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The dominant marketing practices of the modern age are barely human. istic (Sheth & Sisodia, 2006; Varey, 2010a). It appears that marketing practices are driven towards inciting individual egos to serve their own transient desires while being indifferent to commonly shared and shaped scapes (i.e. domains of life, spheres of collective value crea. tion). In this sense, marketing atomizes egos and snatches them away from their embedded "nurseries "(Daly et al., 1994). Marketing appeals to individuals to maximize their own utilities and maintain indiffer. ence to shared utilities. Considering that shared and common spheres are fundamental to our becoming actualized human beings, we can in fact talk about the tragedy of commons across the whole humanistic spectrum: natural resources, societal relationships, morality, ethics, and generational evolution. All such shared spheres need some kind of input on the part of human beings in order to be kept sound and sustainable. Orthodox mainstream marketing activities exploit these shared "treasures "but fail to replenish them. Moreover, traditional marketing, guided by neo-classical assumptions, constantly erodes these shared spheres of humanity. Misguided assumptions lead to anti. human practices: the deteriorating natural environment affects our bodies; crippled social relationships impair our spirits; whereas our common intergenerational existence (our being), mutated through myopic temporal decisions, has reduced our ability to survive.

DOI: 10.1057/9781137353290_15

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