hijab - the muslim headscarf in france - page 1
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symbols - page 1
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turkey and the eu - page 1
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beige - page 1
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romanian!
The consumer is king.
You are the consumer.
You consume goods, services and truths. You can choose anything you want. You vote in every election: for the best book, the best film, the best source of news. Even if you don’t vote at the ballot box, you vote with your wallet.
I don’t know how it is in Romania at the moment, but I’ll tell you how it is in the West: it’ll be the same here soon. People don’t go shopping because the need something, but because they want something; in fact it’s our biggest hobby. You can worship the god of Mammon in cathedrals of glass, with gentle music and capuccino. It doesn’t matter which one you go to; they’re all the same. Everything is peace and stillness, and you are as much a product as those designer trainers you see in every window. There are no beggars upon this sacred ground; poverty no longer exists in our world of beige … or at least, the poor are excluded. You don’t need faith to enter into this beige paradise, but you do need a credit card – without it, there isn’t much to do. Marx said that religion is the opium of the people, and maybe he was right up to a point; but it is certain that his words apply even more powerfully to beige, the anaesthetic of the people.
It’s an interesting debate whether globalisation produces a greater or lesser variety of goods in the shops, but what is certain is that the shops themselves are becoming more and more uniform. A recent survey has shown a depressing loss of individuality among English towns – more and more have the same identical cathedrals.
