The Chaos Of Consumption

In 199o, Julia Roberts, then a little-known actress, played the role of 'Vivian', a lady-of-the-night, opposite Richard Gere's wealthy, business magnate, Edward. in the rom-com classic, Pretty Woman.

The story sees Gere's businessman recruit Roberts' Vivian as a companion to accompany him to various professional functions for a week as his partner.

In one of the most memorable and famous scenes, Vivian is tasked with purchasing suitable outfits for the upcoming week. Still dressed in her usual 'work' attire, Vivian is belittled and embarrassed by the retail staff.

She looks at a dress and asks the price. A sales rep snootily informs her that it is very, expensive. Vivian argues that she can afford the dress, but the sales rep, emboldened by her similarly haughty colleague, asks her to leave as they have nothing she can purchase. A crestfallen Vivian leaves the store.

This scene came to mind as I thought about writing this article. I have been enjoying Korean dramas lately, whilst also listening to David Olusoga's book Black and British which documents the black experience and connection to the British Empire.

Aside from the personal media input, there is also my forty years of experience dealing with the general public that informs much of this piece. That and observations of generational changes.

Korean dramas are interesting to me because of their notion of honorifics and social conventions. Similarly in Philippine telesyres, where elders are shown respect and deference, Korean dramas take social standing to another level.

In the West, such things are relics of the past. In less than two generations, the concept of respect being shown to one's elders, through deferential acknowledgement, has been all but eradicated.

Stratas of separation in society have always and will always exist, but the respect of age and wisdom is no longer considered a factor. Whether racial, financial, religious or some other myriad factor, humans will find ways to divide themselves. Humans need division.

The vast majority of us are somewhere in the middle class. In the Western world where even those struggling in society own a mini-computer in the form of a mobile phone, no one considers themselves lower-class.

However, those of restrictive financial standing, aspire to the middle class. People within the middle class strive to get to the upper echelon of the middle. In the upper echelons of the middle class - an upper middle class - there is only wealth to separate them. There is no getting into the upper classes.

One has to be born into the upper class. Like knowing, befriending or marrying a famous person does not make one famous, the same applies to being part of the upper classes.

As in any society, there is a hierarchy, regardless of how it is viewed. Remote tribes on the African continent, indigenous groups in Central America, and even urban street gangs have a hierarchy, and as such, an honorific system.

In the English-speaking world, amongst the majority of the middle classes, honorifics are rarely used or respected. In fact, as someone who has routinely, over the years, had to ask for a person's preferred prefix, many are confused by the notion of anything beyond Mr., Mrs or Ms.

As a child of the sixties and seventies, born into a Caribbean, working-class, household, and growing up around many such families, respect and acknowledgement of one's elders was a given.

Amongst the working classes, black or white, close family friends would be generally addressed with honorific titles; uncle, auntie, cousin, even if they were not related by blood or thorough marriage.

Such titles were not bestowed on everyone. There would have to be a real closeness and affinity between the families or a close confidant of a parental figure. Other adults would be addressed as mister, ms or sir.

Many decades removed from a time of respect for one's elders, it strikes me that this lax attitude toward society's elders is a societal norm embraced increasingly by every generation post-baby boomers.

Even before the navel-gazing, 'look at me' days of social media, every generation after the baby boomers has tried to escape the responsibilities of being an adult.

The tenets of adulthood used to be clear. After one's teenage years, if not embarking on further education or an apprenticeship, you would look for a job and, if you made the right choice, and picked a stable company, hopefully, get promoted and rewarded for years of service.

Then, if you were one to follow a conventional path, you would 'settle down', try to purchase a home, start a family, save a bit perhaps, and socialise at the weekends; simple, conservative things.

A maverick might embark on travel in a time before entrepreneur, Freddy Laker, introduced the concept of low-cost, no-frills air travel, bringing affordable, air travel to the masses. But even most of those intrepid individuals would eventually succumb to convention.

That conventional life included social strata. Inverse to the sport of boxing, where fighters tend to fight below their natural weight, people try to move up. Some will proudly revel in their 'working-class' status, intimating that they would not like to be viewed as of a higher level.

Some within the working classes would even take offence at being considered bourgeois or uppity, their urban roots being called into question. A person's status matters. Especially when they accept their station.

In the age of social media, reality television and a twenty-four, seven voracious media, status has become something else, beyond the confines of class. Being seen and heard is a right but a democracy needs rules.

Here in the West, the ever-vocal, left-leaning, have bullied the masses into accepting all manner of behaviours and life choices without feeling any regret. Shame, some would have you believe, is a form of bullying.

Less than a decade ago, here in the UK, one of the popular tabloids ended the use of topless, female models on page three of their newspaper, after years of feminist campaigning.

Fast forward to the present and an 'influencer' - a blanket term that seems to describe an ever-increasing section of a generation who have no desire to work - is boasting, with no trace of shame or regret, about being penetrated by over one hundred men in a day.

The feat itself is hardly remarkable and, some might think it unbelievable but the young woman decided to film the event for...posterity? Worse still, her story, in modern times, is not shocking.

The internet throws up similar stories weekly, if not daily, from would-be 'influencers/content creators' capturing some outlandish act or feat for our entertainment. Whether there is an audience for such antics matters little to a section of this generation infected with rampant narcissism.

The intangibles of upbringing, proper ways of speaking, dressing and presenting oneself in the world, characteristics which used to denote a persona, are increasingly becoming diluted as qualities to aspire to.

All that separates people in modern times is what they earn, what they can buy, how they can flex on the 'Gram'. Money has become a god, even if one is not particularly religious.

Of course, we all appreciate that money, some sort of bartering/monetary system is necessary in society, and that a person's ability to utilise it competently is admirable, it should not be one's entire personality.

The Pandora's box, that is social media, is fully open and barring an unprecedented global disaster, here to stay. Something that started as a way to keep track of distant family or to get in touch with old friends, bringing people together, has become a barrage of advertising and posturing oneupmanship.

A tool created for connection has created loneliness and individualism. it has created an egalitarian sense of failure by comparison. This loneliness is magnified by present-day society's want of rights without rules, freedom without sacrifice.

Social strata, titles and honorifics show respect for other's lives and backgrounds. They also differentiate formal and informal situations. Not everyone is a 'mate' or 'bruv'. It structures one's interactions and structured conversations need thought.

Is it possible to have such social convention ever again? Probably not. Unfortunately, history has shown that a society needs to fall before it can rebuild, repair and rejuvenate. Humans, by their nature, think they are in the right until life shows them they are wrong.

All actions have consequences. The consequence of our lackadaisical, everyman-for-himself, and by himself, society is a chaos of consumption without connection.