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This article was downloaded by: [North Dakota State University]On: 02 October 2014, At: 10:33Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
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Unveiling reality of the mind: culturalarbitrary of consumerismSu-Jin Choi aa Curriculum & Instruction , New Mexico State University , LasCruces , NM , USAPublished online: 20 Nov 2012.
To cite this article: Su-Jin Choi (2012) Unveiling reality of the mind: cultural arbitraryof consumerism, International Journal of Children's Spirituality, 17:4, 265-276, DOI:10.1080/1364436X.2012.745392
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Unveiling reality of the mind: cultural arbitrary of consumerism
Su-Jin Choi*
Curriculum & Instruction, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM, USA
(Received 18 July 2012; final version received 29 October 2012)
This paper discusses the cultural arbitrary of consumerism by focusing on apersonal realm. That is, I discuss what consumerism appeals to and how it flour-ishes in relation to our minds. I argue that we need to unveil reality of the mind,be aware of ourselves in relation to the perpetuation of consumerism, in orderto critically intervene in the system. Specifically, I first clarify what I mean bythe cultural arbitrary of consumerism and how it affects education, environmentand our perception of reality. Then, I explore how our minds are manipulatedfor and unwittingly cooperate with the proliferation of consumerism. Lastly, Idiscuss an embodied reflection, a reflection with which the one who reflects isnot separated from the act of reflection, as a way to unveil mental reality and asa tool for individual and collective transformation.
Keywords: cultural arbitrary; transformation; consumerism; embodied reflection;self-knowledge
Introduction
Bourdieu and Passeron (2000) analyse how the structure of power relations is repro-duced through systematic imposition of certain meaning, which requires (arbitrary)power to select content to be imposed and to establish a mode of imposition. Thatis, an arbitrary content imposed (i.e. cultural arbitrary) is disguised to be ‘natural’or ‘neutral’ through arbitrary power, which is the precondition for the establishmentof a relation of pedagogic communication in the process of inculcation (Bourdieuand Passeron, 6). As a result, the cultural arbitrary, which is not natural in anysense but was constructed for the benefit of the ones who have power, is success-fully reproduced and the structure of power relations is reinforced. This analysisbecomes a useful analytical tool to make sense of the society, educational systemand pedagogical acts.
However, I problematise that Bourdieu and Passeron’s (2000) analysis of cul-tural arbitrary tends to focus on the social (structural) realm. That is, it focuses onhow a cultural arbitrary is constructed and reproduced within the social structurewith the consideration of the power relations with much less consideration of thepersonal (psychological) realm. This is not to mean that the personal realm isentirely excluded. For instance, Bourdieu and Passeron argue that the reproductionof a cultural arbitrary is completed by producing a ‘habitus’. That is, through therepeated process of inculcation, we internalise the (principles of) cultural arbitrary
*Email: [email protected]
International Journal of Children’s SpiritualityVol. 17, No. 4, November 2012, 265–276
ISSN 1364-436X print/ISSN 1469-8455 online� 2012 Taylor & Francishttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1364436X.2012.745392http://www.tandfonline.com
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and perpetuate the internalised cultural arbitrary voluntarily (Bourdieu and Passeron2000). However, they still heavily emphasise the social structural realm because thepersonal realm is discussed only in terms of the result of social structure and(mainly) reproductive functions of inculcated cultural arbitrary. Accordingly, whathappens in personal realm is left under-discussed.
Similarly, (critical) pedagogical purposes tend to focus on the social structuralrealm. That is, we emphasise our abilities to see macro-level social structure work-ing within our everyday experiences so that we become social agents who areactive in changing the society (Cole 2005; Giroux 1983; Shor 1992). It is crucialfor us to educate students to understand the world (material reality) more criticallyand to be critical social agents who are active in changing unjust social structure tobe more just, more humane and less oppressive. However, by (solely) emphasisingthat it is the unjust social structure that should be changed to make a better society,we ‘inevitably place control over one’s psychological integration outside the self’and are ‘always made a stranger by virtue of being estranged from the world thatstands outside, and acts upon, the self’ (Conroy 2009, 147).
