Monday, May 4, 2009
Consumerism
Consumerism is a very big problem with today's society. Society makes people think that they more they have the happier they will be. So, people go out and by all the new and most expensive things so people will think higher of them. This is not always true. There are some people who see these people who strive to get the biggest and best of everything as greedy and selfish. I completely agree. People who strive to always have the biggest and the best really cannot be that happy. Maybe they have all this stuff and money, but what did they have to do to get it all? Who or what did they have to hurt in order to get where they are? I understand people wanting nice things sometimes, but there needs to be control to it. Without control, a life and society of consumerism occurs. This consumerism causes a lot of damage to the environment and animals. If companies always need to produce more, they are going to need bigger factories. If they need bigger factories, they are going to have to build one and this will probably where many animals live because that is the only place where there are not buildings already. Consumerism is also causing the demise of many animals because of their use in clothes, decorations, and food. Many animals have just been hunted because of the fact that parts of them could be used as a luxury item like rhinos for their horn and elephants for their tusks. As for use in clothes, many animals like alligators, snakes, and furred animals have been hunted to make purses, shoes, and coats. Consumerism is causing the loss of nature, and something needs to be done to limit the negative impact of consumerism.
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I agree that some people do get too carried away with wanting more and more material things, but not all. I believe it is just fine when a person strives as hard as possible to be successful and to have material things as long as that person doesn't base his/her happiness around it. I do think that consumerism has taken over our world and the need to build more and more puts animals that are used to being in the wild and forces them into our own backyard. Although it's okay to want to build and enlarge society, we have to think about how our wants affect other animals.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree consumerism is a major problem with how we live today. It seems almost as if we have gotten so comfortable with our lives that we only strive for more and better ways to live no matter what the cost, whether it be destroying the planet or animal populations. I think it has also lead to us leaving behind the simpler thing in life in order to strive to gain more experiences in our lives. For example one could live a full and happy life with out actually sky diving but it is an experience many people value. It is because of consumerism that people want more and one of those things is experiences in their lives and people tend to overlook problems they could cause to the environment or animals.
ReplyDeleteI agree with all the previous statements, but I propose a different view of consumerism. I don’t think that consumerism is the cause of unhappiness and dissatisfaction with the world. I think it is the result. Every time Kohak or one of the other philosophers brought up the existence of rampant consumerism and its effects on the natural world, I wanted to go beyond that. I want to see and understand how we have changed and developed our consumer-driven society. I question where our degraded values started. I want to look at the family and how the kinds of loving bonds we build with family members has degraded and resulted in a people searching for fulfillment in materialistic form. I think of parents who buy their children gifts in stead of giving them the gift of their time and personal attention. Being a teacher, I also think about how completely out of touch our society has become in relation to the natural world, and how things come to us. I am reminded of how school-age children identify a store as the place where apples come from. The affluence and disregard for the intrinsic value of life is so ingrained in our society that we don’t even notice it. We are teaching it in our schools and in our homes unconsciously by our daily actions and personal search for something meaningful.
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