Sometimes I read these articles and wonder if this is a sign that society is increasingly changing such that capitalism and commodities matter more than life en

Sometimes I read these articles and wonder if this is a sign that society is increasingly changing such that capitalism and commodities matter more than life enrichment and, in fact, are replacing life enrichment as a value (eg. People believe commodities are how their lives are enriched). Thus, education is devalued unless it lets you own more things (through labor). Or a sign of increasing economic insecurity such that humans are broadly less and less able to pursue highly educated topics on its own culture and study their broader effects, which almost seems to be like the opposite of what I’ve always understood a civilized society to be. But at the same time by other metrics life has never been better... mostly commodity based metrics. There’s very little ways to quantify if we’re losing “culture” in the way I’ve understood it. What will happen to us if we lose there ability to examine the latest YouTube or Instagram phenomenon with historical and broader sociological framework? Or we become unable to accomplish the amazing innovations within the humanities, such as the revival of the Mayan language, simply because the study of linguistics is no longer within scope of modern society?