Hence, in this paper, I argue for the importance of unveiling the reality of ourminds by focusing on the cultural arbitrary of consumerism. I discuss the reproduc-tion, proliferation and transformation of consumerism in terms of the personalrealm. In other words, I discuss what the cultural arbitrary of consumerism appealsto and how it flourishes in relation to our mind. Also, I explore how we can stopcooperating with the perpetuation of consumerism and critically intervene in con-structing reality. Specifically, first, I clarify what I mean by the cultural arbitrary ofconsumerism and how it affects education, environment and our perceptions of real-ity. Second, I explore how our minds are manipulated for and cooperate in the pro-liferation of cultural arbitrary of consumerism. Lastly, I discuss an embodiedreflection, a reflection with which the one who reflects is not separated from the actof reflection, as a way to unveil mental reality and as a tool for individual and col-lective transformation.
Cultural arbitrary of consumerism: destructive consequences
Consumerism is defined as ‘the theory that an increasing consumption of goods iseconomically desirable’, according to Merriam-Websters dictionary. In other words,consumerism is inherently market-driven. Hence, in this paper, I use the term, con-sumerism, interchangeably with market-driven values and other systems of thoughtsor social structure based on market-driven values such as globalisation, neoliberal-ism and global consumerism.
I argue that consumerism is a cultural arbitrary. Its ‘structure and function …cannot be deduced from any universal principle … , not being linked by any sortof internal relation to “the nature of things” or any “human nature”’ (Bourdieu andPasseron 2000, 8). That is, consumerism is ‘the product of history’, not that it hasbeen always as it is (Bourdieu and Passeron, 9).1 According to Max-Neef (1998),market-driven values ‘conquer[ed] practically the whole world’ (65). Giroux (2004)and Peters (2005) also assert that market-driven values are dominating not only theeconomic field but also all aspects of human lives including education. The culturalarbitrary of consumerism has ‘definite dogmas’ of economic growth, free marketand globalisation, and has created destructive consequences throughout the world(Max-Neef, 65).
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Consequences of market-driven values in education
In the field of education, many critical educators criticise the implementation ofmarket values into, or through, education (Apple 2006; Cole 2005; Giroux 2004;Hill 2005; Hursh 2008; Kumashiro 2008; Peters 2005). For instance, high-stakestesting and punishment through funding according to test results causes seriousdamage to public education. First, high-stakes testing forces teachers to focus onsubjects or concepts that are more likely to show in the test, and restructures publicschools around ‘a skill-based curriculum’ (Lapayese 2009). Also, punishing schoolsfor the failure in the test and allowing students’ choice to transfer to other success-ful schools insidiously frames the failure solely on that of the school (and teachers)(Kumashiro 2008). That results in demonising (unsuccessful) public schools byobfuscating the issue of the failure. In other words, more fundamental issues, suchas the validity of high-stakes testing and the idea of measurement of students’ abil-ity through standardised tests, market-driven values and profit opportunities underthe policy or cultural appropriateness of what is taught and tested for, are rarelyrecognised and questioned (Giroux 2004; Hill 2005; Kumashiro 2008).
In addition, under market values, education is explicitly for and implicitly aboutproducing workers and consumers that can fit into the society of consumerism andreproduce the status quo (Apple 2006; Giroux 2004, 2005; Hill 2005; Lapayese2009). For instance, Illich (1977) argues that education in a consumer’s society isto ‘training consumers’ by manufacturing artificial lack and artificial needs (81).Also, Layayese argues that as ‘global capitalism requires a highly stratified laborforce’, Latinas/os are considered to be the perfect workforce by dominant groups(159). The positioning is insidiously pursued through the educational policies andpractices such as ‘hyper-isolation, linguistic genocide, and tracking into low-skilledjobs’ (Lapayese, 160). Consequently, education governed by market-driven valuescontributes to intensifying the marginalisation of Latina/o students, and othermarginalised ethnic groups, in the US public schools.
