Very interesting thread. My sincere thanks to all who shared.
A few items touched a nerve and I feel compelled to add my two ents. What follows is a bit of a rant. Hopefully I won't offend anyone...
Taco Bell -- I've never actually eaten at one so I should probably ust keep my mouth shut, but... Was it the death knell (no pun intended) for Mexican culture when Taco Bell opened a 'restaurant' in Mexico ity? I'm not quite sure why but I find it somewhat repulsive that so many non-American's first brush with "American culture" is via McDonalds and other fast food or junk food (Coke) outlets. Should fat and empty calories be US ambassadors? I realize these franchises are American icons but can't we do better?
"There were many huge size meat in the supermarket..." (excerpt from Lucy). It might not surprise you to learn that obesity is running rampant in the USA. I've heard reports that something like 25% to 33% of Americans are overweight.
Last week a friend went to a restaurant on my recommendation and I asked if they liked it. They hesitated a minute and in a reluctant tone said "it was OK". Having eaten there recently I was surprised it wasn't "very good". Was the service OK I inquired? No, the service was excellent. Was the food bad? Nope, the food was very good. To make a long (sad) story shorter it turns out that everything about their meal was very good or better except the portion size. It wasn't large enough. Thus, the overall experience was only "OK".
In a land where one can have just about anything, some people it eems, just want more.
I love Starbucks Coffee but isn't it a bit ridiculous that "tall" is the smallest cup size on the menu? (You can ask for a "short" by the way.)
It no longer shocks me to hear detractors of the USA call Americans "capitalist
pigs".
Somehow the worthy aspects of capitalism have been overtaken by materialism, consumerism, and over consumption. I shudder to think what might happen to the environment should populous nations such as China and India adopt the American lifestyle where nearly everything is disposable because you can always buy more and it's too much other to fix something that was designed to break in the first place.
tullio wrote: How easily, then, did material acquisition and accumulation become the measure of individual worth.
How does one gently point out to someone that might be materially focused that they're selling themselves short? Would telling someone "even if you do die with the most toys, you're still dead" or "even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat" help?
The dominant linguistic model in modern America is the language of advertising, which relies heavily on suggestion, allusion, inference, and connotation to repeat endlessly the same message: "buy me."
If it were up to me, having a ReplayTV would be manditory. That way, if you're going to watch television, you can at least skip over the darn advertisements. I'd much rather purchase something because it was designed better or improves my quality of life rather than because some advert tapped into my subconsious and triggered a buy impulse.