclectic-consult.com\/mooseblog\/2013\/01\/07\/why-striving-for-happiness-is-fucking-you-up\/","url_meta":{"origin":69,"position":4},"title":"Why striving for happiness is fucking you up…","date":"07\/01\/2013","format":false,"excerpt":"So Christmas and New Year's are over again - little orgies of excess that they are. Did they make you happy? In fact, how much of what we think will make us happy ends up being either stressful or disappointing (or both)? Our quest for happiness has got a bit\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.eclectic-consult.com\/mooseblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Happiness-blocks.jpg?fit=428%2C600&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":187,"url":"https:\/\/www.eclectic-consult.com\/mooseblog\/2012\/09\/17\/memes-consciousness-and-mind-hacking-part-2-the-magus-syndrome\/","url_meta":{"origin":69,"position":5},"title":"Memes, Consciousness and Mind Hacking – Part 2 (The Magus Syndrome)","date":"17\/09\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"So quick precis of last week: I referred to memes, an evolved method of communicating complex information between human beings, and suggested that they can be an ideal mechanism for hacking human consciousness (by bypassing regular mechanisms and reinforcing themselves through neurobiological reward). 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