How a Consumer Thinks

I've said a lot this year about the way of a creator, but the creator has a binary opposite, and that is a consumer. There is also a middle ground, and that is a critic. A consumer wakes from their ways and becomes a critic, and when the critic gets through their fearful stage they can become a creator.

I heard something today and it reminded me of the way a consumer thinks. It's something the President said to the President of China, and it's something he has said to the Republicans.

"Do not view everything through the lens of rivalry."

Rivalry is consumer thought. We are taught to be for or against something rather than to understand an issue from multiple perspectives. We are taught there are only two sides to an issue. This is of course absurd. We think this way for one reason, and that is because it creates the most conflict and so sells the most advertising.

Talk show hosts cannot afford to be objective. They must make people angry. They must take sides. They must make you believe that something that belongs to you is being taken away. That's the fastest way into your pocketbook. You will pay them to defend you from an enemy that may or may not exist. They can't afford to be objective. They want your money so they have to make you afraid. They must oppose a certain and named enemy, and that enemy must be evil. If they don't do this, nobody will listen and they won't make money. We are drawn to sensationalism.

Pastors and church leaders who are well known often do the same thing. Not all of them, but many. If you aren't a Calvinist, you are evil. If you are emerging, you are evil. Only a fool would believe such a thing. But these pastors are not fools. They don't even believe it themselves. They just get fools to believe it and those fools buy their books and watch their sensational YouTube videos. We've all been had. The truth is not so black and white. Consumers are tricked into thinking the way they think but we musn't be consumers.

Critics see the difference.

Creators create a new and better reality.

How a Consumer Thinks is a post from: Donald Miller's Blog