Consequences of consumerism in a more general sense
In a more general sense, as the society is run by market values, the disparitybetween the rich and the poor and the dominance of the resources by small groupsare severely increasing. For instance, during the 1980s, the wealthiest 10% of theUS families increased their income by 16%, the wealthiest 5% by 23% and the top1% by 50%, whereas the bottom 80% lost income (Cole 2005, 4). The inequity interms of the distribution of the world’s resources is even more perplexing. Accord-ing to the Human Development Report for 1999, in 1992, the richest 20% peopleof the world had 82.7% of the world’s resources and the poorest 20% people leftwith only 1.4% and by 1999, the top 20% had 86% and the bottom 20% had 1.3%(as cited in Loy 2003, 18). In addition, the consequences of consumerist life styleson the ecosystem are serious. According to the Living Planet Report, 27% of 4000monitored species in the last 35 years have become extinct mostly due to humanactivities such as ‘climate change, pollution, destruction of natural habitat, invasivespecies, and overexploitation of species’ (Andrzejewski, Baltodano, and Symcox2009, 1).
The exploitation of nature becomes more problematic considering ‘the role ofnatural resource exploitation as a form of racial oppression’ and who suffers mostfrom the consequences of the exploitation (Lapayese 2009, 163). For instance, the
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US companies exploit Mexican labour and land through about 2000 maquiladoras(the Mexican term for ‘factories located on the Mexican side that import rawmaterials to turn them into exported manufactured goods’) (Lapayese 164). Whilecorporate headquarters of maquiladoras are located in the US territory, the factoriesare located in the Mexican territory. As a result, corporations get richer withcheaper Mexican labour, whereas ‘toxic waste, which should be by law be returnedto the US or other countries in origin, is often stored on site, posing a health risk toboth workers and surrounding communities’ (Lapayese 164).
In short, the cultural arbitrary of consumerism is far from a sustainable system(Andrzejewski, Baltodano, and Symcox 2009; Korten 2001; Max-Neef 1998).Rather, it carries the values of profit-making (at the expense of others), exploitation,reproduction of status quo, privatisation (of public spaces) and commodification (ofeverything) and a distorted notion of development, efficiency, measurement, compe-tition, etc. As Giroux (2004) states, neoliberalism, or consumerism, ‘dismantl[es]the historically guaranteed social provisions provided by the welfare state, defin[es]profit-making as the essence of democracy, and equat[es] freedom with the unre-stricted ability of markets to govern economic relations free of government regula-tion’ (2). Also, global consumerism causes planet-level destruction and contributesto ‘intensif[ing] new geography of centrality that sustains the peripheral status of’marginalised groups of people (Lapayese 2009, 159). That is, economic growth,which we collectively chase after within the system of consumerism, ‘by itself hasonly helped to produce greater concentration of wealth, sharper inequity, morewidespread poverty and many other problems’ (Max-Neef, 67).
Reproduction of the cultural arbitrary of consumerism in personal realm
It is an undeniable reality that a social structure systematically produces and repro-duces many problems like poverty, inequity and environmental destruction by bene-fiting certain groups and marginalising others. Thus, it is important for us tocritique the problematic social structure and be able to work together to create anew system that is more sustainable and equitable for everyone including futuregenerations. While talking about humanisation, Freire (1985) insightfully argues that‘alienated [people], they cannot overcome their dependency by incorporation intothe very structure responsible for their dependency’ because ‘they are not marginalto the structure, but oppressed … within it’ (49). He concludes that, therefore,‘there is no other road to humanization … other than authentic transformation ofthe dehumanizing structure’ (Freire, 49).
Although I agree with Freire (1985), I want to direct our attention to arguably astep in between. That is, we need to be aware of how we are (consciously andunconsciously) trying to overcome our dependency by incorporating, assimilating,into the very structure responsible for our dependency, and that is bound to failbecause it is the very structure that makes us feel alienated by its positioning us tobe marginal. I argue that if we really know that it is the structure and our assimila-tion itself that is responsible for the alienation, trying to ameliorate the sense ofalienation by incorporating into the system would be absurd. In other words, weneed the awareness so that we can stop trying to overcome our dependency on thestructure within which our sense of alienation is created and reinforced. That aware-ness will create (material and mental) space to transform, and extricate ourselvesfrom, the dehumanising structure. For that, I argue that we need to pay more
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attention to a powerful resource that we already have, our own minds. Before I dis-cuss how our mind works in relation to the proliferation of consumerism, I brieflyexplore a theory of how our mind, or consciousness, works.
