"i am a weapon of massive consumption"

i clued in to this phrase over the weekend. it floated to my ears from the lyrics of "cheeky" british singer lily allen. her song "the fear" is pretty popular and it is worth a listen. it is catchy and fun to sing to in the shower and it turns out the lyrics are powerful cultural commentary. here is my favorite section:

Life’s about film stars and less about mothers
It’s all about fast cars and cussing each other
But it doesn’t matter cause I’m packing plastic
and that’s what makes my life so fucking fantastic

And I am a weapon of massive consumption
and its not my fault it’s how I’m programmed to function...

I don’t know what’s right and what’s real anymore
I don’t know how I’m meant to feel anymore
When do you think it will all become clear?

‘Cuz I’m being taken over by The Fear.....

i hate to go all junior high and recount lyrics like this, but the reaction i felt to the song surprised me. instead of focusing on the over-riding negative commentary about our culture's decline, the lyrics made me feel this weird surge of empathy for the lot of us. i generally hate avoiding accountability for your own actions, but i think there is some truth to the song's insight " i am a weapon of massive consumption and its not my fault, it's how i'm programmed to function." we live in a world where buying stuff is our main way to survive, connect, and prosper. if you are a part of this culture, you consume. it is who we have been taught to be. it is behavior that has been modeled by our parents (thank you, boomers) and is now being modeled by us to our own kids, perhaps even more mindlessly and certainly much more debt-laden. the powerful programmers of our society--the advertisers, the marketers, the media at large--inundate us with our wants and "needs". it is hard to imagine how one could be immune to the impulse to go out and buy, acquire, accumulate, keep up, etc. if you are even remotely plugged in. and the current economic crisis has drawn attention to just how virulently our government encourages us to spend and purchase as patriotic, freedom-loving americans. in fact, isn't our need for consumption our number one import and export these days?

for the most part, i feel competing "programs" other than consumption have not yet emerged in american society. sure, there have always been voices against what our lifestyle will ultimately do to us and our planet, but on a massive scale, there hasn't been a paradigm shift in how we are all programmed to function. what would those programs even look like?

lily allen's song oddly gives me hope. if a pop singer is forcing me to ask these questions then surely something is surfacing here. call it an awareness or at least an admittance. and that, as they say, is the first step and it definitely feels like a step in the right direction.