What is true happiness and what does it have to do with sustainability? While I don’t expect everybody, or even anybody, to subscribe to my particular understanding of happiness I think a basic appreciation of one of the mainstays of college psychology, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, can’t hurt. I remember when I first encountered this theory I felt it was pie in the sky. This, along with the theory that money wasn’t important to a person and didn’t motivate them only meant for me that psychology had gotten it all wrong. However as I’ve gotten older I’ve come to believe more in the fundamental message contained within this theory. Basically the theory goes that once we take care of our basic needs we can move higher up the pyramid and seek to satisfy other, higher or nobler, psychological requirements. The higher up the pyramid we go, the happier we are. Simples.
So once I have food and a roof over my head, I can start to worry about forming friendships & relationships and once I have ticked that box I can continue developing until I reach a self actualized state where I’m interested in things like creativity etc. Very good in theory.
What happens however when you add in capitalism and marketing? Our society is driven by consumption. Marketing tries to sell us products by basically telling us that the product will make our lives easier or safer or happier. So now in to this pyramid of needs you have to insert a layer of consumption of goods and services which don’t lead to a self actualized state. In fact, the constant bombardment of consumers by adverts and other forms of marketing driven by the relentless, short, product cycles which require large sales volumes in order to recoup the investment in R&D in them by the companies before the next product refresh is released mean that we are, in my opinion, never happy with our consumption of goods and services. How can we be if as soon as we buy something we are told about the next new must have item or worse still simply an update to the item we have just purchased, which renders the item we have just purchased obsolete. So we only end up wanting the next big thing, we’re actually unhappy on some level at having bought the item we did buy because it is no longer the best of it’s kind out there. In thinking about our next purchase we forget about the higher levels of happiness and their pursuit, thereby never having any hope of reaching a self actualized state. Balls. So far from making us happy, our relentless, marketing driven, consumption of goods and services make us miserable. Most of us wouldn’t see it that way obviously, much to the relief of the marketing people out their. They need an unsatisfied customer base in order to constantly sell their products to. This sustains the beast that is manufacturing and consumption. And consumes the planet’s natural resources at an alarming rate.
If we were truly happy and could pursue a self actualized state do you think that we would have the level of greed and consumption that we currently have which is threatening the ability of the earth to sustain it’s every growing population of inhabitants. Of course that would mean the collapse of our growth based model of business. No bad thing in my opinion but the practicalities of a steady state economy need to be worked out before we pull the plug on constant, unrelenting economic growth.
It must be noted at this point that I’m a sucker for anything from Apple, gadgets, cars and bicycles. But for once I’m not eagerly waiting with baited breath for the next iPhone update.
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