Existential Anti-Consumerism

Being rooted in philosophy rather than pathology, the existential approach requires a more broad view of human issues, one that goes beyond personalizing problems. In a clinical setting I might start by trying to understand an individual's world, but the goal is always to expand further beyond the individual’s thoughts and feelings and help them connect to a larger whole. If the task is to help them make sense of their experience, it is necessary to capture as many of the elements that make up that experience as possible. For this, you have to illuminate the map of existence, which enlarges a person’s experience. Of course you must be capable of expanding yourself in order to do this–the benefit and challenge of existentialism is that it does not tolerate dogma and does not allow you to rest on your laurels.

It is no small thing to have someone validate your feelings, but it is a feeling beyond relief to realize your experience, however troublesome, is not yours alone. As Baldwin would say, it is not your private property, or maybe it is, but it also belongs to the world.

Taking full ownership of one’s life matters in this tradition, the accumulation of experience, the expression of authenticity, both of which supersede the hoarding of material objects.

The existential approach challenges you to reconsider what you really own, and more broadly, if ownership is really that desirable. Taking full ownership of one’s life matters in this tradition, the accumulation of experience, the expression of authenticity, both of which supersede the hoarding of material objects. It is not anti-consumption, and it is not an ascetic philosophy, but it is anti-consumerism.

Consumption is an activity that amounts to an experience. Mindfulness about one’s choices in this domain is aligned with the overall goals of existentialism, one of which is the discovery of meaning that is capable of supporting one’s life and providing some degree of happiness.