Not Buying It By Judith Levine Summary

September 11, 2001 is a day that shook the United States to its core. Millions of Americans felt the pain, the loss, and the anger that came with the attack on their nation. It was a day of mourning, and when it comes to days of mourning it is difficult putting one’s pain into words. However, Leonard Pitts Jr. was able to move past the emotion. He put into his words, not only his own feelings, but the feelings of an entire nation. Pitts conveys the emotion felt after the terror attacks in his essay “Sept. 12, 2001: We’ll go forward from this moment” through his mournful, angry, and righteous tone.

Black Friday shopping is a controversial issue in the United States; while many believe the day after Thanksgiving is a part of holiday festivities, others view it as destructive. Throughout “Black Friday: Consumerism Minus Civilization,” Andrew Leonard argues that the chaos of Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving in which crowds of Americans shop all night for extremely low prices, lessens the sophistication of Americans and the true meaning of the holidays. People become so consumed in the idea of endless sale prices that they forget to embrace what they already have, such as family, food, and shelter. He believes that Black Friday shopping has become out of control and describes the negative effects of excessive consumerism. he explains how most consumers act completely insane while Black Friday shopping and how society encourages this behavior by creating commercials and advertisements. Furthermore, Leonard states that it hurts the economy and damages one’s mental health. While Leonard is probably wrong when he claims that Black Friday shopping is completely troublesome to America’s well-being, he is right that consumerism overpowers the true significance of Thanksgiving.

Author Anna Rosenberg gives a vivid example of a life story. When Rosenberg talks about Judith Levine, author of Not Buying: My year Without Shopping, she show enough evidence to prove that shopping addiction is a real problem in society and not only that, but the type of products customers spend their money on. Anna Rosenberg took her time to analyze the problem afterwards she also give some advice on her article Field Guide to the Materialist: She’s Gotta Have It. Some of Rosenberg’s suggestions to consumers were, to ask themselves when buying something if I really need it? What is the real reason I want it? What are the disadvantages of buying it? and to not beat themselves with those

Before reading the excerpts from “The Overspent American” I was not familiar with Juliet Schor’s work. While reading however, I saw that her views were different from many of the other authors that we have read so far. When I had finished the reading I found the reading enjoyable and fascinating. The reason that her writing intrigued me was because of her multiple perspectives while writing. Not only does she concentrate on the economics of American people, but she also uses a sociologist lens to show the purchasing habits of our culture. “The Overspent American” focuses on how we as a society have changed our spending patterns from the past. During the 1950s the phrase “keeping up with the Jones’” was coined and it represented Americans trying to outspend their neighbors and friends. For example, my friend buys a boat and I also need to buy a boat to make sure my friends saw me as being wealthy. Today our society as changed in many ways but Schor finds that our spending habits have altered the most since the 1950s. By analyzing and evaluating her work, one can see how Americans spending habits have changed over time and how our economics have been overtaken by television and broadcast media.

The phenomenon of consumerism is quiet powerful due to the impact on individual’s lives. Society has come to the point, happiness is associated with consumption. However, the way consumerism works, is if the items being purchased gives temporary happiness. There individuals are always buying the latest products to remain happy. In the text, “The Cult you’re in” Kalle Lasn, discusses a cult-like nature of consumer culture on Americans. Lasn uses the work ‘cult’ as a metaphor; he does not mean an actual cult but American consumers seem to be in a cult-like nature. The ideal example of Lasns argument is the text, “The man behind Abercrombie and Fitch”, Benoit Denizet-Lewis, goes in great depth of the life of the CEO, Mike Jeffries, of

Norton, Anne. “The Signs of Shopping.” Signs of Life in the U.S.A.: Readings on Popular

“The Signs of Shopping” by Anne Norton mainly talks about the hidden semiotic meanings behind the concept of shopping. She mentioned how women shopped to obtain a sense of self-identities by spending money to possess property(88). The reading also implies that

Anna Quindlen, a novelist, social critic, and journalist wrote an intriguing essay “Stuff is Not Salvation” about the addiction of Americans, who splurge on materialistic items that have no real meaning. The ability to obtain credit is one of the main reasons to blame for society’s consumption epidemic. However, Quindlen feels the economic decline due to credit card debt is insignificant compared to the underlying issues of American’s binging problems. Quindlen’s essay gives excellent points regarding the differences in America’s typical shopping habits. Additionally, she mentions how people acquire all this “stuff” but seem to never realize, “why did I get this?”(501). Quindlen makes her

In this essay I will be outlining consumerism and claims that a consumer society is always a throw-away society. Consumption plays a big part in our lives and causes us to live in divided societies. It may make us feel like we fit in buying new gadgets and clothes and also give us that sense of belonging but we don’t take into account what happens to the old items and packaging. People do not want to look at the problems caused. I will use this essay with the evidence I have read

