Materialism In American Culture Analysis

If Tyler Durden from Fight Club was sitting inside $340,000 Lamborghini Aventador, his hatred towards materialism probably would have driven him to accelerate the car right into the ocean. If James Twitchell was sitting inside of it, he probably would have just left the car in a parking structure with the keys still inside. Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Fight Club and James Twitchell’s essay “The Allure of Luxury”both take negative against the concept and phenomenon of Western materialism, where society indulge on luxurious items to the extent of being the focus of life. In Fight Club, the idea of anti-materialism is taken to a great extent, with the book’s main character and Tyler focusing on destroying the materialistic society with violence to restore a more primitive way of living. However, in Twitchell’s piece, materialism is taken more moderately, describing how materialism has rapidly expanded throughout the Western nations, questioning the if it is beneficial or malicious. I believe that materialism does provide great benefits that allowed us human beings to advance as a society. However materialism introduces numerous complications that impact our society on a macroscale. Before comparing and contrasting my view of materialism, we will first explore Twitchell’s essay, then Fight Club to first better understand their stance and concept of materialism.

While “Two Cheers for materialism” by James Twitchell explores the extent to which materialism has become an ample and important aspect of everyday life in our society, the text also highlights our tendency to disregard and question the moral appropriateness of this very integral aspect.

Transcendentalist author, Henry David Thoreau sees materialism as the destruction of society and one’s mind. He articulates this in Walden, “Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do not want society.” These strong views from Thoreau are not subject only to him, fellow transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson shares similar views from Self-Reliance, “Men have looked away from themselves and at things so long that they have come to esteem the religious, learned and civil institutions as guards of property, and they deprecate assaults on these, because they feel them to be assaults on property. They measure their esteem for each other by what each has, and not by what each is.” These two influential thinkers agree that materialism is ruining civilization and free thinking.

Throughout the years of American culture, there have been dominate patterns of values that have stood the test of time and are still followed today. One value that stood out to me in particular is the comfort people gravitate to in materials. In the past century the focus of happiness has switched from family oriented to possessive. While mental possession is still very prominent, American’s gears have shifted to a more competitive, greedy society. There’s a materialistic dream that drives Americans to go to college and find a career that’s going to buy them a fancy car with a nice house that is bound to impress. Modern Americans are drawn to what is going to make them look more successful, so while memories and spiritual

In a materialistic society, one measures the worthiness of its members according to their wealth. For many Americans across many generations, material possessions have determined social status and overall value to society. This rating system has been the subject of blistering critique from early on in human society when money was deemed “the root of all evil”, to the 1920’s when F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote a criticism of materialism in his book The Great Gatsby. Americans today still try to acquire the lavish trappings of the wealthy. Although equating money to happiness is no longer socially acceptable by most people, the want for more materials and tendencies to depend on alcohol in times of trouble that Fitzgerald critiqued is still valid today.

There are many Americans that spend their money on too many things not essential to the preservation of our lives and health. Money that we spend on upgrading to a new TV or more fashionable up to date clothing could be donated to one of a number of charitable agencies and can mean the difference between life and death for children in need. Peter Singer agrees with these statements and wrote an essay about it. He describes how most of us would rather spend $200 on dining out in one month, and that same $200 could save a child’s life. I agree with this statement, there are too many of us in our own little bubbles and we don’t worry about what’s going on around us. His thesis isn’t based off of facts or true life events but is based off of

Materialism, a tendency to consider material possessions and physical comfort as more important than spiritual values. The want and desire for more things in life beyond things that are necessary, show that Americans will never be content with what they have. In a sense, America has been worshiping material, this can clearly be seen because so many people value their phones an electronic devices almost to the extent of a human life. We as Christians know this is wrong because we refer to what the Bible says in Matthew 6:24, "No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money”. The word money in this verse refers to money and material you buy with it, meaning that you cannot “serve”/worship both God and Earthly items. Materialism has become the American dream to many, an a major part of today's

Materialism takes part in every person’s life, no matter what social class they belong to. The idea of materialism can be considered dishonest, there are many factors that go into a person being materialistic. This is based on materials they have or don’t have. In the book The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Fitzgerald outlines how the American dream is fading out as most Americans no longer consider and observe the requirements of the dream. Moreover, the theme of materialism significantly featured throughout the book explains why there is a loss of faith in the American Dream.

