The UK's Chief Rabbi has launched a bitter attack on the late Apple founder, Steve Jobs, accusing him of helping to create a selfish consumer culture that can only bring unhappiness.
Lord Sacks singled out Steve Jobs for creating the iPad, which he likened to the tablets of stone bearing the Ten Commandments.
"It's all I, I, I nowadays," he said.
“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.”
“What does a consumer ethic do? It makes you aware all the time of the things you don’t have instead of thanking God for all the things you do have."
Quite why Lord Sacks singled out Steve Jobs, we don't know. Although it did provide him with the "I, I, I" pun. Which is quite clever.“Therefore the answer to the consumer society is the world of faith, which the Jews call the world of Shabbat, where you can’t shop and you can’t spend and you spend your time with things that matter, with family.“Unless we get back to these values we will succeed in making our children and grandchildren ever unhappier.”
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