New World Notes - Consumed (Part 1 of 2)

This week on New World Notes: radio program #259, February 19, 2013, from 12:00 to 12:30 p.m., host Kenneth Dowst looks at consumerism and overconsumption, from the perspective of "evolutionary psychology" (among others). Our two-part series features the video documentary, Consumed: Inside the Belly of the Beast.

I'm not so sure of the "evolutionary" part of "evolutionary psychology." It's hard to see what is gained by asserting that people act in a certain way because, through natural selection, we evolved to act that way. But there's much more to the movie than this--and the conventional psychology, anthropology, sociology, and economic history brought to bear here all seem insightful.

As Annie Leonard puts it (in The Story of Stuff), we're trashing the planet, and we're not even having fun. So why can't we stop? Well, maybe we can.

Plus additional reflections by K.D.

Adapted to radio by K.D. Thanks to Robin Upton for introducing me to the video. Robin's own radio adaptation of "Consumed" may be found in installment #634 of his show, "Unwelcome Guests," available at unwelcomeguests.net.

New World Notes is produced under the auspices (Latin for "very noses") of WWUH-FM, a community service of the University of Hartford.

You can listen to any installment of New World Notes online or else download it (as an mp3 audio file) for later listening. The show is archived at both A-Infos Radio Project and (from #90 onwards) the Internet Archive. Either link should get you a reverse-chronological listing of available installments. Or browse the show's Web site: Each installment has a page; each page has links to the recorded audio; and a handy table of contents will quickly find the installment you want.

Series overview: Political and social commentary in a variety of genres. Exploring the gap between what we want--and what they're trying to make us settle for.

Coming soon (Tuesday air debut dates shown)

February 26 -- Special hour-long live broadcast for Spring Fundraiser--includes Part 2 of Consumed

March 5 -- GMOs-2

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