The Terror of Consumers

~ Clarissa

There is so much chatter about religion, the clash of civilizations, cultural differences, etc that the painfully obvious escapes notice: the salient identity of the Charlie Hebdo terrorists is not that of Muslims, immigrants, or anything of the kind. What they are first and foremost is consumers.

When taken to the extreme, consumerism turns into a promise that the consumer will never have to experience the slightest discomfort. Anything that causes a tiny interruption in the placid and unthinking process of chewing the cud is evil and should be removed. The moment anything unpleasant looms on the horizon, consumers reach for a happy pill that will make everything uniformly pleasing again.

Consumers believe that instead of wasting time and energy on developing a human individuality, they should be able to purchase something called “identity” that will give them clear,  simple instructions on what to do, think, or feel in any situation. “Identity” is one of their favorite purchases because it makes life so simple: whenever in doubt, press the big red button, and the gadget will instantly produce an appropriate response. You can then take this response, present it to others, and feel almost human.

When their favorite identity gadget fails to impress everybody as much as it impresses the consumers, they experience a vague discomfort. And this is something they are not equipped to tolerate. So consumers become sulky and lash out in an attempt to remove the obstacle to their worry – free enjoyment of the cud dispensed by the identity gadget in a steady stream.

This is why the actions of the Charlie Hebdo terrorists are finding so much support not among the immigrants or the Muslims but among the sated Westerners whose only God is their “identity” and whose only culture is the belief that there should never be any discomfort in life.

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Published by Clarissa

9 thoughts on “The Terror of Consumers”

      1. \ Great post. It will be a happy day for me when we stop mentioning religions in this context altogether because it’s so not about them.

        I am glad you liked the post, but I disagree with her in part. If by “stop mentioning religions,” you mean “pretend Jews aren’t targeted especially,” I can’t say it isn’t connected to religion after reading:

        Steevo Le Legende, a Jewish blogger who lives in Paris, described a chaotic situation. “We have been suffering from this situation in France since 2000,” Le Legende told Ynet ahead of his planned immigration to Israel in February. “The attacks repeat themselves, we are at the beginning of a terror operation and the Jews are in the front row,” he said.

        On the continued harassment of Jews in France, Le Legende said that “up until three or four years ago, I could wear a kippah on the streets, and today it is very complicated and we must wear a hat on top of the kippah. The danger lies in the Metro, public transportation, and in general there are attacks everywhere, all the time and at any given moment you can run into someone unstable. This means being a Jew in France is problematic.”
        http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4613968,00.html

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        1. Rising anti-Semitism is a fearful thing. I’m surprised all the coverage focuses on freedom of the press and freedom of expression, and so little on the violation of religious freedom.

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          1. “Rising anti-Semitism is a fearful thing. I’m surprised all the coverage focuses on freedom of the press and freedom of expression, and so little on the violation of religious freedom.”

            • It’s the XXIst century. Religion is dead and has been dead for 250 years.

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  2. This is an awesome post, and I believe it is totally correct. It’s that whole wrong orientation to the world based on identity, which is a false construct. There really are no identities — there are affiliations, actions and human beings. But not having to feel any discomfort about anything truly is the modern religion.

    There is also something else going on, I have noticed, which is that a lot of people professing to be on the left are practising some pretty awesomd mind reading capabilities. They simply know because they know that the terroristic act was caused by “fascism” and “colonialism” and that the victims had it coming because that is how the world is set up — to deliver their just desserts to people who have it coming. They can even read into the minds of little Muslim boys in France and detect their cultural and social alienation. That is a good skill to have, I reckon. Those who have it expand their assholes to very great proportions so that they can cover the sun.

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  3. Also a lot of what seems to be borderline personality disorder in contemporary society is probably ingrained through the logical of capital: “I’m going to withdraw my investment in this relationship as it isn’t producing good enough returns! Then I will invest in something else and immediately withdraw my investment since it didn’t bring me happiness right away. Where is my happiness? It has abandoned me. Someone or something is to blame!”

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