Consumer Consciousness

As an exercise in political influence, crossing the threshhold of consumer consciousness is an important conceptual practice for the majority of otherwise unengaged moral citizens. It requires paying attention; it helps develop a capacity for understanding the causes of unfair conditions.

This understanding can be built on and extended in support of moral sanctions like boycott and civil disobedience. In some, it can provoke scholarship and activism that leads to subverting immoral systems.

While it is only a beginning, it is nevertheless an opportunity to introduce a narrative in opposition to ignoring what is happening in the world–-a means of disturbing passive dismay and cynical realism, a chance to uphold better more exigent standards, a catalyst to educate our capacity for moral judgment.

—Spartacus O’Neal

~ by tbarj on April 27, 2007.