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WHAT WOULD JESUS CONSUME?
Or, things you don't really need that someone told you did,
but you would realize you didn't if you thought about it.
Thanks to a campaign by the Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN) which asks Christians to recognize the various harms that result from making the choice to drive sports utility vehicles, Christians are wondering "What Would Jesus Drive?" EEN's manifesto states that "Obeying Jesus in our transportation choices is one of the great Christian obligations and opportunities in the 21st century. Pollution from vehicles has a major impact on human health and the rest of God's creation. It contributes significantly to global warming. Our reliance on imported oil from unstable regions threatens peace and security."
EEN is urging Christians, the largest religious group in the US, to stop buying Detroit's gas-guzzlers on the grounds that Christ would not approve. If Jesus would be aggrieved by the dissipation of resources and the sullying of the environment brought about by SUV-driving, surely he would be vexed by the over-consumption of a litany of other insidious products as well.
However, for any American, regardless of faith, to question their purchasing choices is to begin to question the very foundation of the US economy. When citizens question the economy they threaten to undermine its health, the continued vigor of which is based upon one simple, but many-pronged concept: people must keep buying more under any circumstances. Our president implores patriots to keep buying in the name of democracy and has continued on a tax-cutting spree allegedly to ensure this endless acquisitiveness. "The best way to stimulate demand is to give people some money so that they can spend it," Bush said. Even the language used by the government, in which Americans are referred to as consumers and not citizens, reveals this fundamental premise.
On the one hand, this is a straightforward idea. To stay in business, companies need to have customers purchase what they produce. To continue to keep people employed companies must stay in business, and so forth. In practice, however, it isn't that simple. If everyone merely bought one well-made automobile, television, CD player or even one mop or sweater — that lasted for many years — CEOs would all be driving Toyota Avalons instead of Mercedes and living in suburban tracts instead of mansions. No, to pay the currently enormous CEO salaries (besides cooking the books) it is imperative that people consume far more than they need to live.
To ensure relentless consumer expenditures, companies have several specious tactics. One of these is to produce merchandise that is so shoddily made that it disintegrates in a short period and needs to be replaced. (Think about that combination radio and CD player that has to be exchanged every two years.) Usually, these products are inexpensive enough that consumers find their immanent demise more disappointing than tragic. Additionally, it is usually less expensive to replace these products with newer models than to repair them.
Another favorite stratagem is to rapidly update technology so those products bought today become obsolete before their easy-payment cycle is completed. In this way, the computer with a 750 MHz hard drive must be exchanged for to the one with the 1 Gig hard drive to operate new system software, which require twice as much magnetic space. Or maybe the auto with airbags for front seat passengers has to be traded in for a newer auto that has side-air bags. (LPs exchanged for CDs, VHS cassettes for DVDs for I-Pods, etc.)
Even so, if a product continues to work well enough, some obstinate Americans may be complacent about succeeding it with something "better" until they absolutely must. Think about the longevity of a pair of Levis, for instance. Therefore, to persuade people who may not want to buy anything they don't perceive they actually need, corporate marketers use their considerable energies inventing heretofore-unknown necessities.
The areas in which illusory necessities seem to best succeed are those that are marketed by shaming their potential clientele, and those that claim to provide convenience. In other words, one type of advertising tells you that if you buy a product some personal deficiency will be remedied. Your embarrassing female odor, yellow teeth, flabby belly, unfashionable image — in the form of last-year's automobile or bell bottoms — can be easily transformed with the purchase of a new, "better" product. The other type of promotion tells you that you could have more hours in the day to do the things you really want to do if only you could reduce the time-consuming drudgery of every-day chores. A new type of cleaning device, instant food or delivery service will give you back that precious time. In the end, both of these types of advertisements tell you that buying something, almost anything, will ultimately make you happier.
It is easy to see how many become convinced to pull out the credit card for things they don't really need. After all, everyone wants to be happy. If all it takes to ensure bliss is the simple purchase of a new hand-held device, for instance, who could resist?
The flaw in this concept is the belief that things themselves will make one happy. Money, we have been told often enough, does not buy happiness. If you don't yet believe that, just review the lives of Michael Jackson or Liza Minnelli for a refresher course in the richness of misery. If money cannot do it, then a new possession surely will not. Furthermore, how is it possible that products, which once examined, contribute to the ruination of the globe, will change our lives in a positive way?
This fundamental logic is at the heart of the "What Would Jesus Drive?" campaign. EEN is asking their constituents to realize that an exclusive concentration on their small needs — manufactured or genuine — causes them to miss the bigger picture. Buying an automobile that is larger than one indisputably needs may make you feel momentarily superior, but not only doesn't this guarantee happiness, it contributes to the destruction of our environment which makes everyone unhappy. Large, unnecessary purchases also enslave one with high payments, which certainly don't bring happiness, but that is another long story.
