[Originally posted to livejournal]

Hopelessness is a product of our training as initiates into the cult of materialism. This is the cult that everybody takes for granted, not because it is rational, but because the majority of the public has been convinced by advertising and “education” of its validity. First we are taught that our alias identity is what is known as a “consumer”, (a very demeaning label at best) or in other words, “one who consumes.” In order to be “productive” citizens our task is to work, to buy, to consume and then to die. In each of these four modes our life energy serves as grease so that the gears of the Great Machine can keep grinding away. For the most part our function in an industrialized society can be likened to that of beef cattle waiting for slaughter. Our lives are spent laboring to produce unnecessary goods and services that have no real bearing upon the quality of life, and to fulfill the personal goals of corporate executives.

The next article of faith we are taught to worship is that the only respectable focus for ones’ entire life energies is the accumulation of money. Money, it turns out, is something we use to buy all manner of flashy trinkets of dubious practical value. Buying these “things” is called “consumer spending”, which is something that “helps support the economy and provides jobs” we are told. What this really means is that meaningless greed, like some lurking, nocturnal monster is kept well-fed by the labors of an uninspired public. The corporate-owned media touts the idea that local communities are “provided with jobs” by some corporate giants’ local factory, using a tone that suggests the people are being offered some special favor for which they are not entirely worthy. In reality it is not community livelihood that is enhanced by most of these filth-producing engines of destruction. The real focus is usually the enhancement of the profit margins of destructive corporations, whose sole motivation is absolute and unquenchable greed, at the cost of the entire human race and every other species of life on this planet. In truth, a “consumer” is a fickle breed of fish who takes any shiny bait flashed before it, and which will do anything to acquire what is supposedly desirable, as narrowly defined by the advertising world. If this means performing any demeaning, unhealthy and socially irresponsible task at the local factory or retail outlet to make money, then so be it.

Finally, we are taught that not only is money our only true and Almighty God, but that the material things it purchases represent the full extent of reality. If it can’t be bought then it must be worthless, or at least that is how the dogma reads. Materialism teaches that if it can’t be immediately measured on a scale, tasted, touched, seen or heard, that it either doesn’t exist or is basically unimportant. The belief underpinning Western society, (and now a majority of the world by extension) is that existence is simply a marketplace of goods to be bought and sold. That attitude is also being applied to human beings, (labor). Our worth as individuals is judged by the content of a resume’. Bodies and minds are sold as commodities, to be exploited for the purpose of inducing the highest profit margins possible, in the shortest period of time. Bodies and minds are viewed as expendable components of the corporate machine, to be replaced by fresh “spare parts” as the need arises, as soon as they are worn out. Human life has been reduced to the level of the functioning machine that produces on demand. The apparent, prevailing belief is that the public is merely a resource to be tapped, (the term used is “human resources”) by those who possess the sly cunning to pull off the scandal of our age without being noticed. In this paradigm, we exist only to make more money for those who already have more of it than they could ever hope to use, (on a practical basis) in several lifetimes. Toward this end, the cities of the entire planet are being converted into sweat shops, as armies of wage slaves live out their lives staggering under the weight of materialistic ideology. As consumers our assigned role is the unquestioning membership in the cult of materialism, with no less devotion displayed than 40+ hours a week, for 20-40 years. We are expected to happily, or at least willingly live decades in debt to others, (a concept known as credit) and to engage in a life of meaningless drudgery for wage pay, (wage slavery). As long as we believe that this is our “lot in life”, the feeling of hopelessness and desperation which runs rampant in this modern age is perfectly predictable.

From The Survivalist's Guide For The New Millennium.