Today we are interviewing Upon studying Barber’s themes a bit more this weekend, I realized that much of what he talks about is featured on this blog regularly as well. But whereas the themes might be similar we are not always posing the same questions or looking at it from the same perspective.
Only last Friday Stefan posed the question how we could empower the poor and how we could move to the bottom of the pyramid. In Barber’s opinion, getting connected is the least of their problems: “The world teems with elemental wants and is peopled by billions who are needy. They do not need iPods, but they do need potable water, not colas but inexpensive medicines, not MTV but their ABCs. They need mortgages they can afford, not funny-money easy credit.” But in his view, empowerment of the poor is needed for a solution as well.
Couple of days prior to Stefan’s post we engaged in a big discussion about the ‘schizophrenic society‘. Almost at the same time, Barber published a post on his blog about the need for multiple perspectives in a democratic society and how we might be trying not to have those kaleidoscope of views out of fear for the undemocratic. I agree with his conclusion there.
And in between Rob published a post about the digital generation. A generation that might be ‘doomed’ to go down the path of consumerism in the wake of the generation that preceded it, according to Barber. Or as Barry Scharwtz in a review about Barber’s new book formulates: “McWorld […] has prevailed, that liberty is losing and that the market machine is turning our innocent kids into shallow, egoistic “kidults” right in front of our eyes.”
Yes, it is true that the overload of choices that we have these days might cloud our perspective on things and we choose stuff that we don’t really need. And yes children are exposed to commercial messages younger and younger. But that might actually be a necessity for that generation to deal with the distinction between consumerism and democracy. There is no use in protecting our children for consumerism. It is a reality of our society. And we better show them soon what it is, so they can learn to deal with it in better, more creative and more empowered ways than we might think is possible.
What do you think?
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I think that Barry Schwartz has some good thoughts on the Paradox of choice and how to deal with that. He makes a clear distinction between Satisfiers and Maximizers… A satisfier has an idea and starts looking for satisfaction of that idea… when the need is mathced he is happy. A maximizer has also an idea (to buy new jeans for example) but first wants to do extensive research to know what is out there and to make the best choice between all that is available. It also the same as the difference between TO FIND or TO SEARCH.
So this is not an either or discussion…
I think we need three things:
- Teach children a sense of patience (deferred vs Instant gratification)
- Stimulate creativity… learn them to listen and to think, not just to watch and consume.. let them generate ideas and needs
- Give a good example =)) meaning maximizing is not inherently bad… just know when to maximize and when to be satisfied.
I think this is an interesting discussion… now we have entered the end-of-revolutions, how do we survive the boredom at the penthouse of the Maslow-pyramid (as Susanne Piet decrived it).
To escape from the boredom at the penthouse we just might need an either/or event. As long as everything is in place it might be impossible to escape it. Either way, you’re locked into consuming. And while we are at the end of revolutions it’s a cultural revolution that is needed to change our view from the top. We might think that we are becoming globally aware, but is that really the case?
Capitalism has to reinvent itself and focus on the truly needed, as Barber writes in his book and told us yesterday. In referral to your post of today. It’s the same kind of disruption that is needed in this case. Because everybody in the Western world is trapped in the Innovator’s Dilemma: why walk away from your best consumers? How do you change a maximizer into a satisfycer?
Which makes me wonder where the disruption could come from?