If an article is attractive, or useful, or inexpensive, they’ll stop making it tomorrow; if it’s all three, they stopped making it yesterday.
Mignon McLaughlin (1913-1983) American journalist and author
The Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 5 (1963)
(Source)
Quotations about:
consumerism
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But the thing I must point out is that my despair is of the group itself, the group as it’s assembled. And I’ve never identified with the “local group,” no matter what it identifies itself as. But I do cherish, and love, and am thrilled by individuals. People, one by one as I meet them, I find are wondrous. When you have time to listen and watch them, when you look them in the eyes, you see all the potential of the whole thing, this whole species that has such a wonderful gift that was given by nature. The mind, the ability to objectify and to think abstractly. And we’ve wasted it by everyone wanting a fanny pack and to go to the mall and to be paying 18 percent interest on things that we don’t need, don’t want, don’t work, and can’t give back.
George Carlin (1937-2008) American comedian
Interview by Marc Cooper, The Progressive (Jul 2001)
(Source)
In our rich consumers’ civilization we spin cocoons around ourselves and get possessed by our possessions.
Maxwell "Max" Lerner (1902-1992) American journalist, columnist, educator
“What Shall I Save?” New York Post (10 Sep 1952)
Reprinted in The Unfinished Country, pt. 1 (1959).
One cause of this situation is found in our relationship with money, since we calmly accept its dominion over ourselves and our societies. The current financial crisis can make us overlook the fact that it originated in a profound human crisis: the denial of the primacy of the human person! We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose. The worldwide crisis affecting finance and the economy lays bare their imbalances and, above all, their lack of real concern for human beings; man is reduced to one of his needs alone: consumption.
Francis I (b. 1936) Argentinian Catholic Pope (2013- ) [b. Jorge Mario Bergoglio]
Evangelii Gaudium, sec. 55 (24 Nov 2013)
(Source)
In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.
Ivan Illich (1926-2002) Austrian philosopher, social critic, cleric
Tools for Conviviality, ch. 3 (1973)
CALVIN (as he and Hobbes ride a wagon downhill): I think life should be more like TV.
CALVIN: I think all of life’s problems ought to be solved in thirty minutes with simple homilies, don’t you? I think weight and oral hygiene ought to be our biggest concerns.
CALVIN: I think we should all have powerful, high-paying jobs, and everyone should drive fancy sports cars. All our desires should be instantly gratified.
CALVIN (as the wagon flies off a cliff): Women should always wear tight clothes, and men should carry powerful handguns.
CALVIN (as he and Hobbes tumble in mid-air): Life overall should be more glamorous, thrill-packed, and filled with applause, don’t you think?
HOBBES (as they pick themselves up from the ground): I think my life is too featherbrained already.
CALVIN: Of course, if life was really like that, what would we watch on TV?
