|
Thorstein Veblen,
a theorist of consumption,
understood acquisition was for exhibition, "in order to gain and to hold the
esteem of men it is not sufficient to merely possess wealth or power.
The wealth or power must be put in evidence." Thorstein Veblen coined
the term 'conspicuous consumption'.
"Misleading advertising leads to
over consumption but that may be offsetting the under-consumption associated
with monopoly prices." - Edward L. Glaeser, Gergely Ujhelyi, December
2006
"The FTC and the
FDA don't have enough resources
to go after every product sold under false
pretenses.
Consumers should be
highly skeptical of claims made for any pill, patch,
cream or
device.
We like to think of consumers as
our agents in the field." - Matthew Daynard, a senior attorney in the
Federal Trade Commission's advertising practices division
"Our enormously productive economy demands that
we make consumption our way of life,
that we convert the buying and use of goods into
rituals, that we seek our
spiritual
satisfaction, our ego
satisfaction, in consumption.
The measure of social status, of
social acceptance, of prestige, is now to
be found in our consumptive
patterns.
The very meaning and significance of our lives today is
expressed in consumptive terms.
The greater the pressures upon the
individual to conform to safe and accepted social standards, the more does he
tend to express his aspirations and his individuality in terms of what he
wears, drives, eats - his home, his car, his pattern of food consumption, his
hobbies.
We require not only "forced draft" consumption, but
"expensive" consumption as well.
We need things
consumed, burned up,
replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate."- Victor
Lebow
"Moving beyond range of TV hucksters, pesky telemarketers and the
daily onslaught of direct junk mail is one of the great perks of maturity.
It seems Americans are so thoroughly defined by commerce that a decline
in ad dollars aimed our way challenges our identity according to the
contemporary Cartesian
principle: I consume therefore I am."- Daniel S.
Hinerfeld
Seven blunders of materialistic
consumerism
3. Knowledge
without character
5. Science without humanity
7. Politics without
principle
"Like most habitual shoppers,
I was looking for something that I wanted more
than I needed, something I could not necessarily describe but would recognize
when I saw it.
I was looking for
something I had bought new long ago but had lost and was expecting to find once
again.
Call me a constantly lapsing recovering consumer.
I am not proud of this, though I am not ashamed of
it either.
It means is that I am an entirely average American, easily
driven by complex and unpleasant realities
to the escapist distractions of stuff.
I am a member of what social
critics call the "bewildered herd," though I
like to think that I am less bewildered and more
self-aware than most of my
fellow cattle, even
when I find myself buying another pair of high heels that I can't really walk
in and don't need." - Erin Aubry
Kaplan
"The word "consume" brings us back
to the origins of separation in
fire, a metaphor for our
civilization's consumptive linearity.
Indeed, the conversion of
human bonds into money resembles an oxidative reaction in chemistry, which
replaces existing internal chemical bonds with new, lower-energy bonds to
something from the outside, an oxygen atom.
Money is like the thermal energy liberated
thereby, no longer bound to any individual and thus free to perform work.
Incinerating relationships and converting them into services, the
original bonds among individuals are severed.
A purchased "service" is as generic as the
money that buys it.
Any social relationship embodies a kind of
wealth in the form of bonds or ties, which can in principle be liquidated,
turned into a commodity, and sold back as a service.
Almost no relationship is exempt from this
colonization of the social space: not parenting, not sex, not friendship, not
trust.
Let's start with an
example of this colonization that also exemplifies the inauthenticity of
commoditized relationships: the "hospitality industry".
This is the
name by which the hotel industry calls itself, but what a perversion of the
original meaning of the word hospitality!
Hospitality bespeaks a generous, welcoming
attitude of sharing one's home.
How would you feel if you shared the
home of a friend for a
few days and were then presented with a bill, with 500% markups for each
telephone call, bottle of water, and
item of food you consumed?" -
Charles Eisenstein
  
  
 |
|
 
 |
This web site is not a commercial web site and
is presented for educational
purposes only.
This website defines a
new perspective with which to engage reality to which its author adheres. The
author feels that the falsification of reality outside personal experience has
forged a populace unable to discern propaganda
from reality and that this has been done purposefully by an international
corporate cartel through their agents who wish to foist a corrupt version of
reality on the human race. Religious intolerance occurs
when any group refuses to tolerate religious practices, religious beliefs or
persons due to their religious ideology. This web site marks the founding of a
system of philosophy named The Truth of the Way of the Lumière Infinie -
a rational religion based on reason which requires no leap of faith, accepts no
tithes, has no supreme leader, no church buildings and in which each and every
individual is encouraged to develop a personal relation with the Creator and
Sustainer through the pursuit of the knowledge of reality in the hope of curing
the spiritual corruption that has enveloped the human spirit. The tenets of The
Truth of the Way of the Lumière Infinie are spelled out in detail on
this web site by the author. Violent acts against individuals due to their
religious beliefs in America is considered a "hate crime."
This web site
in no way condones violence. To the contrary the intent here is to reduce the
violence that is already occurring due to the international corporate cartels
desire to control the human race. The international corporate cartel already
controls the world economic system, corporate media worldwide, the global
industrial military entertainment complex and is responsible for the collapse
of morals, the elevation of self-centered
behavior and the destruction of global ecosystems. Civilization is based on
cooperation. Cooperation does not occur at
the point of a
gun.
American social mores and values have declined precipitously
over the last century as the corrupt international cartel has garnered more and
more power. This power rests in the ability to deceive the populace in general
through corporate media by pressing emotional buttons which have been
preprogrammed into the population through prior mass media psychological
operations. The results have been the destruction of the family and the
destruction of social structures that do not adhere to the corrupt
international elites vision of a perfect world. Through distraction and
coercion the direction of thought of the bulk of the population has been
directed toward solutions proposed by the corrupt international elite that
further consolidates their power and which further their purposes.
All
views and opinions presented on this web site are the views and opinions of
individual human men and women that, through their writings, showed the
capacity for intelligent, reasonable, rational, insightful and unpopular
thought. All factual information presented on this web site is believed to be
true and accurate and is presented as originally presented in print media which
may or may not have originally presented the facts truthfully. Opinion and
thoughts have been adapted, edited, corrected, redacted, combined, added to,
re-edited and re-corrected as nearly all opinion and thought has been
throughout time but has been done so in the spirit of the original writer with
the intent of making his or her thoughts and opinions clearer and relevant to
the reader in the present time.
Fair Use Notice
This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has
not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making
such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of criminal
justice, human rights, political, economic, democratic, scientific, and
social justice
issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted
material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance
with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. For more
information see: www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use
copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond
'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. |
 Copyright
© Lawrence Turner
All Rights Reserved
|