The human civilization evolved from a primitive living condition to our modern society over several millenia. Although our needs and motives have changed in form and complexity, we stay basically tied to our innate biological necessities. We are still motivated by search for food, sex, security, exploratory and pleasure-seeking behaviours more than anything else. Our understanding of those essential needs and motives may help to make us more in harmony with our human nature and less inclined to exaggerate our needs or our desires. A widespread consumerist capitalist world view tries to make us believe in false fictitious needs which are not essential for human happiness and satisfaction.
Before the discovery of agriculture, early humans spent a good deal of their time searching for food either by gathering fruits or hunting animals. Hunting helped human to develop language. Agriculture provided food for much more people and the food provision was more predictable. Bigger human communities sprang into existence around such reliable sources of sustenance on the fertile land along rivers.
Food is still a major item on our shopping list and we spend a lot of time to secure income for food, to buy and prepare food, to invite others for food and to go for eating out. Modern technology has helped to secure abundance of food and introduced more tasty and attractive varieties. We are facing an epidemic of obesity although there are still famines in some parts of the world. Centuries ago famines and starvation was a common danger facing human society. Wars broke out in the past between communities and nations competing for food and water resources, in particular when drought made food scarcer. We are still living in a world were wars ...
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Human society has made big steps in making our life better, safer and satisfactory to our needs. We are still motivated by these basic needs which forms the core of our activity day after day. Our food is more abundant and easy to get, and we eat more than needed for a healthy life style. We are preoccupied by sex as a pleasure more than as a need for a satisfactory mutual reproductive life. A Capitalist consumerist ideology exploits human needs to satisfy greed of business moguls who cultivate a culture of artificial needs. Advertisement and social pressure make many believe they are deprived if they do not get their hands on the most fashionable products of modern industry as a sign of social status and attractiveness. We started to suffer from over-satisfaction of our needs and self-indulgence in a hedonistic search for happiness.
It took many years for the tremendous change of lifestyle of the early human communities. At the begging of the Neolithic Period humans were nomads who followed their food source moving from one place to another. Early civilization used to hunt wild animals and gather wild plants to survive. It was until ca 10,000 years ago during the Neolithic Period when Agricultural Revolution began. Due to Agricultural revolutions humans begging to settle in one place and focus on particular economy, political, religion and activities. Agricultural revolution was the moving from foraging to producing animals and plants for human use through domestication. Agriculture was invented individually in different parts of the world and slowly spread to some areas
Webster's dictionary defines consumerism as "the economic theory that a progressively greater consumption of goods is beneficial." today we are surrounded by a culture of things and possessions:a materialistic world.consumption of materialistic goods has encroached upon every sphere of our lives and we don't even realise it.at first products had a value of necessity in our lives.but now they are sign of choice, social status and identification.the more we advance technologically and socialy the more we need products to keep up with the times.but do people really need all the things they buy?consumerism today is all about people feeling the need to buy more and more material goods to attain some sort of satisfaction.
Before humans learned about the domestication of animals and plants they were nomadic. During this time, people followed their food. This lead to people not having time to create and reproduce. As humans learned how to plant crops they were able to settle down and start families, towns and later on cities.
Humans began establishing community systems which included elements of labor, reward and trade in prehistory. In time, we began to domesticate plants and livestock, creating more tradeable goods and forcing people to set up foundations on the land and develop economies.
“To live fully, we must learn to use things and love people, and not love things and use people” (John Powell). This simple but profound quote perfectly explains the satire of consumerism in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (BNW). Not only is the World State too preoccupied with buying possessions and using people, but we, as a society, are as well, and it is this fact that Huxley satirizes. Many of our priorities are in the wrong places, and BNW shows us our flaws. We need to have the people in our lives come first and the possessions to be secondary; only then we can “live fully,” as John Powell said. As mass production and the assembly line evolved in the early 1900s, consumerism developed and changed our society forever. Consumerism is the preoccupation with buying goods and services all the time, even if they are not needed. This practice is extremely prevalent in the BNW and is
In reality, consumers are only purchasing items to give themselves short term happiness but in the long term, purchasing items proves to make us feel empty and unfulfilled. As Americans, we should be pursuing minimalism or in other words, we should only be buying items that are necessary to our survival. This is one of many main reasons why Tyler Durden forms Fight Club and Project Mayhem, which is because he believes that this consumer-based culture is destructive to our society. In a way, consumerism is an endless cycle of propaganda proposed by companies advertising their products to consumers causing them to believe that they need or want these items but in reality they don’t. Thus, consumers are “trapped” in this concept and will work jobs that they hate but pay well just to support their lifestyle in this harmful culture. In a sense, materialism has become the center of our identity because our society defines an individual by what items he/she has. Likewise, materialism is taken to the extremes when our human body parts are seen as tools to make money. Palahniuk writes, “The truth. We made soap out of
Thousands of years ago, people either gathered and collected their food from the wild environment or hunted large and small animals. The process of hunting and gathering was sufficient enough for smaller groups of people found within a suitable environment, but when the population began to grow, people were pushed into areas that made food hard to come by, so they searched for nutritional sources that they could depend on. It is believed that the practice of agriculture first came into existence in the Fertile Crescent region in the Middle East about ten or eleven thousands years B.C.E. The area was home to many consuma...