Over the past decades, how Americans perceive the marital relationship greatly reformed, illuminating society’s values. In the past, marriage use to represent a legal contract to bear children and acquire finances, but today, “In all too many communities in the US, especially poor and minority ones, marriage is a retreat” (Wilcox et al., 2005, p. 5). Rather than observing marriage as an obligation, Americans now perceive a marriage to entail intimate commitments between affectionate partners. America transformed its values from the society and family to the individual level. Of the major values changes, which occurred over the past decades, this article exemplifies an increase in single-parent homes, cohabiting, and divorce. Due to America’s expansion of individualism and materialism, individuals no longer perceive their marriage as life long commitments. This transformation occurred because of a shift in societal values; society no longer places stigma on divorce and single parents, which aided in the increasing numbers of marital shifts. In fact, Americans tend to enter marriages with unrealistic expectations, expecting their partner to fulfill all of their needs without conflict. It stands as our unrealistic expectations and perceptions that caused a shift in marriages.

As Austrian writer Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach wrote,“To be content with little is difficult; to be content with much, impossible.” History and literature have established that the ideal goal every American has wanted is for his thirst for material possessions to be reached, but even then, the individual isn’t truly happy. Money, and the things it can get you, have long been a part of American culture and the materialist culture of society have been examined in numerous ways from novels to the art of those like Andy Warhol. A life free from the economic woes that plague almost everyone seems like the quintessential existence, but material wealth is not a way to mend issues.

Americans are considered to materialistic in nature, money conscious and care less about people that are less well-off economically.

There is a strong relationship between human material culture and the development of human cognitive abilities. Around the 2.0 Ma period there was a widespread of evolutionary change across a vast range of mammals (Foley, R. and Gamble, C. 2009), one of the largest factors contributing to the growth of cognitive abilities is a larger brain size (Delagnes, A.and Roche, H. 2004). A larger brain allowed for humans to expand their thinking which enhanced their lives. A significant step in the history of humans and technology is when they started using tools (Wynn. T. 2009). "The enhanced working memory that appears to have accompanied the evolution of modern humans enabled much higher levels of innovation, thought experiment, and narrative complexity" (Wynn, T. and Coolidge, F.L. 2004). The changes in human cognitives abilities can be reflected by changes in human material culture.

American culture refers to the traditions and practices of the people of the United States. Culture comprises of the nature of buildings, religion, music language and marriage. The population of the United States is more than 320 million people making it the most culturally diverse country in the globe. Books such as Crabgrass Frontier, Manifest Destination and Muscular Christianity are important sources of information about American culture. This paper is a reflection on the methods that these books use in providing information about the evolution of the US culture. The paper examines the relationship between these three sources and ways they challenge or inform an understanding of the American society during the late 19th and early 20th century. There is an analysis of the efficiency of the issues tackled by these books in influencing the contemporary discourse surrounding American culture. The major argument of this paper is that Crabgrass Frontier, Manifest Destination and Muscular Christianity provide reliable information about the evolution of the US culture and they supplement each other through the use of relevant examples.

People in the U.S. value life to a lesser degree than those before us, because there is no longer a struggle to merely survive. We’re also severely and absurdly spoiled, with a plethora of food and profusion of inessential products. Unappreciative of more than just life, we’re so greatly endowed that we no longer appreciate beauty, love, relationships, ideas or thoughts to the magnitude our simplistic ancestors did. Materialism is brought on by our consumer culture and has made us shallow, lacking the depth our

In the short story, multiple elements of material/non-material culture are portrayed. Material culture is composed of tangible items that are symbolic or hold meaning to a society such as having a car. Non-material culture consists of ideas, morals and values that hold importance a society or culture. This story illustrates the effect culture can have in our behavior and how it shapes our society, it just comes to support the idea that culture and society are dependent on each other in order to thrive. In order to comprehend material and non-material culture we will first have to separate the both an apply them to context.