Nothing illuminates the dilemma facing Western civilization like a walk down Shattuck Street in Berkeley, California’s Gourmet Ghetto…
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This area, so-named because of its satellite of restaurants orbiting the world renowned Chez Panisse (a favorite haunt of Bill Clinton and the Dalai Lama), is in every respect a desirable place to shop. On one corner alluring smells of fresh ingredients waft from a worker owned and co-operatively run pizzeria; on the other, a clothing store selling natural fiber garments displays earth-friendly outfits. At first glance, this busy commercial area resists the norms of mainstream consumer culture because the stores sell themselves as being “green”: they are locally owned, use organic ingredients, compost their waste and are concerned with the health of our environment.
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And yet, I believe it is in Berkeley, in one of the nation’s most desirable neighborhoods to live, in a city metonymic with its historical counter-culture, that we see the future of consumer capitalism realized: the green movement denuded of its substance, its essence defiled and its rebellious spirit co-opted by the worship of Mammon.  Nowhere else have I been so effectively called to consume; more often than not, I find myself at the cash register with my wallet out, wondering why I am spending so much money when all I desired was a stroll.
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I haven’t lived in Berkeley for long, and perhaps that is why it exerts such a compelling force on my normally suppressed consumer self. Before Berkeley, my wife and I lived in Binghamton, New York: a community at the other extreme geographically, economically and, I had always assumed, ideologically as well.
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Binghamton is a pit stop forgotten by the march of green progress. A formerly prospering city of a 100,000 near the central-southern border of New York, Binghamton now has half the population, few jobs and a defeatist mentality. It is a city whose decline mirrors that of our culture: exhausted, without radical ideas for its own revival, it languishes in despair. There is neither Chez Panisse nor a worker owned pizzeria, only the fast food brands McDonald’s, Wendy’s and KFC have survived the economic collapse. The streets are lined with defunct businesses and, looking into the eyes of the poor one notices as a sense of hopelessness about them. Living in this cultural environment, it came as only a mild surprise when a gunman killed fourteen strangers at the American Civic Association in April of 2009.  If Berkeley represents the capitalist-utopian vision of our future, Binghamton represents the dystopic other: a consumer wasteland. The threat Binghamton represents assures us that Berkeley’s green-washed capitalism is the desirable alternative.
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But, for all the negative things that can be said about Binghamton, there is one unintended consequence of its decline that I, now living in Berkeley, sorely miss: with few stores and a destitute local population, there is nothing enticing to buy. And this lack of desirable products is what reveals the decision between Berkeley and Binghamton to be a dilemma, a choice between two entirely unsavory options. In Binghamton I never felt the need to buy anything beyond the bare necessities of food, shelter and heat because I was immersed in a dead culture devoid of interest. On the other hand, now in Berkeley I am surrounded by a vibrant culture, but am also under a constant assault from retailers who have turned my principles of environmentalism into consumable purchases. And so in Binghamton, while I lived a life that tread gently on the planet as a result of my enforced frugality, in Berkeley my ecological footprint is far greater because the products are appealing and my will to resist ideological allies is weaker.
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The choice between Binghamton and Berkeley is not a choice at all. These two cities instead serve to justify each other’s existence without fundamentally challenging the consumerist paradigm. Binghamton moans that poverty is shameful and the lack of stores a tragedy, while Berkeley proclaims giddy consumption can be guilt-free as long as it is painted green. But neither of these narratives is accurate. Instead, while poverty can bring us closer to experiencing the mystery of existence, green consumption will remain a distraction from authentic living.
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Now that I have chosen to live in Berkeley, the dilemma I face on a daily basis is how to resist the appropriation of my anti-consumer ideals in an age when a desperate capitalism cloaks itself in anti-capitalist garbs.  If the only reason I refused consumerism in Binghamton is because the products did not appeal to my cultural sensibilities, then I ought to be happy in Berkeley where they do.  But my critique of consumerism goes deeper than a preference for organic over pesticidal or hemp over polyester. I resist consumption not because I do not like the products on sale but because I want a society whose fundamental paradigm is simplicity, sustenance and the pursuit of cultural enlightenment.
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Stepping into a store recasts each of us from humans into consumers. And as consumers, whether buying free trade or sweatshop, the end result is always the same: the perpetuation of an empty, rationalized culture devoid of any deeper, spiritual meaning. Consumption – the constant repetition of buying, disposing, and buying again – is a ritual in which we sacrifice the earth and ourselves on the altar of materialism. While we scoff at any tradition or religion that suggests a higher purpose in life, we enact the most ridiculous game of all: a frenetic wastefulness that turns all of existence into objects awaiting the trashcan. But what is even worse than the consumer rat race is the cynicism that allows our culture to mock anti-consumerism until it can be co-opted, rebranded and sold.
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I gather courage from the realization that the co-optation of anti-consumerism is the death rattle of Western civilization. It is the final stage of a culture in decline, a culture no longer able to shake itself awake from the apocalyptic nightmares that haunt it. We all see the imminent environmental consequences of our actions and we are already beginning to experience the long foretold result of our wasteful lifestyle – but that does nothing to stop the catastrophic suffocation that awaits us. The logic of consumerism has got us by the throat. The only way out, as I see it, is to hold our breath.
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We are imprisoned by our diseased culture. And like all prisoners, whether the walls are made of concrete or of ideas, we have been given a choice: complicity or death. Another dilemma again, but this time the answer seems clearer. We’ve tried the dance of complicity and know where that leads: environmental collapse and species extinction. If complicity is death then to escape the dilemma we must refuse to accept the options given. We must try instead the game of refusal.
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I have heard that some valiant prisoners, when confined to a cell with impenetrable walls, attempt an impossible escape. Sitting quietly and gathering their strength, these rebels suppress their most basic human function by holding their breath until death.  But inevitably just before dying, they lose consciousness and in that induced sleep begin again to breathe. What is authentic within them prevents their death, resuscitating them at the edge of life.  And while it may seem that the prisoner would awake in disappointment, I believe that they see the world with fresh eyes and know the strength of their will to live is stronger than the walls that surround them.
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I have often felt, when walking on Shattuck amidst the delicious odors of organic pizza, that our human society must do the same as those prisoners of conscience. We must refuse what capitalism claims to be most essential to our identities, starve the hungriest parts of our consumer culture and wait for the moment when unconsciousness comes. Only then, through an active refusal to buy anything inessential to mere being, will our culture be resuscitated by what is authentic in our humanity. At the brink of death, we will awaken to cultural rebirth.