<p>It’s not hard to avoid if you don’t live in an overtly materialistic society. Some Asian tiger nations are built on a foundation of consumerism. The sense of ‘modern’ oppression is much higher there, anitaw.</p>
<p>The US is surprisingly materialistic. I didn’t realize how materialistic until I moved to a far less materialistic nation. When I go back to the US, I am blown away by the percentage of conversation that revolves around ‘buying’ of one sort or another. Americans cannot stop talking about different products–whether it’s real estate or renovation or colleges. I find myself obsessing about ‘buying’ after a week at home and I am not a big consumer. It’s not a great feeling–but I am not able to deflect it when I am int hat ocean of rampant consumerism.</p>
<p>I love the current times. As a research hound, I adore Google. I love email. I enjoy this forum. This forum has lifted the path of my children to a far higher level than if I had not had access to it. Not just the admission process–I’ve gotten amazing advice from individual poster ‘friends’ regarding specific academics. Also, I prefer the movies of 2007 to the movies of say, 1975. I love modern literature and modern art and architecture. I can’t wait to see what Farrar Straus publishes this year. I can’t wait to read the new Booker winners. And runner-ups. There was no Frank Gehry at the height of his power in 1980. Gehry had to have 3D software invented to do his work.</p>
<p>I love the trend towards multi-culturalism. It thrills me. I didn’t have Sri Lankan, Chinese, Korean, German, Zimbabwean and English friends in 1978. I do now and I appreciate the richness they add to my life–and my imagination. Oh no, I don’t want to live without them.</p>
<p>My world and my imagination are hugely expanded by the innovations of modernity–but I am not oppressed by a constant pressure to buy products.</p>
<p>^that sounds like the best of both times. We pretty successfully avoid the constant pressure to buy products; actually, very successfully. But I would like to not have to deal with its accouterments, like TV ads everyhwere (grocery store, doctors waiting room, etc etc). I’d be happy to be considered normal for not knowing what Tony Soprano was up to, or what happened on American Idol. I wish my low income students didn’t feel like they needed Ipods to fit in (my own, UMC kids know they can’t afford them, but they are the anomaly.) I still hate muzak (grocery near me plays some XM 70’s torch song station–sheer torture.) </p>
<p>Plus, and it’s a big plus–the “constant pressure to buy products” affects me, even if I don’t buy them, because my environment is being destroyed by their proliferation. And of course, my hands are dirty, too (as they type on this computer.) </p>
<p>I believe our consumerism will be curtailed, one way or another. But I think we could choose an enlightened way, or a benighted way, and one will be a lot more painful than the other.</p>
<p>I hear what the OP is saying–
I think cars and trucks are the biggest trigger for me. Traffic, congestion, speeding and aggressive drivers, stinking air – indicators of too many people in too small a space – always bring me down. </p>
<p>I live in the same town I grew up in, and the changes even since the 70’s are shocking-- way too many people and cars, oversized McMansions instead of homes, the showing-off of assets, the lack of manners, the greed that makes people determined to build on every single remaining inch of open space. It makes me appreciate my low-key friends all the more. I still love my home, our schools, and town, but things sure are different now. I try not to complain too much (this much) in front of the kids, though, because this is their childhood, and they love their home, their friends, their schools.</p>
<p>I DO however think that there is just TOO MUCH nowadays. Do we really need MILLIONS of styles of outfits that serve pretty much the same purpose? Same goes for toys! Cars, even. I love plenty of modern niceties, and it’s nice to have a choice. But why so many? Think of all the useless, or at least excessive items filling any given mall. People can educate their kids to consume less, need less. The world’s natural resources are being devoured for this stuff, not to mention the waste and pollution that results. It just seems wrong.</p>
<p>Gee, I was so anxious to rant that I didn’t read garlands’ and cheers’ posts re: materialism/consumerism. I agree! Shopping has almost become a pastime around here. I can’t tell you how many of my kids’ friends will spend an entire afternoon just wandering around in a mall on a beautiful day, buying stuff they don’t really need.</p>
Oh I dunno. What’s wrong with a little dross. Dross can be interesting at times. Don’t you wanna little dross every now and then? I’d like a little dross.</p>
<p>As I came of age in the ‘70’s, when simplicity and natural were the watchwords to live by, I have always found the modern age a bit much, and more so with every passing year. Happiness is gardening, and ripe tomatos, and making a lovely dinner from food grown in the yard and close by. Raspberries from a friends’ yard for dessert. Homemade music with groups of friends. One of the surprising byproducts of this empty nest time is finding new appreciation of simplicity. Though I tried to raise my kids with appreciation for such home grown pleasures and a creative approach to life, at a certain point the wonders of the technological era they were born into take over, and assume a far greater importance in their lives. Youth always surpass their parents in valueing current developments, as we did when we were that age. It was always a bit of a balancing dance, as I wanted them to enjoy and be part of their hi tech world. But some of what brings me peace was lost during that time. Good to rediscover that now, and slow down a bit. </p>
