Living in a society structured around consumption and competition is leading us to rampant individualism and narcissism. As Víctor Lapuerta points out, “God is dead, Marx is dead, but the ‘I’ is at its best”. This situation has, as we shall see, very negative consequences for social life.
To promote consumerism, the individual is made to believe that there are no limits to his desires and whims, that everything is little for him. It is that of “I deserve it” and to consume compulsively.
But the functioning of a society requires collaboration, effort, duties of the citizens with the group, feeling of guilt when we have acted in a harmful way with our community. Anyone brings up that topic nowadays! Even politics, abducted by the dominant social model, is governed more and more by the rules of marketing: the citizen is sold a product in which everything is benefits and advantages. Although just by scratching a little anyone can see that marketing is increasingly predominating, with all that it entails in the loss of credibility. And then we complain about the disaffection of the citizens!
A simple and clear example of the relevance of this consumerist model is the data that shows the great increase in the use of prostitution, especially among young people, in a society in which sexual freedom has fewer and fewer limits. But, why be aware of the relationship with the other person, always complex, to find the moment in which to have sexual relations. Why have to wait? . Ugh, that’s very heavy. You pay period. That on the other side there is a person living a situation, at least complicated, who can care. I want it now, period!
In the education of children, one of the facets in which the values of society are most clearly seen, it is enough to remember that anecdote told so many times: the boy who runs over an old woman and when the lady lying on the ground complains about the pain, the mother scolds her: ma’am, that’s all right. The boy has already apologized. He doesn’t traumatize her with his moans.
Talking about gratitude, homework, feelings of guilt in the face of mistakes and failures today is almost taboo. The citizen is made to believe that his individual rights are like chewing gum: it can be inflated and stretched endlessly, until it reaches the neighbor’s nose. If it bothers you: there he. I am in my right. And if the bubble of gum bursts in the face of the other: at the most an apology and that it endures. Not having been there disturbing my right to blow bubbles with my gum! (where I put gum I can put car, bike, dog…)
From a mental health perspective, the situation is of course the same. The subject is made to believe that he does not have any problem, nor that his symptoms have anything to do with what is happening to him, with his relationships, with how his life is going: the problem is with the “brain” that has damaged. Logically, following the consumerism model, there is a tendency to be given the corresponding dose of what is assigned to it and the matter is settled.
Obviously, it is good that in our society individual rights are valued and respected, but when these rights are exercised without limits, it enters the field of narcissism, a great problem in our world today. Soon, as we continue like this, a new application will have to be added to all the technology we carry: ego inhibitors!