Does Advertising Make Us Miserable? | Ivan Illich on Consumer Culture

I have referred to the concept of human flourishing a lot recently, and I’m sure that I will continue to do so. In today’s quote from Ivan Illich, he addresses two often unconsidered side effects of modern consumer society:

“In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.”

– Ivan Illich, Tools for Conviviality

Humans have always been afflicted by addiction and envy, but a strong argument can be made that it is only in the modern era that they have become an epidemic. Illich noted in an earlier quote that, “School is the advertising agency which makes you believe that you need the society as it is” (Deschooling Society). In many ways, the modern world is profoundly shaped by advertising, and in considering today’s quote, it’s worth looking at the concept of advertising more closely.

As long as humans have bought and sold things, advertising has been the means by which sellers hawk their wares. It was not until the dawn of the printing press in the 15th century, and particularly the rise of newspaper advertising in the 18th and 19th century, that advertising became the powerful social force that we know it to be.

Advertising develops alongside technology, and becomes more sophisticated daily. It has become a meme that the “algorithm” knows us better than we know ourselves. The extent to which we believe this to be true may be a reflection of the extent to which we see ourselves as machines rather than as humans. The algorithm can only know us from the external things it knows about us, while our true self remains a mystery, usually even to ourself.

While advertising is used for all sorts of things, most advertising we encounter is for things that we don’t actually need: increasingly, the job of advertising is to create desire and longing. This brings us back to the quote from Ivan Illich: our consumer society has created slaves of addiction and slaves of envy.

From our earliest days, we’re taught that acquiring new things will make us happy, this is the promise of advertising. Advertising shows us a “better” version of ourselves and of our world, and we believe, on some level, that if we acquire whatever the ad is promoting that our lives will be better for it. I’m not saying that all advertising is always completely false advertising. Somethings we acquire do appear to make our lives better. The ads, of course, never warn us about the possible side effects that the thing advertised might create (except for advertisements for drugs, which are required by law!) And even when the thing we acquire does improve our lives, it is rarely a permanent improvement, so we are easily drawn to seek a “newer” and “better” solution.

Advertising also cultivates envy, as there are always things that we cannot afford, but that advertising inspires us to desire. I’ve quoted René Girard before: “Man is the creature who does not know what to desire, and he turns to others in order to make up his mind. We desire what others desire because we imitate their desires.” In this sense, Hollywood has become the world’s main center of advertising.

The reality is that human desire is limitless, which is why consumer culture will never lead, ultimately, to human flourishing. The desire for more leads to greater stress and dissatisfaction, as well as to an increasingly depleted natural world, which insatiable human desire continues to ravage.

For most of history humans have lived, and flourished, without 99% of the things that are marketed to us daily. The path forward for humanity, for the natural world, and for each person is to discover and cultivate those things that truly lead to human flourishing, which is a topic that we will certainly continue to revisit.

OK…that’s it for today! I hope you enjoyed this latest consideration of the work of Ivan Illich…as always, stay tuned for more by subscribing and downloading The How Did We Get Here? Reading List…and I will see you soon!