May

6

We’re not slaves to consumerism, says Baha’i International Community

Filed Under Baha'i community, Sustainable Development, UN | Leave a Comment

The Baha’i International Community has challenged the belief that human beings are slaves to self interest and consumerism in a new statement issued for the UN Commission on Sustainable Development’s two-week meeting in New York.

The document, entitled Rethinking Prosperity: Forging Alternatives to a Culture of Consumerism, challenges the view that there is an intractable conflict between what people want – which supposedly is to consume more – and what humanity needs.

“The culture of consumerism … has tended to reduce human beings to competitive, insatiable consumers of goods and to objects of manipulation by the market,” it says.

In fact, “the human experience is essentially spiritual in nature: it is rooted in the inner reality – or what some call the ‘soul’ – that we all share in common,” it states.

“The document deals with the issue of consumerism by reflecting on the question of what is human nature,” said Peter Adriance, a member of the Baha’i International Community’s delegation to the Commission. “We must look at who we are and what our purpose in life is.”

“The transition to sustainable consumption and production is one of the great challenges of our times, and to achieve it will require a transformation in both thought and action. The cultural forces at play are powerful and demand re-examination if we are to move forward,” he said.

You can read the statement at http://bic.org/statements-and-reports/bic-statements/10-0503.htm.

You can read more on the Baha’i World News Service site.

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