Consciousness, attention and the sense of separate self
Csikszentmihalyi (1991) argues that consciousness is ‘subjectively experienced real-ity’, which has a much larger part ‘left out’ (22). What makes us (consciously andunconsciously) select what is to be in our consciousness and what is to be left outis intention, which is called by different names such as instincts, needs, drives ordesires. The intention can be formed by biological needs (e.g. when blood sugardrops below certain level, we feel hungry and have an intention to eat something),social goals or ideological reasons (e.g. we might ignore hunger to have a slimbody, for a religious reason or for political protests). Csikszentmihalyi asserts thatour consciousness, or our intentions, is manipulated as a source of social control bypoliticians, institutionalised religions, corporations or advertisers. In fact, Conroy(2009) explicitly discusses how our sense of lack is manipulated and reinforcedthrough multinationals for their profit (I will discuss it in detail in next sections.).
Accordingly, being able to be in control of our consciousness, or self-knowledge(Krishnamurti 1973), is important for social transformation as well as for an individ-ual’s happiness (Csikszentmihalyi 1991). We need to be aware of our drives and thearbitrariness of the drives in order for us to stop perpetuating our (manufactured)drives and to be truly self-determinant. For that, Csikszentmihalyi emphasises theimportance of knowledge about consciousness; specifically, attention and the self. Inshort, depending on how we use our attention, different realities can emerge and,therefore, one’s realities or (contents of) life depends on how one’s attention has beenused. Also, it is the self that is in control of attention. That is, depending on the self’sgoal, we direct our attention accordingly. Moreover, the self is not a separate entitybut one of the contents of or the sum of consciousness. Hence, how we have beenusing our intention constructs the self, which in turn decides where to place ourattention. In other words, consciousness is a rather circular or dialectical system inwhich ‘attention shapes the self and is in turn shaped by it’ (Csikszentmihalyi 34).
The mind in the proliferation of consumerism
The reproduction and proliferation of consumerism lives on, and continuouslyintensifies, certain ways of perceiving ourselves, others and the world such as greed,illusion, envy, ignorance, (sense of) alienation and abstraction (Andrzejewski 2009;Conroy 2009; Fromm 1990; Loy 2003; Schumacher 1999). Schumacher asserts thatcapitalism is based on greed and flourishes by ‘systematically cultivating greed andenvy’ (23). In other words, citing Keynes’s (a most influential twentieth centuryeconomist) words that ‘fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not’(as cited in Schumacher 1999, 18), Schumacher argues that our economic system is‘paved with bad intentions’ (18). Similarly, Andrzejewski asserts that ‘[u]ndercapitalism, people are continually bombarded with messages encouraging material-ism, self-centeredness, consumption, competition, and attachment to one’s ownselfish desires – in a word, greed’ (109). Marketing or media in general is animportant pedagogic method that contributes to systematic cultivation of greed, envy,
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illusion, ignorance and a sense of alienation (Conroy 2009; Fromm 1990; Lopez2008).
Some analyses are subtler assessments of the relationship between consumerismand our mind by providing possible explanations of how we become greedy underconsumerism (Conroy 2009; Fromm 1990; Loy 2003; Marx, as cited in Fromm1997). Conroy discusses how our sense of lack, which he calls a sense of ‘ens-trangement’, is manipulated and reinforced through global corporations for theirprofit purposes. Conroy states that ‘enstrangement denotes that multiple conditionof dis-ease and dis-junction where one is permanently disassociated from somenotional or actual unity’ (148). I interpret a sense of enstrangement to be the sameas a sense of lack (Loy 2003; Nhat Hanh 2006) and a sense of alienation (Fromm1990; Marx as cited in Fromm 1997).
