Socialized American Materialism

In light of a particularly interesting conversation that sprung up in my Global Eco-politics class this afternoon, I want to share some thoughts about our society, the norms we have acquired through socialization, and the implications of these norms.  I'm also going to use this opportunity to plug Mike Beevers' GVPT 306 class again.  Rarely have I been in a class that encourages the level of thoughtful debate, "outside the box" thinking, and genuinely interesting material that Mike's class seems to combine so well.  Anyway, take GVPT 306 if you can find a gap in your schedule for it, and if you don't like it you can tell Mike to blame me personally, hah. 

I'm going to use the semi-comedic example of my cell phone to illustrate some of my thoughts here.  For the people who know me, my cell phone is an occassional source of teasing.  While it may not resemble Zack Morris' gigantic black brick of a phone (for those of you who are still "Saved by the Bell" junkies), it is at the very least slightly outdated, and it features an awkward looking, oversized bugeye speaker inconveniently located on the front.  Needless to say, I've been toying around with the idea of getting a new cell phone for quite some time.  Unfortunately, my luck with cell phones isn't the best...I've destroyed several phones in several interesting ways, so maybe this adds to my procrastination with getting a new one. 

Okay, so what's the point of this?  Today in class we spoke a lot about the major influences that cause us to want to buy tons of new stuff all the time.  Within the context of my cell phone example, I found myself thinking a lot about the forces that make me want to go out and buy a new one.  Is it because my phone is no longer able to serve its purpose?  Most likely not.  Could it be more of a social pressure to appear up-to-date with technology and new consumer innovations?  Maybe.  Is it some learned behavior that we have internalized due to the materialism of American society?   Think about it...we are encouraged to buy, buy, buy every day in so many different ways.  In America today it almost seems like  excessive consumption is part of our civic duty.  Current research estimates that the average American sees about 2,000 advertisements each day.  Traditionally, expensive cars, big houses, and nice things are associated with success here in the U.S.  What about living peacefully, being kind, and serving others?  Do these things really factor into how we have come to define a successful lifetime?

In the way our consumerist society works today we can see so many examples of "planned obsolescence."  This is the process by which corporations create "new" products that emerge to replace "old" ones.  For example, how many people do you see walking around campus with the old style iPod's anymore?  Most people have nano's or newer models.  In the context of sustainability, the practice of buying these "new" things to replace "old" ones is very counter-productive.  Its very common for us to just throw out or replace things that we consider to be old and out-dated even when they may have tons of productive life left in them.  I think we need to seriously change our perspective on materialism, a change that certainly isn't easy.  Food for thought: the average ecological footprint (that is, a measure of an individual's consumption represented in hectares of land) of someone living in America is 24, whereas that of a person living in Bangladesh is only 0.6.  Obviously, there are lots of reasons behind this, but I'm betting that American materialism has quite a bit to do with it.

In conclusion, I came to the realization today that I do not, in fact, need a new cell phone.  I'm content with the fact that I can make calls and do some texting...that's good enough for me.  I'm going to wear this one out until it finds itself in a pool, gets a 45 pound weight dropped on it, or gets run over (add in here any number of additional ways I have destroyed my phones).

Think about it....

Peace, 

Pat 

Comments

[toidi]

super

[Jen]

Pat, i love what you have to say...and this is precisely why i still rock my 92 honda civic hatchback