Overchoice I

Christmas always offers a window on our brave new consumerist world. Even in the midst of recession and austerity, people still cannot escape the urge to shop. Even in the midst of recession and austerity, the government actively urges them to shop so that the powers that be can batten down on any positive statistic to peddle the illusion of economic recovery. Even in the midst of recession and austerity, we still fall for this con trick and out we go, in our droves, to pay homage to the great consumerist god and buy our way to salvation.

And when we get to the shops, or when we get to the supermarket, we stand frozen in the aisles as we are confronted by thousands of choices for anything and everything. This is the paradox of our consumerist society: by giving us what we think we want/they decide we want in every shape, size, colour, quality and price, they have given us the burden of choice. And each choice demands a decision. And each decision demands a process of working out (a) what you think you want and (b) what you really need and (c) what your selection criteria are and (d) what you are prepared to pay and (e) can you get it more cheaply elsewhere and (f) oh I can't be bothered anymore, it's doing my head in.

So think of your average expedition to your local super/hyper/mega/gigamarket, think of the 100 or so different items you have to locate on your weekly shop in the massive, overlit, echoing, overcrowded, soulless hangar where this phantasmagoria of consumer choices is displayed in endless aisles of labelled categories (aka a warehouse) - you are tramping from one decision point to another a hundred times over. Each decision is fraught with fear and uncertainty: too much salt, too much sugar, too many calories, can I heat it in the oven, can I freeze it, should I buy two for one, three for two, none for any, much too much, oh my god! Tilt!

This is the brave new world of consumer choice and convenience. In the early 1970s, the American futurologist Alvin Toffler published his seminal book Future Shock. In it he predicted that the global capitalist system would eventually result in a state of overchoice. Overchoice is a direct threat to mental health, it is the condition where the human brain is physiologically unable to process the information required to make an informed decision. Your decision-making powers become paralysed, your brain becomes overloaded and you have to withdraw from the decision situation to recover.

That's why shopping has become so stressful. The consumerist model of consumption that has ruled the Western world for the last 30 years has spiralled out of control: shopping has become the new opium of the masses and people's lives have been sacrificed on the altar of consumer choice.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! So we finally got through December. This is always a difficult month in our household as we do not only have Christmas to contend with, but two family birthdays as well. To me, the whole month is a period of continuous stress. We are already flat out managing the day-to-day business of living and then we get the chance to celebrate the festive spirit by doubling our workload. There is a palpable sense of relief when we finally stumble across the finishing line and Christmas proper is upon us...

If at all possible, we intend to seek out some winter sun this year and let the whole rigmarole carry on without us; but I'm sure I will be dispensing my usual cheery allotment of bah humbug again this time next year.

We have always been careful not to get caught up in the Christmas spending frenzy but, as the children have got older over the years, it has got progressively harder to hold out against the demands of peer pressure and the consumerist state.

One of our fondest memories of Christmas giving dates back to when our children were still quite young and we were staying in a hotel near my in-laws on Christmas day. Having spirited the main presents away at my in-laws house for later that day, we had left the Christmas stockings up in our room. In the morning, the kids were beaming with delight to find their half a dozen stocking fillers, not even aware that there were bigger presents still to come, until we told them.

In my more reflective moods, I sometimes think that that was the very last moment of true innocence, and the start of that gradual process when our relationship with the world of things and possessions begins to change - when we become acquisitive human beings and come to rely so much on our possessions to give us our sense of security in the world.