Soma, a pharmaceutical drug that features in Aldous Huxley’s novel A Brave New World, was used to keep the society complacent and happy, there are parallels between the way Soma is used in the book and consumerism in our reality. “that second dose of soma had raised a quite impenetrable wall between the actual universe and their minds.”, oftentimes people in reality are focused on material possession and the believe this will make them happy, it often provides a temporary happiness much similar to that of Soma, the idea that buying something will make you happy is perpetuated to us by the constant stream adverts.
“Trethewey (2001) argues that, “Such [entrepreneurial] identities are performed via discourses that emphasize consumerism, personal responsibility, and accomplishment for professional success,” (quoted in Gill and Ganesh 2007, 273). Therefore, such individuals perform identity through the consumption of products and measure success on a scale of material goods.”, the facade of individualism provided to us is tied to consumerism, the idea that if we buy something it will make us feel something is constantly drilled into us, a distraction from real human fulfilment.
Huxley, A, 1928, A Brave New World
Fernandez, C., 2008. Capitalism, consumerism, and individualism: Investigating the rhetoric of The secret.