"I think she means me. But I'd have to say that Joanna (and others) are making somewhat promiscuous use of the term "consume." Let me give you an example. If I say that we have a wide variety of books, movies, recordings, newspapers, magazines and the like available to us, that's desccribing something _very good_. It means that those of us who like to read, or appreciate music, or admire films or drama or whatever, can indulge our aesthetic tastes to a phenomenal degree. What intelligent person wouldn't want to have millions of books available for the reading?"
We have a wide variety of books, yes. Movies (other than on VHS/DVD), no; recordings, yes; newspapers, big NO; magazines, not really. The freedom to indulge your aesthetic taste is a nice little freedom; it pales by comparison with the freedom to create beauty -- for which there is largely no time, no energy, no context, and not much of an audience.
"But once we apply the term "consume," suddenly, the picture changes. No longer are we in a reader's paradise, where Dickens and Thackeray and Austen are just as available as King or Rushdie or Rowling. Suddenly we are merely "consumers," gluttonously feeding on shiny new products without a care in the world or even the wit to recognize our squalid behavior."
I like to read, I like to see great movies, I like to listen to music. But I would prefer to live rather than to compensate myself for not having a life by these various means.
"What I find amusing about Joanna's comment above is her reference to "brainwashing." Tell me, Joanna; what would an "un-brainwashed" person be doing with his or her leisure time? Boning up on the latest Amnesty International reports? Studying the Eighteenth Brumaire? Deconstructing the strategies of discourse permissible within the boundaries of dominant ideology?"
First, to clarify what I mean by "brainwashing": I am referring to the constant and unrelenting exposure to advertising which follows the average consumer from cradle to grave and intrudes on activities like the following: watching movies/shows on TV, walking or any form of travel, acessing the Internet, going to school, attending almost any public event, etc. I was born and raised in a country with no consumer culture. I think, on the whole, people were as happy as people in the U.S. For fun, they hung out, enjoyed animal pleasures: eating/drinking/sex, read books, wrote books, walked, climbed mountains, danced, ...There seemed to be tons of time for things to do -- though TV watching and shopping did not consume that much time. I would say that people's most enjoyable activity was spending time with friends.
What should we be doing with our leisure time? Living, of course. Watching the sun set. Helping your kid with her homework. ...whatever. There are many degrees of freedom. Going to malls makes me feel a lot of things: depressed, anxious, angry; but free, never.
Joanna