Soul-ing Consumption (part I)

from the series: Pleasure in the Anthropocene

Consumerism is an addictive behavior pattern. It compensates for a lack of meaning. But it also fulfills desires we experience without knowing where they come from. Many of us have a desire to consume and accumulate material wealth. When we ask ourselves why, we might answer that we like it. Or we might say that we need it. 

But how is that need defined? 

It only takes a minute to realize that we don't need seven pairs of jeans or a bigger house. What we desire - what we want and what we think we need - is culturally conditioned. The French philosopher and social scientist René Girard pointed out that we want to have what others have. He coined this theory of mimetic desire. According to Girard, human desires are not inherent or independent but imitative. He posits that people learn what to desire by imitating the desires of others. We do not naturally desire objects or goals but desire them because others desire them.

Most of us have figured out by now that collecting things in life is not worthwhile. The antidote has become to collect experiences. I argue that it's worthwhile to collect insights - to soul-ing consumption - : that the object of consumption transforms us. Not just physically when we consume food, but also mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. 

It's less about what we consume than how we do it. Consuming an object (or experience) without regard for the thing itself becomes an empty experience. 

Aisthesis

The ancient Greeks had a word for the opposite of an empty experience, for a profound, transformative experience that we now relate to the concept of aesthetics. This word was "aisthesis," which denoted when a person encountered something in the physical world and felt a deep connection with its essence. The term literally meant "to breathe in," indicating the act of taking in the essence or soul of the encountered object.

Aisthesis still occurs within us. For example, when we encounter beautiful sights like Niagara Falls or unexpectedly stumble upon a magnificent ancient tree in a forest. In those moments, we instinctively turn our attention to what we see, pause in awe, and involuntarily take a breath as we feel the power emanating from the object. However, these experiences are rare and infrequent. Maybe we would experience them more if we interacted more intimately with the world and learned to consume differently if we brought back the "soul" to consumption. 

The scarcity of aisthesis might lie in our mechanistic paradigm in which everything is devoid of an essence or soul. If an object lacks a soul, it cannot transfer its essence to us. It doesn't inspire us. The word inspire comes from the Latin word inspirare, which means 'breathing into.' To inspire would mean 'to breath into', and getting inspired would mean 'getting breathed into.' So aisthesis - the foundation of aesthetics - means "to breathe in" and getting inspired is to be breathed into. Have we become unable to be breathed into by the beautiful?

Soul-ling

Edward O. Wilson's biophilia hypothesis suggests that humans possess an innate tendency to seek connections with nature and other forms of life. I argue that, similarly, within each of us resides a longing to be touched by the essences, or souls, of the world. We yearn to perceive these souls - the sacredness of life - to satiate our hunger for aisthesis.

This desire for aisthesis increases in our modern societies. Aisthesis might be translated - or at least related - to Hartmut Rosa's concept of resonance. The term resonance is taken from physics and commonly describes a subject-object relationship as a vibrating system in which both sides mutually stimulate each other. Being in resonance with our environment means that we are stimulated (or touched) by our environment, and we stimulate (or touch) our environment in return. It's a reciprocal way of being in relation. According to Rosa, modernity has undergone a process of acceleration, where societal and technological changes have significantly increased the pace of life, creating a sense of dissonance and alienation or a lack of aisthesis. In response to this acceleration, Rosa argues that individuals and societies seek resonance to counteract these negative effects and regain a sense of fulfillment and authenticity.

To experience resonance, we need to be affected; we need to be touched. In "Zombies in Western Culture: A Twenty-First Century Crisis," Vervaeke, Mastropietro and Miscevic (2017) point out that 

"Our penchant for touch is, ultimately, what distinguishes intimate relationships from non-intimate ones, not only relationships with people, but with animals, objects, and concepts. The more "in touch" we are with something, the closer and more connected we are to that thing. Touch is the medium of intimacy. … Touch is the arbiter of "real." Assertions of verity are always made with permutations of a touch metaphor. Those with whom we are intimate are more real to us. Objects we have handled are more real to us. Emotions we have felt are more real to us. Losing touch costs us our grasp on reality".

Consumption - buying that sevenths pair of jeans or that bigger apartment - ceases to touch us. Because we don't perceive the essence. 

The first time I experienced that a piece of clothing could have an essence was when I wore one dress for over a year. The dress was co-designed by an atelier in Berlin, and; the fabric was donated to me by a sustainable manufacturer that I came to know, and the dress was worn daily. I spend a lot of time co-creating with and in the dress—sufficient time to realize that it has - in a sense - its own agency. I think many of us have experienced this essence of things in jewelry that was gifted to us or the stuffed animals that we cherished as kids or us. 

I will talk more about "soul-ing" consumption next week.