ACR Essay. Lytoshenko Dariia. A-2

Dangerous consumer society

The end of the ХІХ^th – first half of the ХХ^th century is the time, when different technical inventions of civilization appear and the transformation of production process happens. This process caused significant changes in the everyday life of the human society. The living conditions improves more and more because of the increased attention to human body, popularization of the sport, reformation of the clothes and development of the medicine. The population increases, especially in the big cities. Furthermore, an accelerated process of production causes the accumulation of various goods and satiation of them. This is how consumer society, the main cause of most of the human problems nowadays, works. “Consumerism” is “an emphasis on or preoccupation with the acquisition of consumer goods”, as it is mentioned in Oxford English Dictionary [1]. This phenomenon is the result of an Industrial revolution that reached its highest point in the middle of XX century. Many modern philosophers, such as J. Baudrillard, E. Fromm, T. Adorno, paid their attention to the problem of Consumer society.  It is also one of the main topics in American literature after World War II.

The values of consumer society deny the necessity of intellectual and moral development of a person, which leads to the complete degradation of mind and individuality. Moreover, it makes people ignorant, so that they can be easily manipulated.  Person begins to look at things in one-sided way, as it is imposed on advertising, television or any other branch of popular culture. For example, information that someone gets from mass media merges with what he or she really thinks, sees and feels, becoming undeniable truth. Popular culture can shape the human mind by offering carefully selected authority, way of life and formula of happiness.

Some people may say that creating new products and goods, which is the main target of Consumer society, is the best way to development and progress. The high consumer standards stimulate the desire of person to make money, work hard and study with an enthusiasm, which should obviously lead to the reduction of social pressure. Moreover, the proclamation of equality and democracy, as well as accumulation of free time for the people of working professions, caused the situation when things that were previously available only for the "upper classes" of the society have become common (especially it concerns the achievements of culture).

However, consumerism also causes human dependence and indecisiveness. A separate person loses the feeling of responsibility. For example, most people think that they are not responsible for pollution and leave this question only for the sphere of industry. Also, the Consumer society really exists only in highly-developed countries, whereas the Third World countries are used just like the source of natural resources and cheap workers. As a result of the declaration of the general right to get pleasure, under the influence of myths about the possibility to be equal and happy, demoralization and depersonalization of society have gained an epidemic proportions. The artificially impaled false ideals knock out the ground from under the feet and, as a result, more and more people feel unbeatable loneliness, helplessness and confusion. Lack of privacy, the desire to get as much pleasure and entertainment aspossible, focusing on the physical side of existence throw people into chaos of moral and spiritual collapse. So, this kind of society can’t be good and needs treatment.

Sources:

1.     http://www.oed.com

2.     ACR paragraph. Lytoshenko Dariia. - http://fedoriv-writing.blogspot.com/2013/02/acr-paragraph-lytoshenko-dariia-2.html

3.     Lytoshenko D.The social reflectiveness of the prose of J.D.Salinger and J.Updike; tutor - Rostyslav Semkiv / Dariia Lytoshenko. - Kyiv, 2012. - 47 p.