According to Loy (2003) and Nhat Hanh (2006), our sense of lack is fundamen-tally rooted in our ignorance that we think that ‘who I am’ is a separately existingentity. A sense of lack (and related feelings such as greed, illusion, fear, anxiety orguilt) is the nature of an unawakened mind, a mind that believes in a sense of sepa-rate self, according to Buddhism tradition (Loy 2003). Conroy (2009) seems toecho this point when he states that ‘enstrangement emerges not as a consequence ofthe narrator’s encounter with some alien experience or context but as a function of[one’s] being’ (150). With the illusion about oneself, ‘our identity gets increasinglyshaped by the necessary overproduction of [material and ideological] goods and ser-vices, where the global corporations turn our anxiety about identity into yet anothermarketing opportunity’ (Conroy 157).
Similarly, according to Marx, it is ‘the sense of having’ that creates the alien-ation, and ‘the orientation of having’ is ‘the central defect of [human] in capitalistsociety’ (Fromm 1997, 149). Interestingly, Fromm interprets Marx’s ‘the sense ofhaving’ to be ‘precisely the same as the “ego-boundness” … the craving for thingsand for one’s ego’ (149). Then, it would be accurate to state that the more we areego-bound, the more we are alienated. The more we buy into cultural arbitrary ofconsumerism and crave for things and for our egos, the more our sense of alien-ation is reinforced. If we consider the arguments of Conroy (2009) and Loy (2003),the vicious cycle of consuming (hoping to ameliorate a sense of alienation) andreinforcing a sense of alienation (through the craving for things and for our egos)becomes clearer. That results in the failure to ‘giv[e] birth to all [her] inner wealth’,according to Marx (as cited in Fromm 1997, 149).
Moreover, Fromm (1990) connects the concept of alienation to the process ofabstractification and quantification of capitalism. As the scale of corporations hasbecome huge, each person is expressed as ‘an abstract entity’ (Fromm, 112).Workers or managers have less personal contact with each other; all work (quality)is rewarded or exchanged with money (quantity); and increased division of labourprevents workers from being in touch with the whole product. Also, ‘[the] process ofquantification and abstractification has transcended the realm of economicproduction, and spread to the attitude of [person] to things, to people, and to [one]self’ (Fromm, 113). For instance, we are used to measuring and expressing the quali-ties of things (situations and people) with the price of them. Money is commonlyused to express, and to give us an idea about, how valuable or massive they are (e.g.‘a million-dollar bridge’ or ‘million-dollar catastrophe’ [Fromm’s examples]). This,in turn, makes the qualities of a thing, situation or person (e.g. the beauty or ‘use-value’ [Illich 1977]) secondary to its monetary – or exchange – value (quantities).
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And, that prevents us from ‘relating oneself to it in its full concreteness’ (Fromm134). To illustrate, ‘more than 13.3 million [children] liv[ing] in poverty’ (Giroux2005, 54) or ‘1.4 million [homeless] children … in America’ (Jannifer Egan, as citedin Giroux, 55) easily become abstract numbers that are rarely as important as ourown cold or our craving for new shoes. Thus, in most cases, the information meanslittle to many of us and hardly creates transformative praxis.
All in all, it is a sense of lack or alienation that the advertisers and marketerslearned how to use for their profit by making us believe the unpleasant feeling will‘be somehow ameliorated by the satisfaction of our appetite for consumption’(Conroy 2009, 154). Through repeated pedagogical acts of corporations (e.g.commercials, media and often schooling), we internalise the principles of consumer-ism (e.g. greed, alienation, self-centeredness, illusionary sense of freedom, etc.) andperpetuate the practice of consumption voluntarily. That is, by being unaware ofourselves and this (material, ideological and psychological) process, we easily buyinto clever corporations’ schemes, project our alienation onto commodities and keeptrying to fill the lack with new commodities. By doing so, we are oblivious of thetemporary effect of substitutes, not to mention the bottomless nature of the hole,our dependence on commodities or destructive consequences of consumerism.2 Thisresults in the vicious cycle of the reinforcement of a sense of alienation and of ourdependence on, and the perpetuation of, the principles of consumerism. Conse-quently, we fail to critically intervene in reality and become critical agents who stopthe momentum of our social conditioning and challenge the unjust social structure.3