However, asking what Jesus would drive is only a starting point, and a grand one, at that. Americans may not be ready to trade in the Ford Excursion for a Toyota hybrid, but they can begin to ask questions about some of their more mundane purchases.
Many products exist that have been introduced over the course of the last two decades, which seem to fulfil simple desires, yet have far-reaching repercussions. These particular products all share a common characteristic, which is that they replace some semi-durable item most Americans already own, with one that is disposable and generally over-packaged. This is perhaps corporate America's most brilliant marketing scheme. It is perversely shrewd to build an inferior product and get consumers accustomed to the idea that the item will need to be replaced shortly. But, to get them to buy something that they know has to be thrown away from the get-go, is a stroke of genius.
This species of product is insidious in the way it is presented as timesaving or convenient. On closer examination, most of these do not save any time. They certainly don't save money. Primarily, what they do is create addictions to tiny throw-aways, which on their own don't seem egregious, but when multiplied by millions of shoppers add up to tons of waste in America's wilderness areas Ñ and luxurious lifestyles for greedy corporate executives. These products include, but are not limited to: disposable cleaning cloths, disposable dryer sheets, disposable cutting boards, disposable clothing, over-packaged meals, over-packaged snack foods, disposable electrical air fresheners.
While it is imperative for marketing teams to come up with new products to keep buyers enslaved, it is just as important for consumers to ask themselves some questions before blindly purchasing new conveniences. Every purchase is a choice, after all. They must ask themselves the kind of questions the EEN thinks Jesus might ask. First, does this product create excessive waste and if so how will that choice affect the world? Second, does this product cost more than the thing it replaces, and how will this choice affect one's finances. Lastly, does this product actually perform a superior service, which might mitigate its downside; this includes health benefits but not necessarily the benefit of gaining two minutes of time.
What each of us chooses to buy affects the rest of the world. As the feminists used to say, the personal is political or, as we have been told repeatedly, consumers vote with their pocketbooks. The mothers of the US made dolphin-safe tuna fishing a reality through their canned tuna boycott. Product boycotts are one of the few ways people have to assert their beliefs. If America's Christians stop buying huge gas-guzzlers, maybe Detroit and the oil industry will have to buckle under and produce vehicles more in line with loving the earth. But it will take more than the Christians to change the status quo. Only when everyone learns to question the ramifications of each purchase, might there be a chance to save the world, yet.
WITCHING HOUR ARCHIVE:
CURRENT -2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16-17
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THINK TWICE
 Here is a partial list of products shoppers should think twice — or five times — about before they buy. Some are astonishingly over-packaged, some are needlessly disposable and could be replaced with goods that are more durable. All of them end up as part of landfills in places you might want to hike one day (if you could wrench yourself away from the relentless commercials on your television).
Over Packaged
• Frito-Lay Go Snacks Aren't Mylar bags bad enough? Do we really need plastic containers, with plastic wrappers to encase tortilla chips?
• Kraft Foods Lunchables A plastic tray with individual compartments for erstwhile food items, wrapped in plastic with a chipboard label. Three or four, layers of wrapping to get to the foodstuff.
• Fruit on the Move Don't bananas come with their own wrapper?
• Juice Boxes Aluminum cans can be recycled. Boxes can't.
• Campbell's quick lunch microwaveables. The container is a mix of metal and plastic, has both plastic and aluminum lids.
• McDonald's Happy Meals
• Phone cards Wrapped in enough plastic to choke a deer.
• Kool Aid Kool Bursts A six pack of plastic bottles, encased in a cardboard holder and plastic shrink-wrap takes the place of a single container of drink mix.
• Dentyne Ice Gum Comes in a paperboard package and uses foil and plastic inside the paperboard.
• M and M Minis Come in hard plastic tubes instead of paper packets.
• Mentadent toothpaste
• Fig Newtons Snack Packs Individual snacks are held in plastic, with additional plastic covering the entire set of snacks.
• Sunny Delight 8 pack This consists of eight individual eight fl. oz. bottles shrink-wrapped together.
• Coke soda bottles In 1990, the Coca-Cola Company promised to start making soda bottles sold in the United States with 25 percent recycled content. Now, nine years later, despite its "please recycle" message on the bottle, the company has still not lived up to its promise.
Disposable
• Swiffer, Swiffer Wet, Swiffer Mitt, Swiffer Max, Swiffer Wet Jet Comes with two pieces: the sweeper and the cloths, which are thrown away after one use. A mop and bucket work just as well and last longer.
• Saran Disposable Cutting Sheets How about just washing your cutting board and not throwing away plastic sheets every time you cut a roast?
AND...
Paper napkins and cups, Plastic flatware, Paper towels, Paper or plastic grocery bags, Plastic food wrap, Disposable diapers, Plastic razors, Plastic pens, Women's sanitary products, Household batteries, Tissues, Disposable cameras, Paper coffee filters, Disposable flashlights.
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