Found this video linked over at The Distributist Review and it is an excellent, short explanation of what our consumerist culture is all about.
The maker of the video seems to be of leftist ideology, at least to some extent, and so figures that the government should protect us from consumerism. This is a bit like asking a tiger to protect the sheep from the wolf. The only way to kill off consumerism is for a change of heart on the part of the people – a rejection of get-rich-quick; a rejection of mindless celebrities determining our judgments of good and bad; a rejection of borrowing money to pay for un-necessary items.
We’re in the soup not because of some nefarious plot – we’re in it because we eagerly jumped in to it. We wanted everything and we wanted it now – when some stupid ad came on telling us that we “deserve” some grand thing, we said, “yes”. Just as when some grafting politician said we needed welfare, social security, medicare and all manner of “free” government goodies we jumped at it. We need to jump back.
Change can happen, but it has to happen in each of our hearts – a humble begging of forgiveness for our errors, a determination to do better, and we’re half way there. It is up to us – we can choose to decline and die, or we can choose to advance and live. Its really all up to us.
