Homo Consumens – consuming man, man who exists entirely to fuel the economy and whose ultimate end and purpose in life in shopping – is more “homo” than consumens.

A hundred years ago G. K. Chesterton was busy pointing out that eugenics and contraception were tools of our capitalist masters, intended to create more malleable and affordable employees, as the most useful workers were young, childless and therefore cheaper.  Killing the old and keeping the young from raising more young (and demanding more raises) was therefore sound policy, at least from the point of view of the bottom line.

Today Patrick J. Deneen points out not only why corporations like Anheuser Busch have been sponsoring “Gay Pride” parades for a few decades now, but also why the bizarre affiliation of the Left and Corporations has sprung up to support “gay marriage”.  We know why the Left likes “gay marriage”, but why would capitalists support it?  Aren’t capitalists usually Republicans and don’t Republicans usually resist “gay marriage”?  Deneen answers (my emphasis) …

Corporations … defend gay marriage for the same reason (and using the same tactics) they seek to undermine unions, environmental regulations, and tax policy—most obviously short-term gain, but more deeply, a society that needs to be remade in such a way that short-term gain seems the only game left in town: a thoroughly mobile society devoted to personal satisfaction, composed of individuals whose relationships are fungible and who have no strong relationship to place, history, or the generations stretching between the past and the future.

He’s describing the “metrosexual”, the Man with the Hollow Chest, who feels no passion for his children, for he doesn’t have any children; who feels no passion for his wife, for he has no wife; who feels no passion  for his lovers, for his genital gymnastics have nothing to do with “love”.  These New Eunuchs are the perfect citizens of the monolith that is the Corporate State.  Their narcissistic needs are met with things they can buy, and as long as they’re kept relatively affluent and distracted, they’ll put up with anything their masters command of them – though the command is couched in the form of a “pitch” that they “buy”.  These engineered humanoids will be the last sorts of souls to stage a revolt.

Deneen sums it up …

… you are an individual, a consumer, and there should be no limitation on your pursuit of personal satisfaction, including obstacles in nature (biological or environmental) or morality (norms regarding sex or discouragements to greed). The ecology for both modern economics and modern marriage is one of untethered consumptive individualism.