Materialistic society?

Question

Why do you think we are such a materialistic society?

Answer 1

It's Horrible, The media in everyway suckers society in, we are made to feel that having material objects are more important than anything else in the world and can get us further in life than real accomplishments, which sadly everyday is proven to be true, that money is the key to "TRUE HAPPINESS"... not because it might actually be that way but the only thing society sees these days, and we continue to believe it because its all anyone spends their time talking about at lunch with your friends you don't talk about how the drug usage rate has tripled in teenagers, instead you talk about the new purse Lindsay Lohan had on the cover of a magazine... Every type of media dotes on nothing but people who have too much money and what they do with it, Perfect example: Paris Hilton, that girl has done NOTHING for the world as a whole, she is simply famous for being rich... You can't go an entire day anywhere in the world without some type of media mentioning the girl, but what no one mentions is how she got there, and its the same with ridiculous amounts of celebrities, you watch T.V. and for ONE second they may mention the soldiers who died in Iraq, followed by an entire hour of who was seen out where and what they were wearing... and the few times someone famous steps into public being real they are harshly criticized in one way or the other... So if thats whats constantly circulated thats what everyone learns is important and necessary to have a what is seen as the "BEST" life...
Instead of being so consumed by celebrities and letting the media so deeply influence our lives by making people feel worthless without "material things" and money, they should focus on real world issues... but it will never be that way... and so we continue to become more greedy and materialistic everyday...

Answer 2

People are materialistic because they lack faith in the spiritual.

"Materialism is a philosophical system which regards matter as the only reality in the world, which undertakes to explain every event in the universe as resulting from the conditions and activity of matter, and which thus denies the existence of God and the soul. It is diametrically opposed to Spiritualism and Idealism, which, in so far as they are one-sided and exclusive, declare that everything in the world is spiritual, and that the world and even matter itself are mere conceptions or ideas in the thinking subject. Materialism is older than Spiritualism, if we regard the development of philosophy as beginning in Greece. In Greece the first attempts at philosophy were more or less materialistic; they assumed the existence of a single primordial matter -- water, earth, fire, air -- or of the four elements from which the world was held to have developed. Materialism was methodically developed by the Atomists. The first and also the most important systematic Materialist was Democritus, the "laughing philosopher". He taught that out of nothing comes nothing; that everything is the result of combination and division of parts (atoms); that these atoms, separated by empty spaces, are infinitely numerous and varied. Even to man he extended his cosmological Materialism, and was thus the founder of Materialism in the narrow sense, that is the denial of the soul. The soul is a complex of very fine, smooth, round, and fiery atoms: these are highly mobile and penetrate the whole body, to which they impart life. Empedocles was not a thorough-going Materialist, although be regarded the four elements with love and hatred as the formative principles of the universe, and refused to recognize a spiritual Creator of the world. Aristotle reproaches the Ionian philosophers in general with attempting to explain the evolution of the world without the Nous (intelligence); he regarded Protagoras, who first introduced a spiritual principle, as a sober man among the inebriated."

The Catholics have develop a very strong philosophy about this.

Also materialism is a result of a capitalist society. And we need the capitalism in order to have freedom of religion - thus giving birth to spriitualism.

Read "Democracy against Capitalism, Renewing Historical Materialism"

Ellen Meiksins Wood argues that with the collapse of Communism the theoretical project of Marxism and its critique of capitalism is more timely and important than ever. In this book she sets out to renew the critical program of historical materialism by redefining its basic concepts and its theory of history in original and imaginative ways, using them to identify the specificity of capitalism as a system of social relations and political power. She goes on to explore the concept of democracy in both the ancient and modern world, examining the concept's relation to capitalism

Answer 3

Someone forgot somewhere to
"SHOW ME THE LOVE"
so now we fill emtiness with toys and materials that only bring
joy for a minute.
A brainwashed society, won't you agree?

Answer 4

Advertising tells us that if we by a certain brand of anything we will be smart, cool, beautiful, successful, attract the object of our desire and be a worthwhile human being. And we believe it. That's why rich people can tell you whose name is sewn into there clothes.

Answer 5

Television, Hollywood, credit cards, the power of advertising, Walmart, GREED! However, the person who dies with the most toys still dies!

Answer 6

Easy...influence of sin on mankind.

Answer 7

greed?

anything you can do i can do better?

keeping up with the Jones'?

wandered away from the church?