Unveiling reality of the mind in the perpetuation of consumerism
First of all, in order to clarify what I mean by unveiling reality of our mind,Conroy’s (2009) words would be helpful. He states,
Ironically, psychoanalysis has simultaneously disclosed to us the occasional poverty ofour self-knowledge and rendered us, through some of its commercial applications,including advertising, incapable of an easy won redemption. So it is that we find our-selves knowing that we act out of a range of unconscious motives, which we involun-tarily disguise from ourselves while falling victim to the blandishments of advertisers,who have learnt how to hook into this very same unconscious. Only fleetingly are wecapable of consciously and rationally attending to our unconsciously driven appetitesand attachments, which we nevertheless know to be there. (Conroy 2009, 154)
Since hidden aspects of our mind are ‘only fleetingly’ available to our consciousmind, those easily slip away unnoticed especially with our busy life style in whichwe keep ourselves occupied with various kinds of (material and ideological) com-modities. By being oblivious of ‘unconsciously driven appetites and attachments’,many of us easily fall for the blandishments of advertisers who are experts in mak-ing use of our unconsciousness for their profit. Our dependence on a certain set ofappetites and attachments (not to mention illusion, greed and a sense of enstrange-ment underneath that) is not noticed and is easily disguised by our (false) sense offreedom or independence. As this cycle continues, the ‘appetites and attachments’successfully become parts of ‘who we are’ or one’s ‘habitus’ (Bourdieu andPasseron 2000). Therefore, we need to pay more attention to the hidden motivationsor subtle intentions, and underlying sense of lack, in order for us to be able tochoose what we need rather than automatically perpetuate manufactured appetites,
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attachments and ways of being in the world. That is, we need to unveil reality ofour minds for our (individual and collective) transformation and meaningful inter-vention in (mental and material) reality.
A way to unveil reality of mind: embodied reflection
Although intellectual understanding of how our minds work in relation to the prolif-eration of consumerism could be helpful, the actual seeing how we cooperate withthe cultural arbitrary of consumerism could be very difficult. A difficulty is that acultural arbitrary is reproduced with the help of necessary (material and mental)conditions that make us believe it to be ‘natural’ or ‘neutral’ (Bourdieu andPasseron 2000, 37). In other words, a lot of us are already accustomed to habitualpatterns of thoughts embedded in market values. According to Valera, Thompsonand Rosch (1993), in order to ‘cut the chain of habitual thought patterns andpreconceptions’, we need a change from an abstract and disembodied reflection, inwhich the one who is reflecting feels separate from the process of reflection (27).Instead, we need a mindful, open-ended reflection in which the one who is reflect-ing is embodied (body and mind come together in the reflection) and one’s preposi-tions are open to examination (Valera, Thompson and Rosch 1993).
Nhat Hanh’s (2006) ‘mindfulness’ and Krishnamurti’s (1973) ‘choicelessobservation’ could be specific ways of embodied reflection. For instance,Krishnamurti urges that we tend to mistakenly miss ‘the vast field of the mind’ whenwe are fragmented and only focus on socially constructed parts of human beings(Krishnamurti, 44). Instead, each one of us is the world or a story of all human kindand we need to be able to read ourselves. According to Krishnamurti, what makes itdifficult for us to read ourselves is (our attachment to) the sense of separate self orobjectification of ourselves. When we separate ourselves (as the observer, thinker or‘me’), we draw an illusionary boundary which separates ‘me’ from the contents thatwe observe or think of. However, in actuality, the observer is the accumulation of thepast (knowledge and experiences) and the observer is the same as what we observe inits quality (Bohm 2004; Krishnamurti 1973). By identifying with the fragmented as‘I,’ the thinker distinguishes itself from what is ‘not-me’. When there is division, theconflict between ‘I’ and ‘not-me’ is inevitable.4 Instead, we should observe ourselveswithout an observer, without imposing any particular patterns, comparing,condemning or justifying. According to Krishnamurti, such a mind that can merelyobserve without choice or without the movement of thoughts has the quality ofintelligence, which he describes as total responsibility for the whole of life.