For generations, Americans has been brainwashed by the media to believe that what is displayed on television is the ideal perception of what real beauty have manipulated American citizens of what style looks like. Furthermore, with their many brainwashing strategies, that means more and more consumers spending beyond their budget. Our perspectives have been heavily influenced by what they believe is nice, but can we afford it all? With unrealistic combination of goods in store, plazas, and mall, consuming has become a bad behavior of some. In support of my argument of the “Overspending”, author Gladwell’s article “The Science of Shopping” also argues that stores adjust to fit the needs and wants of the shopper are evidently presented. With that being said, we have no idea when we are being manipulated into unrealistic shopping behavior that is influenced by the way the advertisement is presented in visual sight. Author Gladwell gets a “retail anthropologist” and “urban geographer” named Paco Underhill to give breakdown points of how he helps brand name stores influence consumers into persuasion of buying more. However, most of us fall short of that discipline, while being persuaded to overspend during our store visits.

The first way we got a jump start was through the article summary assignments based on articles pertaining to contemporary culture. In all honesty, some of them did cause me to look at things with eyes I had not used before. One article in particular that sticks out in my mind, is Stuff is Not Salvation, by Anna Quindlen. Through her use of Ethos, she really brings to light how Americans have this ridiculous obsession with buying stuff. She notes how we are trying to use junk to make ourselves happier, but in the end, as Anna puts it, “The happiest families I know aren’t the ones with the most square footage” (Qtd in Perspectives pg 503). Before reviewing this article, I considered myself someone who didn’t necessarily NEED stuff, but as the assignment went on, I realized how bad it really has gotten for us as a society.

The tragic events that occurred on September 11th, 2001 will live on forever in the history of the United States as citizens shed fresh tears for those lost every year. Hundreds upon thousands of articles have been written since the life-shattering catastrophic event, most of which – unsurprisingly – focus on the politics of the entire situation. In one article, “9/11,” Susan Sontag ruthlessly criticizes the government response following the attacks, making bold claims that they were withholding information from the public and leaving citizens blind and ignorant. Though Sontag is effective in describing a valid argument against the government’s response after the events of 9/11, her success is lost in her failed establishment of ethos in her lacking appearance of knowledge, little fairness toward the government’s side, and lost credibility due to inadequate facts and strong emotions.

How many of us living in the United States manage to find ourselves at the latest holiday sales in order to get those “must-have” deals of the century? Thanksgiving day is about one month from today. A few hours after the family turkey eating night, people will go to department stores and line up to purchase new clothes, jewelry, and electronics which are heavily discounted. About one month after that day, Christmas and New Year’s Day come. People will, then again, go to department stores and line up to purchase heavily discounted Christmas sales. Being with the family is no longer the only factor to look forward to on these holidays. The discounts that are associated with these holidays has made shopping a tradition that we simply cannot miss. This is a similar situation that occurs in the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, written in 1931. This novel tells a story about a dystopian future where technology is used to control people - from the way they are born or decanted to the way they live their lives as consumers to establish stability in the society. Just like the society in the novel Brave New World, our society is indoctrinated to become consumer. To make matters worse, we are forced to believe that we need to buy goods that we do not really need! We have to start limiting our desire to consume if we do not want to end up living in an unfairly controlled world the novel describes. We have to reduce our impulse to always consume because consuming goods that we

The dominance of capitalist countries has facilitated the conformity of global civilization and cultural environments resulting in an increase of consumer cultures (Sarmela, 1977; Chaney, 2004). As capitalism experiences a natural and unavoidable expansion, consumers engage with consumer culture creating invisible products such as social status, identity, cultures, and ethical relationships (Sternberg, 2017). There are two sides to consumer culture that are the values held by society; those who conform and those who rebel (Turow & McAllister, 2014). All participants of society align with either submission or resistance to dominant ideas, values, and social structures. However, as a result of continued progressive diversity and fragmentation, the distinction between submissive and resistance are blurred. Nevertheless, those who resist and rebel are still participants of consumer culture. Instead they instead form sub cultures in society with alternative beliefs, values and ideas that challenge the mainstream (Chaney, 2004). In order to better understand the relationship between consumption practice and the resistance of consumer culture, theories of reflexive project of self, prosumers, lifestyle commodification, and incorporation will be analyzed in relation to the vegan movement.

The idea of purchasing unnecessary items is exemplified in Jacks condo. Jack identifies his condo as an “ikea nesting instinct”, and he feels compelled to purchase materialistic items he does not need. When browsing through a catalog he states “[I] wonder what kind of dining set defines me as a person?” Consumerism holds a strong force upon Jack, he feels that he owns defines him as a person. Jack works at a job he does not enjoy simply to supply fads that have been instilled by society.