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I don't follow your logic about consumerism being the problem. America has been consumerist for a long time, longer than your 13 years of observation. Is ther
by em3rgent0rdr 8y ago
I don't follow your logic about consumerism being the problem. America has been consumerist for a long time, longer than your 13 years of observation. Is there perhaps another advancement other than "consumerism" in the last 13 years which could account for your observations?
- vinceguidry 8y agoI speak more in a sibling comment, but basically, the sheer number and quality of the services available provides for anyone to retreat from challenging situations to ones in which they need expend no personal effort to get rewarded. In the past even those escapes required effort. Anyone who grew up in the eighties playing Nintendo knows just how much effort was required to obtain mastery, and thereby fulfillment, over a video game. Now the games are laser-focused on removing all obstacles to that feeling. I'd like to give this phenomenon a better name to distinguish it from 'mere' consumerism, but there's definitely been a shift over the last 10 years or so as the Internet has gone mainstream. The Pandora's Box it opened up had real knock-on effects on the rest of society.
- dnomad 8y agoConsumerism hardly unique to America. There are societies far more status-oriented and focused on consumerism than America and they don't exhibit pervasive social isolation. (Often it's just the opposite.)