As the old quip puts it, “We spend money we don’t have to buy things we don’t need based on advertising we don’t believe to please people we don’t even like.”
Author Juliet B. Schor describes the problem in terms of today’s consumer society. She locates the problem in what she calls the process of consumption: see, want, borrow, and buy. Our inner desires are prompted by exposure to a plethora of things. Seeing leads to wanting, as our inner desires spur us to action. And often we do not wait until we have the money we need before we purchase something. We simply charge it. Then, after having bought something—often on credit—we are driven to make more money to cover what we have already purchased, all the time driven toward more possessions by the process of consumption. [Juliet B. Schor, The Overspent American (New York: Basic Books, 1998), 68-74.]
<idle musings>
And we wonder why the economy collapsed? This, my friends, is the ultimate end of the person wrapped up in him/herself. Consumption can never fill the hole in the soul.
</idle musings>
1 comment:
Well, that's one reason why I've questioned (a) why people are so concerned about the economic downturn and (b) why we are so panicked to bail out so many companies. Maybe we need a corrective to consumerism-on-steroids. Maybe going back to the "normal" consumeristic frenzy of our disposable society might actually be a bad idea.
The next generation might not have to worry so much about it, though, b/c they might not have much of an economy to worry about!
Post a Comment