Program Information

#638 - Modern Human Self-Enslavement

Series:

Subtitle:

Understanding Addiction To The Consumer Treadmill

Program Type:

Weekly Program

Featured Speakers/Commentators:

Gabor MatÃ©, National Lampoon, Geoffrey Miller, Jonathan Chapman, Tim Cooper, Alistair McIntosh, Aimee Ploude

Contributor:

Unwelcome Guests Collective Contact Contributor

Date Published:

Feb. 10, 2013, 9:01 p.m.

Summary: This week two speakers give us a new angle on why so many people seem addicted to living lives that leave them unfulfilled. Firstly, doctor and addiction specialist Gabor MatÃ© gives a personal reflection on the question "Who We Are When We Are Not Addicted?". After a musical break we hear a radio adaptation of Consumed - The Human Experience, which looks at how marketing is finely tuned to hijacking human evolutionary drives.

Credits:

Notes: We begin this show with some reflections from addiction specialist Gabor MatÃ©. His talk, "Who We Are When We Are Not Addicted: The Possible Human" is a personal reflection which draws from his book 'In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts'. Going beyond specific medical and psychological insights relating to addiction, he presents a bigger picture of human potential which echoing points made by Charles Eisenstein in his Ascent of Humanity (read in episode 463). MatÃ© notes that the skin encapsulated ego is a mere state of mind - albeit an almost all pervasive one in modern society. He outlines a deep hunger, a painful inner void which is deeply but generally not consciously experienced, and which fuels people's addictive consumption, whether of drugs or consumer goods. He suggests that instead this could be filled by connection to the world around us.

We start our second hour with a light-hearted reference to people's gnawing sense of insecurity, disconnection and the feeling that the world is going to pot around them, Tony Hendra's 1972 satirical spoken poem, Deteriorata. Then we hear a radio adaptation of the 2009 film, Consumed - The Human Experience. This film applies evolutionary psychology to understand consumerism.
Music: Deteriorata by National Lampoon
The film, Consumed - The Human Experience, makes some claims about the uniqueness of homo sapiens which are directly contradicted by episode 606.

Version 1: Complete audio