Affluenza Sparknotes

first step in reducing our food waste, is to become more aware of what you're

Having more was no longer associated with the expansion of unexplored lands, but with the idea of consumerism; whereby having more was now associated with happiness. As a result, people constantly engaged themselves in impulse buying (Shames 94). Consumerism has made Americans overlook quality and decency and as Shames argues, “Americans have been somewhat backward in adopting values, hopes, ambitions that have to do with other things other than more” (92). The mentality of Americans was to strive for bigger and

My solution to reduce waste is making it illegal to not compost in the United States which will directly decrease the amount sent to landfills. According to the novel The Science of Composting by Eliot Epstein, president and chief scientist at E&A Environmental Consultants, “Sixty-eight percent of the MSW waste stream is organic and can be composted,” but realistically only half of that could be composted (Epstein 2). If it becomes illegal not to compost we could reduce landfills by approximately thirty percent. While The Environmental Protection Agency, an agency trying to protect the environment and human health, states there are 1,908 active landfills in the U.S. (US Environmental Protection Agency). We

Because, at the end of the day “almost all of us place at least some importance on possession, money, and image” (Kasser). And when did society have a shift from the American dream of being able to own a house in the suburbs and a car that can move you from point A to point B, to having a big house with a pool and movie room, with the newest luxury car? As Ellen Goodman put it, “Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.” We could also see this shift in the Pursuit of Happiness; to our founding fathers this pursuit meant, having the ability to contribute to society rather than pursuits of self-gratification. Now it seems that all we care about is self-happiness, and with this buying items to make us

Society is buying objects we do not need, with the money we do not have, to impress people that do not matter. The American Dream is developing into a more materialistic world, a dream in which the dream keeps getting larger and greedier. Materialism is the tendency to think material objects are more important than people; a desire for money over ethics. Today, life shows us that people have a desire for newest, thinnest, updated—most expensive smartphone or the more expensive lavish materials. Life shows us that our car is undesirable now, especially when our cars do not hook up with that latest cell phone. Life shows us unrealistic standards of a way to live, yet a huge portion of the people in society appear to be emptying out their wallets. This materialistic culture is a show, a phony act when in society we pretend we are what we are not. We all live in a materialistic society where the majority of people are more worried about what we have than who we are. There is an emphasis on what brand a person is wearing, what car someone is driving, and just how many objects one has, in general. A person must wonder where this hunger and greed comes from and why most Americans fall susceptible to this phenomenon, including me.

The “I want it now” tendency causes individuals to think solely about what will make them happy in the moment, versus what will bring them true happiness in the future. Unfortunately, a majority of this thinking is influenced by the massive pressures associated with keeping up with consumer trends (Holland, 2015). Ultimately, materialism is responsible for a truly startling statistic; nearly eight in every ten Americans face insurmountable debts they will be unable to pay off within the course of their lifetime (Holland, 2015). In the 21st century, people are no longer willing to take time and save adequate amounts of money in order to entirely afford their purchases. The American Dream today is greatly associated with the material items one has, compared to what will be essential later in life; enough money to retire comfortably, possibly even the opportunity to fully pay off a mortgage or college loans. Overall, the American Dream has negatively shifted because of the desire for material items, and individuals have a significantly smaller focus on the effects of copious spending on their future

People in the modern society feel the desire to have the newest and the best. Businesses and companies are constantly trying to keep up with these demands releasing new products continuously. With new products always being produced, people abandon their old version in the attempt to own the best. Think of the number of mobile phones, ipods and computers we have bought in the past few years. We all know the old one worked fine but the desire to have the latest and greatest model, to be in with the new technology takes over our thought process.

In 2012, Americans generated about 251 million tons of trash and recycled and composted almost 87 million tons of this material (“Municipal Solid Waste”). There are many ways to end our environmental crisis, such as reducing our amount of trash, recycling items, and reusing other items.

Schor, a professor at Boston College, argues that we are living in “the cycle of work and spent” which motivates the people to “spend longer hours of work” in order to buy materialistic items based on their appearance to the world. She states the “competitive consumption has shifted out to the vast majority of the population” and “the media has a very pronounced bias towards showing upscaled or affluent consumption” (Schor). Schor highlights the kinds of “socially visible items become increasingly important as a part of a competitive consumer system.” And because of that, “the growth of the aspiration gap has led American

In 2012, Americans generated about 251 million tons of trash and recycled and composted almost 87 million tons of this material (“Municipal Solid Waste”). There are many ways to end our environmental crisis, such as reducing our amount of trash, recycling items, and reusing other items.

In Chapter 27, The New Politics of Consumption: Why Americans Want So Much More Than They Need, author Juliet Schor states consuming is authentic as it gets in the American culture and the standard of living has changed in relation to consumerism. Americans need to work longer hours in order to make money that they are then pressured to spend. Schor describes today 's consumerism as the new consumerism. This can be defined by "an upscaling lifestyle norms; the pervasiveness of conspicuous, stat http://www.criticism.com/md/kellner.htmlus goods and of competition for acquiring them; and the growing disconnect between consumer desires and

In the United States we live in a disposable society. We throw out plastic products after one use and dispose of gently used clothing and electronics. These products can take hundreds of years to decompose in a landfill or can affect

The feeling of material desire has grown to be a part of our culture because the

For too long, we’ve been manipulated to consume as much as we possibly can. To buy every new product launched, the newest car, the latest iPhone, the top brands, lots of clothes, shoes, lots and lots and lots of pretty much anything we could our hands on. It is safe to say that our popular culture is nothing more than consumer culture. James A. Roberts states, “As long as consumers attempt to signal their social power through conspicuous consumption, the levels require to make a visible statement of power will continue to rise (Roberts 124). People are never satisfied with what they have and everyone these days correlate the amount of what one owns with social stats saying/representing “we have made it” in a world that never seems to understand the value of morals. It is called the treadmill of consumption because first we buy our first house, but suddenly that becomes our new norm because we adapt. So that ability to adapt both serves us and can undermine our well-being. James A. Roberts declares,” Pursuing

In our current society there’s a lot of talk about waste management. Buzzwords like “sustainability,” “eco-friendly,” and “biodegradable” find their way into our lives. Into our homes. But is it just aimed at the individual, or does it go beyond the doors of our homes? We all know that industry is everywhere. It in some way encompasses every aspect of our daily routine. From the packaging your toothpaste comes in, to the parts that make up the vehicle you drive, it all originated at a commercial or industrial facility. The UXL Encyclopedia of Water Science states “Commercial operations are those that provide a service or sell a product.” (Hoyle, 419) What we may not realize is just how much waste these multi-faceted