JONTILLMAN.COM | part of the problem since 1976

Following on from yesterdays post on choice…and with apologies to Martin Luther…

1. Modern life is organized almost exclusively around economic pronciples.
2. The most virulent economic principle in operation right now is consumerism.
3. Consumerism is a perversion of materialism, in which the accumulation, not the item itself, is supposed to create satisfaction.
4. Consumerism, as so defined, is not a positive motivator.
5. As defined, it requires a negative motivator in order to continue itself as an economic function.
6. That negative motivator is a profound sense of dissatisfaction with all aspects of life, and with all possessions and experiences.
7. That dissatisfaction is based on the assumption that one should have the absolute best of everything.
8. The economic term for this mechanism is maximization.
9. A belief in maximization is then a predicate for consumerism as a worldview to flourish.
10. Consumerism is a relatively new world view.
11. It did not reach popular critical mass until the generation known as “baby boomers”.
12. Prior to that generation, the dominant economic worldview was very different.
13. The name coined for this prior economic worldview is satisficing.
14. Satisificing is the assumption that the cheapest, easiest, or most readily available good, service or person that meets a need is indeed the best choice.
15. Those who espouse maximization deride such satisficing as “mere settling”.
16. Mere settling, as it is labeled, is seen as archaic and naive, and possibly as a tool of patriarchal oppression.
17. Within a system where maximization is the norm, those who choose satisficing for some or all of their needs are looked down upon.
18. These renegade satisficers are said to lack initiative or motivation.
19. In more extreme cases (of reaction, not of satisficing) they are assumed to be deluded by some discredited econopolitical ideology or another.
20. These “failings”, in the eyes of the maximizers, are taken as evidence of lesser intelligence in those satisficers.
21. Maximizers are operating from the assumption that, given the functionally limitless number of options in modern life, no matter what choice one makes, there is always a better option.
22. Strictly speaking, they are correct in this asusmption.
23. Prior to the baby boomer generation, satisficing was the norm, but was seen as maximization.
24. It was seen as such because the known number of options was low, and the cost of adding more options was prohibitive.
25. The baby-boomer generation was the first modern generation to feel as if an infinite number of options were cheaply available for every choice.
26. It follows then, and is axiomatic, that such an enormous number of choices not only allows for endless rounds of maximization, but also demands such.
27. The result of this is that modern life came to be organized completely around maximization.
28. Many things that most people never consider exist almost entirely to support and demand maximization.
29. Television, with its endless proliferation of programming choices, is often pointed to as the prime example of this.
30. Television, however, is not conductive to maximization, as most people will satisfice when choosing television programming and watch whatever is on.
31. This explains the vogue amongst the most ardent maximizers for trumpeting their non-participation in television as a leisure activity.
32. Maximizers either see entertainment as a class, as inimical to maximization, or they prefer to maximize their amusements through an endless series of interests and hobbies, none pursued deeply, or for very long.
33. Modern Appliances are absolutely essential to the rise, and maintainance, of maximization.
34. Without clothes washers and dryers, the size of modern wardrobes would prohibit caring for them, making it impossible to maximize ones appearance through endless replacing of clothing deemed to be outmoded or unfashionable.
35. Without the microwave oven, it would have been impossible to convince people that cooking and eating were activities that demanded maximization.
36. It also reinforces the idea that personal need,s such as eating and sleeping, are impediments to maximization, and should be dispatched with as quickly as possible.
37. The number of tools, appliances and strategies designed to support maximization are also functionally infinite.
38. All of these tools, appliances and strategies also demand rounds of maximization of their own.
39. All of these maximization support tools require space.
40. Therefore, we must have larger and larger houses the more we maximize.
41. In these houses, we must display collections.
42. Collections, such as of movies, books and music, are the badges of maximization.
43. Their primary purpose is to signify how much maximizing we have already accomplished.
44. They are all of the things that we have already replaced with newer and/or better things.
45. This is called “adding to a collection” or “building a library”.
46. Books are themselves one of the most effective ambassadors of maximization.
47. Self-help books are the fastest growing publishing segment, and focuses entirely on strategies for maximizing some portion of ones life.
48. This has been true for more than two decades now.
49. This learned dissatisfaction is the environment we have grown up in.
50. Those of us who grew up within this system do not understand it.
51. We do not understand it because we do not question it.
52. We blindly assume that any new source of options is a positive thing.
53. Consequently, we think that the internet, by which we mean the world wide web, is the greatest inventon ever.
54. It allows for hitherto unknown levels of maximization, each achieved faster than the one before.
55. There are, however, quite a few unintended consequences of maximization.
56. The divorce rate is an obvious example.
57. Our shocking levels of personal debt are another.
58. We have been raised by a generation of maximizers.
59. As a whole, that generation is miserable and lonely.
60. Their zeal for miximizing has ruined them financially, maritally and intellectually.
61. They do not think that these ills are the result of maximization.
62. They believe tha tthe cause of their woes is our grandparents, who were satisficers.
63. They believe that we, being raised by maximizers (them) will succeed where they have failed, because they were raised by satisficers (our grandparents).
64. They believe that we, as a generation, can be, do and have absolutely everything.
65. We are not buying it. (literally)
66. We can see their folly, and we will not emulate it.
67. We admit that it is true that, statistically, there is always a better option.
68. But we assert that it is also true that your chances of locating any better option, not to mention the best option, is vanishingly small.
69. We also assert that maximization is not, from an individual perspective, economically sound.
70. It does not take into account the cost of the search for the maximal solution or choice.
71. Therefore, we determine that satisficing is the better of the two options.
72. Satisficing takes into account both the astoundingly small chance of finding a marginally better option and the cost of searching for that option.
73. We further posit that satisficing, because of those reasons, is rational, where maximization is not.
74. Therefore, we reject the hubris and illogic of the maximizers.
75. We will not live and suffer as they have done, in service to the false god of maximization.
76. Nor we will serve it’s twin demiurges; efficiency and growth-at-all-costs.
77. We will attempt to see actual things, objects, instead of lists of operations to be performed in order to maximize them, or lists of better options we think we know of.
78. We will know that maximization does not lead to its promised individuality, but instead to sameness and tyranny.
79. We will know that living is art, it is painting a picture, not doing a sum.
80. We will no longer attempt to run our lives as, or view ourselves as, corporations.
81. We will opt out of the rat race that is maximization.
82. We will look to improving our lives, not our financial positions.
83. We will be careful to recognize the point at which more money does not bring more joy, and only brings more money, and we will not cross that line.
84. Our pride will not be in our possessions, but in ourselves, our skills and our personalities.
85. We choose personality over productivity.
86. We choose family over colleagues.
87. We choose maintaining instead of replacing.
88. We choose inqenuity over purchasing power.
89. We choose doing the same work faster over doing more work in the same time.
90. We choose creating and producing over buying and selling.
91. We choose living more over working more.
92. We choose saving over borrowing.
93. We will remember that whatever we do today will cost us a day of our lives.
94. We will not confuse the symbol with the thing.
95. We will simply live.