Ex. 1: How Acquisition and the Attention Economy Puts You at the Center of the Universe

Sorry for the long title

Photo by Jezael Melgoza on Unsplash

Society systematically trains us to see ourselves as the absolute center of the universe and to affirm our desires, and the failure to acknowledge and resist this demonic force inevitable means that we are affected by it.

In the first entry in this series, where I laid out my basic thesis, I claimed that “Christians, just like everyone else, often assume that the basic structures and systems and practices of our society are neutral, good, or redeemable in their current forms.” Over time I plan to look at several different examples of these structures, systems, and practices that are spiritual undercurrents—forces beneath the forces that we tend to focus on. Forces that more easily shape us because they are undercurrents.

One of the most powerful examples of our society’s will-to-suicide is the way consumerism and the attention economy shape our desires and imagination to believe that we are the center of the universe.