Analysis Of John Verdant's '' More'

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America: the new world, the new frontier, the beautiful, the gold country, the land of opportunity, the place where dreams come true, the land of eternal more. These are a few mottos of American culture; they all have something in common, they promise; 'more. ' ‘More’, is an ideology that America was built on, as Shames describes in his essay, The More Factor, how in early America this ideology was so rampant that people took huge risk, for 'more. ' “There was a presumption that America would keep on booming--if not forever, then at least longer than it made sense to worry about. There would always be another gold rush, another Homestead Act, another oil strike. The next generation would always ferret out opportunities that would be still …show more content…

' In John Verdant 's essay The Ables vs the Binges, “The Ables treat every economic transaction as a constructive opportunity to exercise their social convictions. … The other family, (The Binges), blindly goes on its way leaving a trail of social and spiritual destruction in its wake. They consume and spend and go deeper into debt. Things just happen to them, life seems out of control, because, for them, it is.” (Verdant, John) Verdant shows us two families with nearly identical status in life but entirely opposite lifestyles, but as we examine further into these two families we see that what each of them is after is the same 'more ' we are all after. Each family just prefers their more wrapped up very differently. The binges go all out with all the newest things, the ables try to buy higher quality things so they can pat themselves on the back and have more time for more later. Each family is really just looking for more although they may have different versions of what 'more ' is. The binges would probably go to Starbucks and get their more there, while the Ables would go to a little mom and pop shop to have their coffee. Each spending virtually the same money but their more is slightly different. The Binges feel good because they purchased their status. They kept up with the Jones ' by going to the bourgeois establishment to attain 'more. ' The Ables went to their mom and pop shop as a protest against the big box stores, and to keep their money local, they do what they do because it just makes them feel good about themselves inside. They’re on their quest against big companies who mistreat employees, so they get more by helping out little shops who treat their employees very well. The Ables are what Thompson calls, “oppositional

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