35 Quotes About Consumer-culture

The alternative to the free market consumer culture is a set of covenants that supports neighborly disciplines, rather than market disciplines, as a producer of culture. These non-market disciplines have to do with the common good and abundance as opposed to self-interest and scarcity. This neighborly culture is held together by its depth of relatedness, its capacity to hold mystery, its willingness to stretch time and endure silence.

Consumption is not bad, but when done at excessive proportions it turns out to be not just bad, but downright deadly for the self as well as the society, as the society itself is a collective functional expression of many selves.

The most effective and enduring form of warfare against liberation is the implanting of material and intellectual needs that perpetuate obsolete forms of the struggle for existence.

Encouraging consumers to think more seriously about the financial, environmental, and personal costs of their consumption would be a major step in addressing the crisis of quality and the environmental and social impacts of too much stuff. Better yet, it would spur businesses to seek economic incentives to design and market better products. Today's secondhand economy, faltering in search of quality, should have more than it can handle.

By charging wildly different prices for products that have largely the same cost, Starbucks is able to smoke out customers who are less sensitive about the price. Starbucks doesn’t have a way to identify lavish customers perfectly, so it invites them to hang themselves with a choice of luxurious ropes.

Most people want Jesus as a consultant rather than a king. Many want to consume the kingdom of God without first carrying the cross of Christ.

The military institution is evidently absurd. The absurdity of non-military institutions is more difficult to face. It is even more frightening, precisely because it operates inexorably. We know which switch must stay open to avoid atomic holocaust. No switch detains an ecological Armageddon.

...the higher the expectations about unselected alternatives, the lower the level of satisfaction with the chosen good.

Living as a slave to unchecked personal desire and subjugated to external circumstances is wearisome. It is a common error to devote a person’s life to earning money. While money relives us from the stress of suffering from deprivation, moneymaking will not make us happy. A person must have passion in life in order to achieve any degree of personal bliss.