I don't understand the salivating, the drooling, the excitement people get over new consumer products--new fashions, new technology, new computer toys, new gizmos of any kind. New stuff.
A lot of it isn't that different from the old stuff. Our economy relies on consumer spending. Something like 66% of the GDP (gross domestic product, all the goods and services produced in the USA in one year) involves consumer spending. New cars and TVs and computers and clothes and stuff.
Lots of people get excited over consumer products. The hoople-heads (a term for the masses, from "Deadwood") think they have to have the latest product from BMW or Chanel or Louis Vuitton or Pucci or Gucci or Rolex or Sony or Apple. They have to have a new iPhone or E-phone or BS phone or WTF it is. They don't seem to notice that an iPad is just another computer with a slick user interface.
Talk about status symbols. Why would anyone want a Rolex or a Tag Heuer watch? I don’t get it. Why not just get a foot-long sausage and pack it in your pants?
Do you really give a damn what other people think? Why not just say on a T-shirt, I have lots of money, and I am richer than you, so you can kiss my ass. Or better yet, I own you, kiss my fanny.
Does the country benefit from this worship of wealth, or like Thorstein Veblen said, conspicuous consumption? In this country, we worship money, status, and sex. And of course ourselves. What good has that done us?
Talk about superficial values.
© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle
2 comments:
Don't forget youth. Our society worships youth.
Great post, as always, Roger.
And the stupid people will continue to try to imitate the wealthy and powerful even though, as you correctly posit, they have turned themselves into slaves to the wealthy and powerful.
Yes, we do worship youth, for some reason. Sexy young bodies, I guess.
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