<p>Got an 11. I typed it out because it was really hard to read. I still can’t believe that I cited Gossip Girl in this and how much of an anti-society stance I take… Errors are primarily from typing it.</p>
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Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below:</p>
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Materialism: it’s the thing that everybody loves to hate. Few aspects of modern life have been more criticized than materialism. But let’s face it: materialism–acquiring possessions and spending money–is a vital source of meaning and happiness in our time. People may criticize modern society for being too materialistic, but the fact remains that most of us spend most of our energy producing and consuming more and more stuff. Adapted from James Twitchell, “Two Cheers for Materialism”
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<p>Assignment: Should modern society be criticized for being materialistic? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
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Society’s devolution from nomadic to modern has left a gap that remains open. Modern society has attempted to repent for its shift by creating a never ending prosperity: materialism. The infinite cycle of buying has create a never closing gap in society to allow for the forbidden vices to prosper under false pretenses. If our quest for getting meaningless resources continues, what will we have left inside?</p>
<pre><code>Exulted by the late 50s, capitalism has given rise to an epidemic-- the ‘individual.’ The emphasis on the individual has justified countless acts of greed, ambition and envy. Materialism feeds into the selfish souls who are praised and held up by modern society. How can we find happiness if we only look at our impulse wants and our own selfish desires?
The never ending quest to acquire the best and the most has create the rise of the Machiavellian individual–willing to do anything to get what they want. As shown by the popular teen series, Gossip Girl, girls will do anything to achieve ends’ meet. Blaire’s own ambition to get into Yale entices her to seduce her own interviewer and cheat in school. Her own desire to be to be admitted into a prestigious college pushes over the ethical limits of academics and mortality. But even the desire to have the ‘right’ clothes has influenced many to steal from stores.
Materialism has brought out the exact vices our ancestors strove to ban. Even the Ten Commandments tell us not to lust after what we can’t have. But the increasingly cynical? market attempts to make us lust after every product/service advertised–so we buy it. This never ending bombardment of advertisements has often attacked by myriad of parents and rational advocates of children. The real question remaining now is: Will children in this generation retain good morals if materialism overpowers the exact beliefs entwined in us by religion?
As drugstores increase their assortment of beauty products, the choices increase. But, how perfect can be if makeup can’t hide our innermost vices? Materialism has taken us too far from the beginnings of it in the 1900s. As shown by Fitzgerald’s The Damned and the Beautiful, perfectionism is impossible. If we depend on products to fulfill our desires, what is left? In our modern age, there’s little left as fashionistas are considered to be the role models of countless students in schools.
The tragic shift in modern society has created an empty gap that can be only be filled by perfecting the soul, not the body. Before materialism takes over every aspect of society including religion, its necessary to stop the vices and learn that the soul cannot be clothed or made-up; the soul can only be fulfilled.
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