We are looking to brands for poetry and for spirituality

“We are looking to brands for poetry and for spirituality, because we’re not getting those things from our communities or from each other.” Thus speaks Naomi Klein, a prophet of the modern age, unveiling the poverty hidden beneath our abundance. Her words carry a bitter irony: that in a time of plenty, when we are surrounded by goods and messages, we starve for meaning, and so we mistake the slogans of corporations for hymns, their logos for icons, their advertisements for parables.

The meaning of this saying lies in the dislocation of the human heart. Poetry once sprang from the tongues of prophets, bards, and elders; spirituality was once nourished by rituals, festivals, and shared silence in sacred spaces. But as community life weakened and people grew isolated, a void opened. Into this emptiness stepped the great machinery of brands, which clothed their products not merely in utility but in myth. They promised transcendence in a sneaker, identity in a beverage, belonging in a phone. What was once given by family, neighbor, and temple is now sold at a price.

The origin of Klein’s warning is the culture of late capitalism, where every aspect of life is commodified. She observed that people no longer buy objects simply for their use, but for the stories woven around them. A shoe becomes a symbol of rebellion, a car becomes a symbol of freedom, a brand becomes a tribe. This is not accidental; corporations deliberately craft messages that mimic poetry and spirituality, for they know the hunger in human hearts. But these substitutes are hollow, for they are not rooted in genuine connection, but in profit.

Consider the story of ancient Rome, where bread and circuses were given to the masses to distract them from the loss of civic virtue. The gladiatorial games, dressed in spectacle and ritual, became a counterfeit spirituality, feeding the eye but not the soul. Likewise, in our age, the glow of a logo or the rhythm of a commercial jingle may momentarily lift the spirit, but it does not nourish it. True poetry arises from human connection; true spirituality arises from shared longing for the eternal. Brands offer only imitations, leaving the hunger unfulfilled.

The lesson here is clear: if we find ourselves turning to brands for meaning, it is because our communities have grown silent. This is a call to rebuild, to once again share stories around the table, to sing together, to create rituals of belonging that do not depend on consumption. Without this, we remain vulnerable to manipulation, mistaking the voice of the marketplace for the voice of the sacred. The emptiness we feel is not a personal failing but a collective wound—and it can only be healed in community.

Practically, this means we must cultivate spaces where genuine poetry and spirituality flourish. Read poems aloud with friends, create art together, revive traditions, or invent new ones that celebrate life beyond consumption. Seek relationships that remind you of your worth apart from what you purchase. Support local voices, local music, local rituals that give meaning without selling it. In doing this, we reclaim what has been stolen by brands and restore it to the human circle where it belongs.

Thus the teaching endures: the human spirit cannot live on products alone. If denied true poetry and true spirituality, it will search for them even in the empty promises of advertisements. Naomi Klein warns us of this danger, but also points to the cure: to find again in one another the sources of beauty, truth, and meaning. Let us then turn not to brands, but to each other—to the shared work of rebuilding community, so that no one must mistake a logo for a prayer or a slogan for a song.