One of the symbolically significant events of 2008 was the death of a Wal-Mart worker on so-called Black Friday, the first day of super-sales after America's Thanksgiving holiday and the beginning of the shopping marathon known as the Christmas season. The hapless employee of the Valley Stream, NY, mega-store died from being trampled by a mob of bargain hunters surging through the doors at the morning opening. The man's tragic death was reminiscent of the carnage that occurs from stampeding masses of Moslems at Mecca or panicking hoards of worshippers at Indian temples. But this was in America, not in the chaotic tumult of lesser places.

The significance of this Wal-Mart event is brilliantly explained in a chilling essay, Triviality Trumps Truth, by John E. Shumaker (The Vancouver Sun, Dec. 24/08). His scathing comments should elicit a wince of discomfort in anyone who recognizes themselves as a devoted member of the consumer culture.

Shumaker's opening paragraph, with its horse racing metaphor, is a withering castigation of the attributes propagated by our modern materialistic age. "Triviality leads," he writes, "followed closely by frivolity, superficiality and mindless distraction. Vanity looks great, while profundity is bringing up the rear. Pettiness is powering ahead, along with passivity and indifference. Curiosity lost interest, wisdom was scratched, and critical thought had to be put down. Ego is running wild. Attention span continues to shorten and survival is a long shot."

Shumaker wonders what has become of us considering that the foremost humanistic thinkers of 50 years ago – Erich Fromm, Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow – all anticipated a model age of self-actualized people growing in depth and wisdom, "a new social order distinguished by enlightened living". Instead, Shumaker laments, we have become a "society of blinkered narcissists and hypnogogic materialists".

In such a society, he writes, "Fashion statements become a form of literacy, brand names father pride, and celebrity drivel becomes compelling." Even God, he notes, "has been gelded into a sort of celestial lap dog who fetches our wishes for this world success. Nothing is so great that it can't be reconceived and rephrased in order to render it insubstantial, non-threatening, or, best of all, entertaining."

Perhaps such a collective orgy of platitudinous self-indulgence would be of no consequence, Shumaker suggests, except that our "consumer culture has become a fine-tuned instrument for resisting upward growth, and keeping people shallow and dehumanized. Materialism continues to gain ground, even in the face of impending eco-apocalypse."

This threatening shadow of eco-apocalypse brings us to" the most pressing question of our age," Shumaker reminds us. "Can a highly trivialized culture, marooned between fact and fiction, and dizzy with distractions and denial, elevate its values and priorities in order to respond effectively to the multiple planetary emergencies looming today?"

His question begins to explain the sense of impending doom that is now appearing in so much of our public thinking and writing. If thoughtful people – scientists, environmentalists, philosophers, futurists, spiritual leaders and Nobel laureates – are weighing the ecological dangers we face against the ability of a mesmerized consumer society to effect the profound changes needed for our collective survival, then this explains the heightened sense of foreboding. The challenges themselves are enormous. But they appear insurmountable if they are to be addressed by a distracted mass of materialists living in the twilight limbo of ephemeral fashions, fads, brands and image. If the problems we face are substantial then the solutions must be implemented by people who are themselves solid, grounded and realistic.

But the powerful world of manufacturing, merchandising and marketing seems to be tugging in the opposite direction ‹ almost like a death wish. "When 'citizens' became 'customers'," Shumaker writes, "political life became an exercise in keeping the customer happy. The marketing-style democracies we have today have never been tested with planetary issues such as global warming and climate change, demanding radical and unsettling solutions. In the race against the clock, politicians appear almost comical as they try not to disturb the trivial pursuits propping up our dangerously obsolete socio-economic system."

The incongruity between the enormous ecological challenges facing us and the counterproductive perversity of a consumer society is sobering. In alluding to the mission statement of the World Commission on Global Consciousness and Spirituality (globalspirit.org), Shumaker reminds us that "the fate of humankind and the ecosystem lies in our ability over the next couple of decades to revise our cultural blueprints in order to foster global consciousness and create new and more 'mindful' political and economic models."

This urgent need for a shift in consciousness from vacuous materialism to a global ecological awareness is now the implicit message coming from millions of thoughtful people and literally thousands of diverse movements and organizations around the planet. The transformation has started. To fully blossom, however, it awaits politicians who are bold and visionary leaders – they will eventually follow where we lead. Until then, more of us will have to enlarge our awareness. Somehow we all need to understand that the mob stampede of mindless materialism is killing far more than just a hapless Wal-Mart employee.