Lord Sacks, the Chief Rabbi in the UK, has blamed Apple for creating an egocentric and selfish society, reports the The Daily Telegraph. It’s a pretty extreme statement, especially as he seems to single out Apple and Steve Jobs.
“The consumer society was laid down by the late Steve Jobs coming down the mountain with two tablets, iPad one and iPad two, and the result is that we now have a culture of iPod, iPhone, iTune, i, i, i. When you’re an individualist, egocentric culture and you only care about ‘i’, you don’t do terribly well.”
It’s anti-consumerism, but what I don’t understand is why he has singled out Apple. Surely all companies are the same. Unless he’s a PC user, it makes absolutely no sense. Everybody has persuasive advertising nowadays, and everybody releases new products every five seconds. He then went on about how the iPhone 4S and the consumer society causes unhappiness.
“If in a consumer society, through all the advertising and subtly seductive approaches to it, you’ve got an iPhone but you haven’t got a fourth generation one, the consumer society is in fact the most efficient mechanism ever devised for the creation and distribution of unhappiness.”
However a statement was later released by the Office of the Chief Rabbi clarifying the comments:
“The Chief Rabbi meant no criticism of either Steve Jobs personally or the contribution Apple has made to the development of technology in the 21st century. He admires both and indeed uses an iPhone and an iPad on daily basis. The Chief Rabbi was simply pointing out the potential dangers of consumerism when taken too far.”
