In a book I read in 1950 - Generation of Vipers - Wylie, the author boiled it down to this: “If we want a better world, we will have to become better people.”  Not just Americans, but EVERYONE on the planet will have to change their behavior, as that behavior relates to the Earth.  In the conclusion of Vipers, Wylie wrote, “That’s all I’ve said, of course.  All the Founding Fathers said.  All Christ said.  All there is to say....Balancing the evil, the stupidity, the rapacity and the foolishness of men is the goodness of men.  All the goodness there is reposes in them.  But goods are incidental to goodness: they cannot be identified with goodness; a dominant concern with goods always blights goodness and leads the way back to despair.”

The woes of the world today - the despair - are the direct result of population explosion encountering a monster the size of Mount Everest - man’s foolish quest for more and more goods.  Goods are made from the Earth’s resources and those resources are clearly finite.  Their scarcity is what drives up their price.  Supply and demand produce rapid economic changes.  The current recession is a pulling back from both spending - which drives the economies of the First World - and from access to those resources that provide the materials from which the goods people demand are made.

Many scholars, and here I’m not referring to either liberal scholars or conservative scholars, but men and women who are looking at the Earth’s resources as pure scientists with no hidden agendas, say collectively that man is on the brink of experiencing shortages that he cannot replace.  Meanwhile population continues to grow exponentially.  That there HAS to be a significant slowing down of national economies along with dramatic breakthroughs in alternate fuel technologies, and that life styles of seemingly endless consumption will HAVE to give way to life styles of consumption of necessities, is no longer a choice to be made by politicians serving the interest of business and re-election.  People themselves are going to have to wake up to what is really going on around them and act rationally, or face dire consequences for not doing so.

We know that people with excess money, that is enough money to buy more than they actually need, and who couldn't care less what a gallon of gas sells for, will continue consuming as long as they can afford it.  So, it’s unlikely that the world will become a better place any time soon.  Conditions will have to worsen until everyone gets on the same side of the global survival issues.

Oil, which fuels the world, is getting more and more scarce.  Big Oil is now processing crude shale in Canada.  The demand for oil is forcing Big Oil to find and then have to refine more and more heavy crude, which is more costly to refine than light crude (such as is found in Saudi Arabia and Iraq).  Nations will be forced to set aside environmental concerns and again allow Big Oil to drill along coastlines - especially in America.  They will also drill in the arctic areas conservationist’s have so far been successful in preventing.  In short, when Paris and London are paying US$8 for a gallon of gasoline, America, whose entire economy runs on oil, will continue experiencing rising fuel costs, a steady slowing down of the economy (meaning less and less job formation), and a steady lowering of its standard of living.

The Advertising Industry

In another Wylie book - Sons and Daughters of Mom - he again in his straight shot-to-the-brain style says, “As the earth dies, the responsibility lies not with the present system or any imaginable replacement of that.  To accuse the military-industrial or corporate management of that or of any related dilemma is simple-minded.  THE BLAME RESTS IN WHAT PEOPLE WANT AND GET (capitals mine), including all goods and all users of services everywhere, technical or social.”

After World War 2, the world exploded with goods.  Every conceivable product was made and marketed.  The entire economy of the West was driven by people buying goods and manufacturers pushed these goods on them through advertising.  Once television came on the scene in the 1950s, the world began to be perceived as one big greed pit.  People filled their houses with stuff, then the garage, and now they put their extra stuff in storage bays they have to pay rent on each month (the storage industry is growing quickly everywhere in the Western world).  

Advertisers must sell us stuff we don’t need as well as stuff that won’t last very long, or the whole economy will tank - which it appears to be in the process of doing at this writing (April 2008).  Advertisers have produced the convention of consuming.  Right after the disaster of 9/11 the President of the United States told people to go to the mall and shop.  That wasn’t advise to get any sort of therapy.  That was advice to keep the fake goods-consuming economy moving along.  The message was clear, “Don’t let some national disaster stop you from buying more stuff.”  How fragile is an economy based on people HAVING to buy things they really don’t need, or it tanks?  

The convention of consuming, which advertising produced, is an irrational use of the power of advertising to achieve good behavior, as that behavior affects the limited resources on Earth.  In Part 4, I’ll write more about how advertising can be used to produce rational behavior, as that rational behavior can affect the longevity of Earth and everything now living on it.