Anybody find it interesting that the citizens of the United States are commonly referred to as "consumers?"
That's our role iin society -- to consume. Shopping is rated the number one leisure activity in America. More people visit a shopping mall weekly than go to a church. It's a patriotic duty -- spending. American consumer spending is the only thing that stands between this nation and recession. Says so in the financial press.
Consumption is the measure of our worldly success, the touchstone of our social status, the definition of the American Dream. It is our right. "You deserve a break today -- at MacDonalds." We need it. "Things go better with Coca-Cola." And we can have it all "for only pennies a day" and "on easy terms."
Surely, a society that is fat, slothful, cluttered, indebted, lost, and perpetually seeking for the next retail high is not too high a price to pay for this consumerist paradise? Or is it?
We forget (or fail to recognize) how grotesque our failure to buy into the national ethos must appear to those around us. We march to a differnt drummer, but no one else can hear the beat. And we wonder what's wrong with them? Oh, come on.
