What do you all think of consumerism and materialism?

Question

I personally think that it ruins culture, and the environment. But then again I am an active member of the green movement. But when you think about it, consumerism makes the whole world run on money.

Think about this: You don't actually need money (in it's physical sense) to survive. Green pieces of paper, and metal coins aren't going to save you from dying of hunger or thirst. All you need to live a happy life is food, water, shelter, and people who love and care about you.

Before the industrial revolution, most people lived in small villages, where everybody knew their neighbors, and everybody was basically self reliant. Things like the economy didn't matter to them, because they grew their own food, and had access to clean water that hadn't yet been polluted by chemicals from factories and power plants. Although at this time there was little advanced medicine, people were generally healthier, and were at less of a risk for cancer because they got a work out every day simply from household chores. In these close knit communities, families were stronger (for the most part), and people had closer bonds with each other. They developed distinct cultures, and everybody had their own distinct sense of identity. All the necessities of life were found in these communities, there was always a local doctor, and people thought more about the community rather than just themselves.

Now, we live in a vast global community where money and trade run everything. Whenever the economy goes to crap, people's lives go to crap because they are dependent on consumerism. Much of our culture and traditions have been lost.

There are SOME good things about consumerism however, like books, movies (good movies, not crappy ones that have bad messages), and some media. I just wish we could find a balance between consumerism and the way things used to be.

Answer 1

Great question. I tend to think in terms of internal and external gratification. When we make ourselves deeply happy from the inside we don't need external things to make us happy. Consumer goods have helped make our lives easier in many ways and in others we have made our self-esteem dependent on them. I suppose it's up to each person to decide what's really important to them and how to live their own deeply fulfilling life.

Answer 2

That third paragraph you wrote. A lot of assumptions in there. I guess I don't buy into the idea that there was some better, more pure time when people didn't experience things like pain, fear, and sickness, people weren't greedy, selfish and were generally nicer. A lot more people died of things like pnumonia and the flu. Many children were permanently crippled by things like polio. If you walked into the woods, you had to worry about being eaten by wolves or bears. Your next meal was much more dependant on the weather because you didn't have a local grocery store and refridgerators didn't exist yet. Being hungry sucks, even when that hunger is from "natural causes". Slavery was much more common.

Everything's a double edge sword IMHO. Materialism keeps people employed and the economy going in a time when everyone's not needed to make food and build houses. Special problems arise when populations get large. Things(like communism) that work for small groups of people(like a tribe) don't work for millions of people where it's impossible to know everyone personally. But then the down side is that many suffer for the errors of a few sometimes, people can start to get confused and overrate the importance of having stuff, garbage dumps get filled up etc.

Perhaps there is a better way to do it than the monetary system we have today. What we're doing to the environment IS a problem that we need to do something about. But I'm not sure that going back to 1850 is the answer.

Answer 3

Global Advanced Personality Test Trait Descriptions



Materialism

wealth seeking, prefers extravagence, superficial, believes the bigger the pay check the more important the person, more competitive, more selfish, more preoccupied with money, more likely to believe they deserve to have whatever they want (sense of entitlement), seeks status and power relative to peers, more likely to believe there is nothing wrong with marrying partly for money, disdains financial insecurity, avoids losing status and control, looking good is more important than comfort, believes in success through appearances, second place is not good enough, more manipulative, has a need for applause, less generous, loves to win awards, more likely to do things primarily for own benefit, gets angry when they don't get when they want, more used to getting their way, prefers instant gratification

http://similarminds.com/types/materialism.html



This was the only reference on page 1 of a global Google search for "materialism", and I was surprised to find it, because here in the philosophy section it means "a philosophical system which regards matter as the only reality in the world".



As far as consumerism, before the industrial revolution, (as you phrased it, which means before "Green pieces of paper, and metal coins",) money was not available to fund the $1 mosquito nets being sent to Africa by the millions; it wasn't available to cure TB or prevent measles, mumps, or polio; it wasn't available to assist nations devastated by tsunamis or by earthquakes; it wasn't available to provide so much food that stupid people now get fat instead of smart people dying early from malnutrition in the U.S.



It's what we do with money. It isn't the money itself. And the economy goes to pot when it cannot fix itself for all the government bureaucracy that stands in its way. Its as if you were trying to vomit up the poison but the doctor had a hand clamped on your mouth. The government has its "hand" clamped on the natural means by which the market fixes itself. The same was true in the Great Depression.



Why do you think so many people are losing their homes? Because the government told Fannie and Freddie to provide funding for people who had no business owning what they couldn't afford; and then those two agencies did what they do--sold it all off to the banks who expected a profit, until other parts of the economy trying to vomit were prevented from fixing themselves.



There is nothing wrong with being green when it makes sense. But electric cars are supposed to hit the market big time in 2013 and 2014, and then watch the need for electricity spike, and your electric bills go up because of the demand--but our nation won't build any new reactors, which provide cheaper electricity without burning coal. And if we built them like the Chinese reactors we wouldn't even have the possibility of a "China Syndrome"............



"Physicists and engineers at Beijing's Tsinghua University have made the first great leap forward in a quarter century, building a new nuclear power facility that promises to be a better way to harness the atom: a pebble-bed reactor. A reactor small enough to be assembled from mass-produced parts and cheap enough for customers without billion-dollar bank accounts. A reactor whose safety is a matter of physics, not operator skill or reinforced concrete. And, for a bona fide fairy-tale ending, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is labeled hydrogen." http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.09/china.html



Let's get smart, not anti-capital. What do you think is building those pebble-bed reactors? Chinese capital, which is a contradiction and yet their economy is not tanking like ours---because they don't have the regulations we have.

Answer 4

You seem to have a utopian view of the world before capitalism. Before capitalism or the enlightenment, people lived under fuedalism and were enslaved by the kings. (study the french revolution)



I do agree with you however that capitalism is an issue that must be resolved.

Answer 5

People believe materialism is to value things such as consumer goods more than good virtues such as love or compassion. Ironically it is the materialistic matter, that is their brains neural circuitry, that makes them perceive this concept the way they do. Its just a misunderstanding.

Answer 6

That is correct, but departure from that lifestyle isn't due to consumerism, but to urbanization.

Answer 7

materialism is the world envisioned by atheists.



there is no arguing this, unless the atheist secretly believes in something higher.