Although this way of embodied reflection may sound easy or passive, thisrequires tremendous (mindful) energy, courage, clarity and practice because ‘ourconditioning is based on denial, justification, comparison and resignation’(Krishnamurti 1973, 276). Or, it is not as easy as it looks maybe because wecontinuously endeavour to ‘subjectify [ourselves] (making [ourselves] feel morereal) by objectifying [ourselves] (finding something in the world to identify with)’to fill up the ontological lack (Loy 2003, 164). Interestingly, referring to Sartre,Gordon (1995) specifies the origin of ‘bad faith’ in relation to the nature of humanexistence. That is, although we are pure existence prereflectively, we seek to besomething and be reflected as an object to ourselves while paradoxically beingoblivious to the process (Gordon, 51). Through this process (of objectifying oneselfand being oblivious to the process), we are capable of having bad faith, ‘flee[ing] a
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displeasing truth for a pleasing falsehood’ (Gordon, 8). Loy (1992), a self-identifiedBuddhist social theorist, argues for undoing the process of ‘seeking to besomething’ by facing the void or groundlessness to cut the cycle of the paradox(173). Grounding ourselves in some particular (e.g. a commodity) is neversuccessful because we are already grounded in ‘the whole network of interdepen-dent relations that constitute the world’ (Loy, 174) and the identification createsisolation from the whole (Krishnamurti 1973).
The embodied reflection allows, and urges, us to be reflective of ourselves byincluding ourselves (e.g. appetites, attachments, perspectives, the one who thinks,the sense of lack, etc.) for us to investigate, be mindful of or observe. The embod-ied reflection may help us to confront ourselves by loosening our identificationwith our egos or the (material and ideological) commodities. Hence, this could bea way for us to have concrete relationship with ourselves, others and the world(Langley 2008). This kind of looking may create space where we can choose toact in less harmful ways and stop cooperating with the perpetuation ofconsumerism.
Conclusions
Freire (2007) argues that there are hidden aspects in reality and it is important forus to constantly unveil reality for ‘emergence consciousness’ and ‘critical interven-tion in reality’ (81). Considering that Freire had the epistemology of dialecticalmaterialism (Au 2007), he likely refers to both mental and material reality. That is,material reality always exists in relation to mental reality, and vice versa. However,from my point of view, Freire, along with many other critical pedagogues, still putsemphasis on material reality. Thus, in this paper, I discussed unveiling reality ofconsumerism with emphasis on mental reality while agreeing that mental realityalways exists in relation to material reality.
Unveiling mental reality, being aware of ourselves in relation to the perpetuationof consumerism, is important because cultural arbitrary of consumerism flourisheswith the manipulation and cooperation of our minds. Corporations strive to createprofits for the small groups of people by turning any possible things into marketingopportunities and manufacturing (artificial) needs regardless of harmful conse-quences. While being oblivious of the process, we are likely to keep falling into theideology of consumerism and become the cooperators with the system. Therefore,for the change, we should work with our mind, the personal psychological (andexistential) realm as well as with the social structural realm. That is, we need to(help students) have a concrete relationship with ourselves (themselves) and beaware of how our (their) minds work so that we (they) could expose the arbitrari-ness of what may seem natural and critically intervene in naturalised reality.5 Forthat, we might need to see ourselves while neither identifying with any particularnor separating ‘me’ from ‘not-me’ (i.e. embodied reflection). We need to be able toactually face ‘what is’, including the sense of lack and our backfiring strivings toescape from it by objectifying ourselves with material or psychological commodi-ties. With the awareness or even the glimpse of it, we might be able to stop (uncon-scious effort of) filling the sense of lack with commodities and cooperating with theperpetuation of consumerism, which is bound to fail as well as create destructiveconsequences.
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AcknowledgementI appreciate Vinod Mittal, Marc Black, and anonymous reviewers for their valuablesuggestions about the manuscript. Of course, the author is responsible for any errors in thewriting.
Notes1. According to Barnhart (1999), until the early nineteenth century, the USA was an agrar-
ian society where most people made what they needed to survive. Around the latternineteenth century, with the development of technology, the production rate of goodsenormously increased. In the early twentieth century, the produced products throughmechanisation were more than what the population with frugal lifestyles could possiblyconsume. However, once the industrial machinery was built and gained momentum, itcould not be downsized. Then, the need for the products should have been created forthe excessively produced products. Barnhart argues that ‘Thus was born the world ofadvertising and marketing strategies’ (28).
