Consumerism

I am going to talk about the idea of progress. First, I would like to give a definition of progress. The idea of progress basically consists in believing that the world could become better in terms of technology, liberty and quality of life and has shaped most of Western civilization’s vision of history. As the rhythm of progress seems to have accelerated these last few decades with an ever faster increase of major technological and scientific breakthroughs, the cult of novelty and progress is now being questioned. Indeed, a growing number of people voice their concern about the ethical, social and environmental consequences of such development and about the excesses of today’s consumer society. I have chosen to focus on this latter issue. How can people change their consumption habits?

Firstly, I will talk about the different ways and the overconsumption. We saw that The Mall of America is the biggest shopping center in America, it’s the symbol of consumption with all stores, business, restaurantes, and The Mall attract many people especially shopaholics. Will Rogers highlighted how consumerism had changed to lead to a consumer society. He highlighted that people just want to fit in and not to be in the fringe of society. As well as an increasing number of local shops, large shopping malls have increased around the world. Over the past few years, the modes of consumption have greatly evolved; the development of the Internet has opened up new prospects with online shopping which can be seen as the natural continuation of the “Consumer Society”. The quotation « Too many people spend money they haven't earned to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like » (Will Rogers) tells that people buy unecessary and useless items just because they are in the mood of buying or because they need to show they have money. Consumption and the cult of novelty, which have been developed, generate new concerns. People are became addicted to shopping and make compulsive spending. We also studied in class a picture of Americans in a mall, who celebrate the Black Friday. This is the busiest shopping day in the USA and marks the begenning of the Christmas shopping season. An another day important in America is Mega monday, it's te busiest online shopping day before Christmas. With all this things we can say that the overconsumpion and shopping frenzy is American. They show how people no longer think for themselves. Consumerism is turned to a new cult religion.

We studied an article which exhibit several means such as exchanging goods, renting goods and bartering goods to take part in a collaborative consumption. In addition to this, we studied an article entitled “A Freegan world”. It raise people’s awareness of the false needs created by advertisers and exhibit alternatives to berserk shopping. It promotes the Freegan’ s way of live, based on eating other people’s waste and the Fair trade products that often offer a better quality and a more respectful approach to consumption.

To conclude, the development of large shopping malls, advertisements and the Internet contribute to create a consumer society, where people are became materialist, eternally dissatisfied and act like berserk fanatics. Thus the progress is not always a complete improvement. In this case, it make firstly people independent but finally create addiction and a modern enslavement. However, some resistances

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