DRIVER 3 - CONSUMPTION AND CULTURAL NARRATIVE
 

Consumption is often framed as a matter of personal choice — what individuals decide to buy, use, or discard. In reality, consumption is deeply shaped by cultural narratives about success, identity, progress, and belonging. These narratives do not simply reflect values; they actively produce them.

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Over time, consumption has become one of the primary ways modern societies organise meaning. What we own, display, and replace increasingly stands in for who we are, how we are seen, and where we believe we are going. In this sense, consumption is not just economic behaviour — it is a cultural system.

 

From meeting needs to shaping identity

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In any society, material goods play a role in meeting human needs. The problem arises when consumption shifts from sufficiency to identity formation.

In contemporary consumer cultures:

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• Desire is continually stimulated rather than satisfied

• Products are designed for rapid obsolescence — functional or psychological

• Status is communicated through accumulation and display

• Novelty substitutes for meaning
   

As a result, consumption becomes less about use and more about signalling — to others, and to ourselves.

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The role of advertising and narrative

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Advertising does far more than promote products. It constructs stories about:

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• What a good life looks like

• What success feels like

• What is missing, inadequate, or outdated

• What can be solved through purchase
   

These narratives are powerful precisely because they operate below conscious awareness. They attach emotional and existential meaning to material goods, positioning consumption as a solution to discomfort, insecurity, or longing.

In this way, cultural narrative becomes a delivery mechanism for the other drivers — translating abstract economic and industrial dynamics into everyday behaviour.

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Psychological obselescence and perpetual disatisfaction

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One of the defining features of consumer culture is psychological obsolescence: the sense that what we have — or who we are — is no longer enough, even when it functions perfectly well.

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This produces:

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• Continuous demand without durable satisfaction

• Rising material throughput with diminishing returns

• Anxiety framed as aspiration

• A sense of movement without progress
   

Crucially, this dissatisfaction is not accidental. It is structurally reinforced by systems that depend on continuous expansion to remain stable.

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How consumption normalises extraction

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Consumption narratives help normalise the impacts of the other drivers by:

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• Rendering ecological damage distant or invisible

• Framing excess as freedom

• Treating acceleration as improvement

• Individualising responsibility for systemic outcomes
   

When environmental harm appears as a side effect of personal choice rather than structural design, attention is diverted away from the systems that shape those choices in the first place.

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How this driver reinforces the others

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Consumption and cultural narrative:

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• Absorb and legitimise the growth pressures of the monetary system

• Translate machine logic into lifestyles of speed, convenience, and disposability

• Support governance frameworks that prioritise consumer confidence and economic expansion
   

Together, these dynamics create a culture in which restraint feels regressive, sufficiency feels like failure, and alternatives struggle for legitimacy.

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Why moral appeals fall short

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Much sustainability discourse focuses on encouraging individuals to make “better choices.” While personal responsibility matters, moral appeals alone cannot counter systems designed to stimulate desire, accelerate turnover, and reward excess.

Without addressing the cultural narratives that define success and normality, calls for restraint tend to produce:

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• Guilt without agency

• Awareness without traction

• Performative change without structural impact
   

This is why consumption must be understood as a systemic driver, not merely a behavioural issue.

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Reclaiming meaning beyond consumption

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Addressing this driver does not mean rejecting material comfort or pleasure. It means questioning the assumption that more consumption leads to more fulfilment, and recognising the costs of organising meaning around accumulation.

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Cultures that support long-term wellbeing tend to:

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• Value sufficiency over excess

• Anchor identity in relationship rather than possession

• Allow space for care, creativity, and rest

• Recognise limits as enabling rather than restrictive
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Without such shifts, efforts to reform economic or technological systems remain culturally unsupported.

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What this driver reveals

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Consumption and cultural narrative help explain why:

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• Material abundance coexists with dissatisfaction

• Environmental awareness fails to slow degradation

• Simpler alternatives struggle to gain status

• Change feels like loss rather than liberation
   

These patterns are not the result of weak will.
They are the predictable outcomes of a culture organised around perpetual wanting.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​