Since 1899 and to this day, it has been known that individuals no longer buy products out of need; instead, they purchase items like expensive clothing to improve their social status (Naiman, 2012). By 1998 consumer capitalism had grown massively. America and Canada accounted for thirty one percent of four Trillian dollars that was spent globally by private and public companies even though they only made up five percent of the population (Naiman, 2012). This portrays that needs are not the only thing that individuals consume for. Today, corporations, advertisement and the media are encouraging individuals to purchase fashion products with money they do not have. This provokes them to borrow money for consumption leading individuals to be in debt rather than accumulating wealth (Naiman, 2012). Correspondently, this has a major impact on the health of an individual. It could cause them plenty of stress because of the loss of money and still having the need so consume.
For instance, the overexploitation on consumer spending has manipulated the importance of growing the economy by spending our income and collecting debt rather than living in our means while saving and investing for our own personal growth (Smart, 42). In addition, consumerism is shaped by mass market. Consumerism is the general assumption that human desires are infinitely expandable. That being said, “If human desires are in fact infinitely expandable, consumption is ultimately incapable of providing fulfillment” ( Roszak, Gomes & Kanner,3)
"In today’s consumer society, "I am what I have" is the active classification of itself. Consumerism is often viewed as a negative aspect towards society’s lives and purchasing behaviors, which predictably leads to materialism. If one steps back and look at the positive aspect that consumerism has been a certain positive characteristics in today’s society. Consumerism creates mass market, cultural attitudes and economic development.
Consumerism can be defined as a cultural model that promotes the acquisition of goods, and mainly the purchases of products, which can be seen as a channel for personal satisfaction and economic stimulation. In a consumerist society, an individual dedicates all of its strength to thinking and spending on "consumption." The reason is that because our happiness is focused on consumption and ownership. The overall view of life-based in the context of consumption is that the more we consume, the better life becomes. The idea of shopping is an exciting recreational activity for the majority of the people. Based on the article, What Does Consumerism Mean, "rather than cultivating happiness, consumerism is fueled by and cultivates fear -- fear of not fitting in, of not having the right stuff, of not being the right kind of person. Perpetual non-satisfaction defines consumerism." As humans, we desire to have the latest and the best to fit in, to surpass others. Our primary drive for desires, passions, and wishes is to acquire more consumer goods to reflect what happens in society solely.
The discovery of agriculture has led to many profound changes in society. From its origin during the Neolithic era, to its evolution throughout modern society, agriculture has formed and shaped human society to what it is today. Without agriculture, society would still be a hunting and gathering community. However, because of the uncovering of agriculture, early humans were able to grow crops and domesticate animals. Moreover, farming has made a fundamental impact in today’s modern world. Early civilizations greatly utilized this new development by increasing their presence and influence throughout the world. Because agriculture evolved, the population increased, villages and towns emerged, and urban life developed during ancient society.
Rosenblatt, Roger, ed. 1999. Consuming Desires: Consumption, Culture, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Washington,DC: Island Press.
Without consumerism, a person’s day-to-day life would not be as it is now because, whether one realizes it or not, everyone is a participant in it. Customers are becoming steadily more dependent on products because corporations often have them convinced that they cannot survive without the latest upgrade. When it comes to businesses, they are more than happy to continually put out supposedly new yet redundant products as long as the sale is made. Consumerism has stepped in the impressionable soil that is society, and the imprint it has left is a negative one. It has allowed individuals to place an ever-increasing amount of self-identification in objects, caused great harm to be done to the environment, and cultivated and exalted greediness.
One of the most complex issues in the world today concerns human population. The number of people living off the earth’s resources and stressing its ecosystem has doubled in just forty years. In 1960 there were 3 billion of us; today there are 6 billion. We have no idea what maximum number of people the earth will support. Therefore, the very first question that comes into people’s mind is that are there enough food for all of us in the future? There is no answer for that. Food shortage has become a serious problem among many countries around the world. There are many different reasons why people are starving all over the world. The lack of economic justice and water shortages are just merely two examples out of them all.