PowerSwitch

Consumption has become all-consuming in the modern world, says writer Will Self.

I'm suffering from a paradoxical condition. Unlike the wilting heroines and tissue-white heroes of Victorian literature, I'm not dying of consumption, but, on the contrary, if all the authorities are to be believed, it's the only thing keeping me alive. Tuberculosis - or consumption as it was colloquially known - was the great killer infectious disease of the middle and late 19th Century. In an era ignorant of the bacillus, it was believed to be caused by, among other things, an excess of sexual passion. And, echoing this lusty aetiology, consumption was always perceived as "galloping" through its victims as if in a dreadful hurry to get to a meeting with other successful infectious diseases.

The kind of consumption that afflicts me is rather different - or at least so I'm told. For a start, it isn't something that consumes me. On the contrary, it's I who am the consumer, and consumption is what I do. I consume goods - perishable ones like food, drink and energy; more durable ones, such as electronic gadgets and clothing. I consume services as well - transportation and tourism spring to mind, while banking and insurance I don't like to think about quite so much. Even the business of government itself, from its health services to its military interventions are something that I, by virtue of my taxes, can be said to be paying to consume.