2. Without doubt, corporations’ remedy for the desire is expensive (not only for the moneywe pay for the remedy but also the global expenses for the production and disposure ofproducts), short-lived (we will soon need another commodity to fill the desire again),oppressive (basically it is for the profit of corporations often at the expense of othersand it creates the huge disparity between the rich and the poor) and destructive (by cre-ating monoculture of mind, ecology and culture).
3. This does not mean that it is individuals who should be blamed for the dependence onor the proliferation of consumerism. Nor should understanding cultural or social sourceof that be ignored. Lawrence (as cited in Obidah and Howard 2005) clearly warns thiswhen he talks about racism. He says,
We cannot be blamed for unconsciously harboring attitudes that are inescapable ina culture permeated by racism … [U]nderstanding the cultural source of our rac-ism obviates the need for fault … without denying our collective responsibilityfor racism’s eradication (Lawrence, cited in Obidah and Howard 2005, 253).
Rather, I argue that understanding our mind could help us be (individually andcollectively) more responsible for the eradication of our dependence on, and stopcooperating in the perpetuation of, consumerism.
4. Dealing with our problems based on this mechanism is quite common. For instance, thepsychological techniques that are based on this mechanism, and emphasise clients’ willpower, are not difficult to find. Specifically, Bateson (2000) discusses a typical treatmentfor alcoholics in which people are encouraged to separate themselves from their beingalcoholics and try to control or resist the urge to drink with the will power by oftenpositioning the part of themselves as an evil. Bateson attributes the failure of this treat-ment to the false premises, ‘an unusually disastrous variant of the Cartesian dualism, thedivision between Mind and Matter, or in this case, between conscious will, or self, andthe remainder of the personality’ (313). Similarly, Loy (2003) asserts that our problemsare ‘not evil but ignorance’ and ‘the solution is not a matter of applying the will but ofreaching an insight into the nature of things’ (172).
5. Anonymous reviewer(s) pointed out that the readers are ‘left wondering’ how theembodied reflection can be carried out or promoted in pedagogical practices and howeducators could help students engage in embodied reflection. It is correct that this paperis short in providing how the embodied reflection can be pedagogically practiced or pro-moted. That was not the purpose of the paper, either. My main intentions were: (1) toexpose how our minds, or ourselves, cooperate in the perpetuation of unjust socialstructures by focusing on consumerism and (2) to stress the importance of (embodied)awareness of mental realities for critical interventions in the unjust social system. Also,as a tool, (3) I discussed embodied reflection and the discussion was not about how wecan help students engage in embodied reflection but mainly about what it is. Thesefocuses were based on the assumptions: first, what makes us difficult see the cycle we
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are in has a lot to do with a way of reflection. Second, what makes helping studentsengage in embodied reflection difficult is not that we are short of pedagogical techniquesbut that we educators ourselves are not used to (doing) that kind of reflection. I hopethat the readers wonder what embodied reflection would be and see what that (the onewho reflects is not separated from the act of reflection) could mean, rather than quicklylooking for ‘how’. Or, we might want to pay attention to, and start a genuine dialogueabout, ‘what is behind the seeking for how?’ This need for a quick answer could be agood example of how our minds strive to escape from ‘what is’ by objectifying our-selves with material or psychological commodities. The discussion of how embodiedreflection can be pedagogically practiced could follow only when the educators couldmerely observe themselves and begin to see what embodied reflection could mean, evenif it is for a brief period of time.
Notes on contributorSu-Jin Choi is a doctoral candidate in the department of Curriculum and Instruction at NewMexico State University. She is working on her dissertation on learning and teaching a newworldview (cosmologies, ontologies, and epistemologies). She is conducting a study of analternative school in South Korea to envision a practice of education that supports and invitesinterconnectedness and love. Her research interests include awareness and transformation ofhabitual patterns of thoughts and perceptions, unveiling our mind for individual and socialtransformation, traditions and thoughts that emphasize interconnectedness, worldviews ofindigenous people, Buddhists’ practices, etc.
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