<p>On the other hand, Cheers, I agree about multiculturalism and literature and computer connections being such an amazing pleasures of this time. And medical advances that keep many of us alive and functioning, to far greater ages than previously imagined.</p>
<p>The films of the 60’s and 70’s beat any of the stuff done these days by a mile. Same for the music and books. Everything since is just repackaged and worse. And Gehry. Feel free to come pick up the pile of crap he left in Seattle -and take that POS new library too. </p>
<p>I have never seen too many kids walking around Yellowstone with their nose in a book before the days of gameboys, but I have seen many kids doing that.</p>
<p>“The good old days” were good for some, not others. It’s easy to avoid materialism- don’t worry about current fashions or other such things. When I get too nostalgic about my college years all I have to do is climb a hill or two there…or remember the exams and papers… For everything better about the past one can find something equal or better in the present; although it depends on one’s point of view. I can think of many things that many others would have an opposing view of…but I won’t rattle the cages of those trapped by a-z beliefs…</p>
<p>Sure, because it’s hard to read a book and walk around at the same time. But I’ve seen plenty of kids sitting in the car or back in the hotel room with their nose in a book rather than go out and look at some natural wonder that impresses their parents but not them. Back in the day, there were plenty of occasions when <em>I</em> was that kid.</p>
<p>It might be argued that playing a video game is a less worthy pursuit than reading a book, but I suppose it depends a little bit on the game and a lot on the book in question. But the custom of kids being uninterested in their parents’ ideas of vacation or recreation is certainly nothing new.</p>
<p>I was the kid reading my way along the Durango Silverton railway as my dad urged me to look out the window on occasion. Amazing scenery. The book was more gripping. The exposure to nature worked though, as I love such excursions these days, though still read obsessively. The point-the experience is of value, though perhaps not participated in at the time in the manner hoped for.</p>
<p>Coureur - We are all exiles from our own youth.</p>
<p>Love that.</p>
<p>I actually made a conscious vow a few years ago as I got creakier never to become the sort of older person who says “The world is going to hell in a handbasket”. So far I am doing OK. But it takes a commitment to welcoming change, an attitude where you always say to yourself, “Well, I may not see the good of it but if all the young people like it perhaps there is value.”</p>
<p>Consumerism has always existed. Just used to be that it was only available to the elite. Everyone else had to make what they had themselves. I try to balance between loving my Tory Burch flats and remembering that if we have no soul how can we say we are human? If we have no compassion aren’t we just animals? If we cannot have some kind of faith do we deserve our consciousness?</p>
<p>But I am not sure whether enlightenment or new Chanel lipstick called Flirt is winning on any given day.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure the conversation in the town coffee shop or over the
back fence was never this interesting or witty. We can thank technology
for bringing us together.</p>
<p>I’m well familiar with the Experience museum, thanks. In my view, the Museum is part of a group of initial attempts at cutting edge technology and new form. Innovative architecture is developed by old men (usually) over a period of decades. It’s not something that appears in KMart one day.</p>
<p>Gehry is still working on the forms and materials he started developing at Bilbao–and The Experience Museum. I love these attempts, the pieces of art–and I can’t wait to see where he ends up. Of course, I am not looking at it through a barron’s real estate lense.</p>
<p>About 99.5% of us would disagree. It’s expensive, wasteful, and unsightly. An ego stroke to the architect and the builder/owner. Sometimes crap if just crap even is they want to call it art.</p>
<p>Wow I made a building with metal ribbons on it–boy is that neat. Not impressed one bit. It would look better without the metal. The basic building has nice lines and materials.</p>
<p>As to the wavy gravy office building–not so hot. You want a building with curves that meant something see the green building along 333 Wacker Dr. in Chicago. Pure form and function together.</p>
<p>I wish my kids would have grown up as we did, playing capture the flag or kickball in the street with the neighborhood kids, with only the occasional car coming down the street (who was always careful to go slowly in a residential area.) I miss the summers on Cape Cod in little cottages- and we never locked the doors. Occasionally my grandmother was with us in the cottage-- she’d be making a little pot of percolated coffee on the stove in the morning. Smelled great. Those are the good ol’ days.</p>
<p>Yeah, as I said, I don’t want to go back. I remember being very marginalized for being different, but eventually my hippie feminista academic self found a home, and I feel very at home in 2007.</p>
<p>And I’m starting to get poems published! Wa hoo!</p>
<p>I would, however, like my seventeen-year-old body back. Size three, could walk eight miles without even feeling it. Just before asthma and life.</p>
<p>OK, you got me on this topic. When I was a kid we used to play ball in the street… every day! (when we weren’t playing “guns”) Or, we would go up to the school and play ball at the school. Pickup games, touch football or softball, or basketball, in season. Yes, nowadays kids pretty much only play organized sports. They have to put on the uniform, with coaches, refs, and parents screaming on the sidelines. A casual pickup game at the school field is unheard of…</p>
<p>BUT now… they have taken it one step further…</p>