One of the first statements made in The Abundant Community by John McKnight is, “It is our calling as citizens to ignore the voices that create dependency, for we are called to find our own way—not to follow their way.” This bold sentence sets the tone for the rest of the book. It is in these simple words that the main issue of individual independence within a community is exemplified. This individual self-reliance is vital to a decent, good, satisfied life. Local neighbors and citizens have the ability to change various life issues where as the government and professionals are unable to accomplish these tasks. Some of these life issues include; health, feeling safe and secure in neighborhoods, the environment, the economy, food, raising children, …show more content…
and care. If local neighbors and citizens fail to meet these responsibilities than it becomes impossible for a government to run efficiently. Another quote that stuck out was, “There are no strangers here, just friends we haven’t met.” This quote again demonstrates perfectly the context of this book. It is all about community and togetherness in order to be successful. Individuals working together, striving to accomplish more than what the government alone can provide. The book defines both citizen and consumer to determine the great difference between the two. These are definitions that most would say with confidence they understand but when compared parallel you begin to see the deeper meanings, which are more than meets the eye. A citizen is defined as one who is a participant in a democracy, one whom chooses to create the life, the neighborhood, the world from their own gifts and the gifts of others. In comparison a consumer is one who has surrendered to others the power to provide the essentials for a full and satisfied life. You may not think you fall into the category of a consumer based on that definition but a consumer ranges from a client to a student to an audience and a shopper, something that most of us would fall into. To summarize the importance of understanding the difference between a citizen and a consumer it is stated, “Consumerism is not about shopping, but about the transformation of citizens into consumers.” It is described that the community is “under assault in a consumer culture.” By using assault in this context the extremities of the problems a consumer culture creates are heightened. It is a common belief in todays’ consumer society that happiness can be bought.
Anything you may need in life can be purchased. It is this belief that we are converted from citizen to consumer. This belief also takes away from the importance of a family and community. A family no longer provides the primary care needed to raise a child, instead coaches, babysitters, and teachers are paid to take up this responsibility. We expect the best, most expensive doctors to keep us healthy, instead of doing everything possible to keep yourself well. There is the belief that a strong heart, youth, and sexual desire are all purchasable. There is also the belief that institutions need to take care of the vulnerable, for example we pay to put old people in retirement homes. All of these things were once filled by the family and community, now it is just believed that you can easily buy these things which takes the function out of the family. To further compare a consumer to a citizen many people were asked to describe how they felt about their lives. The people who were in a consumer society said they only lived where they did because of their children, they didn’t know their neighbors, and they could go months without seeing their neighbors. They believed they had everything they could possibly need because they had the nice house, the good job, and were able to purchase anything they might need such as food, cleaning services, and lawn care, but although they had every material item …show more content…
they could need there was still something missing. Their lives were all about routine and doing the same monotonous thing every day which can quickly remove purpose and joy from life. The opposing view were people who were not in the consumer society. They all knew their neighbors very well, everyone was considered close like a family, they portrayed family taught skills, and none of them described to feel lonely. One of the statements were, “We have self-taught skills, family taught. Intelligence is connected to character and morals. You can get a PhD, but it doesn’t count.” I believe this statement alone perfectly describes a huge difference between the people in a consumer society and those who are not engulfed in one. Money buys you the PhD and the book smarts but it is family and personal experiences that reward you with a different type of intelligence, one that is parallel with your character and morals, an intelligence that is more about you and your family than the knowledge of the worldly matters. These people who are not dependent on the material world think they have enough as it and experience a more satisfied life than most. For many Americans today the lifestyle of a consumer is the norm. The life where it seems the family has lost its function, the life that was described as ideal through material items is what most people grow up with and in effect they know nothing else. It is the belief of Americans that it would be “nice” to know their neighbors better but it is not necessary. It is something you can go without but would add a little more enjoyment. Many people follow this same mindset because of conforming to the consumer economy. With the consumer economy what you have is never enough, there is always room for improvement and gaining more. It is the life where the greatness is determined by the material items bought. I agree that many Americans fall into this category of beliefs but I disagree that this is what is right. I disagree with the belief that knowing your neighbors and people in your community is not necessary. Yes, it is something you could biologically live without but once someone gets into the same, continuous daily routine life become dull and purposeless. Your mental state starts to become jeopardized and your quality and happiness of life would not be where it could be if you were an active member in a community. As human beings we thrive off of personal attention and relationships. When your only true relationships are with material items and your same, boring routine you begin to miss the important quality of human contact and loss sanity. You would than begin to fill that void with more material items just making one continue to fall victim to the consumer society. A 1929 article by Charles Kettering made a great point and helps explain the foundation of the consumer society flawlessly. “Keep the Consumer Dissatisfied.” This does not conclude to companies creating bad products but to keeping the consumer to always want more. No matter how much the consumer buys or owns they always want more. Tragically, the practitioners of the consumer life don’t even see the local community and how abundant it is with relationships that would rescue themselves and their families from the failure and dependency that come with the consumer lifestyle. Metaphorically, their ships are sinking and they are struggling to swim to safety while a life raft is right by their side. As I stated earlier, the consumer lifestyle is a norm and becomes the only thing people grow up knowing. One function of the family and community is to raise a child. The education of children has been turned over to the schools. The state has taken this in control where every child must attend school or a certain curriculum until the age of sixteen, there is a set every day schedule broken into time slots, and standardized tests are the means to measure achievement. This schooling system shows how early in life a child is transferred from a citizen to a consumer, from family and community life to a system life. Parents are away working, making money during the day while their children are at school so in effect there is added pressures on the schooling systems. Schools are expected to feed, discipline, and provide care for in addition to the teaching and learning. This is additional duties of schools, more than what they are designed to handle. American’s first made the transformation from citizens to consumers when the culture sold the idea that a satisfied life is created by defining and promoting needs and then determining how to fulfil them. The market became larger by making the decision that families and communities are filled with needs that are best serviced by systems, such as the schooling system. One particular quote that stuck out to me was, “What my uncle once knew about my troubles is now a secret known only to my therapist.” This quote alone describes the loss of family function which has been replaced by professionals that you pay money for, the material items of life.
Before America became a society that revolved around the money and products people would turn to their family and loved ones, especially during hard times. Now when someone goes through a heartbreak, traumatic loss, or huge life change instead of reaching out to the loved ones who know you personally Americans turn to therapists. Although these are highly trained individuals who have great resources to help you the people who once counseled you and helped pull you along during the rough patches were your family and community. Americans now would feel more comfortable talking to a complete stranger than a close family member. When put in these terms I find this to be mind-blowing. Family and community are the ones who are there for you and know you better than anyone. Not only would they be understanding to the situation but they would also know what would be most optimal for you and how you could come out most successful. Therapists are trained for the situations but not the individuals. Every person reacts differently and I believe the ones who are closest to the individual are the ones who would be able to help the most
efficiently. Another huge way Americans are being turned from a community to citizens is commodification, as defined in the book as, “the process of taking a human condition, describing it as a problem, and then selling a purported solution.” Once the “solution” to human problems are bought and sold on markets universities than begin to teach it and certify it. This reality is frightening because anything that is out of the ordinary and something that in the past would have been seen as different but still would have been accepted is automatically seen as a problem which in effect leads to a way to grow the industries and another method of income. As the book makes the shift from the differences and transformation from a community to a consumer society to choosing a satisfied life an abundant community is illustrated. An abundant community is not organized the system way. It has no desire in consistency, uniformity, and replaceable parts. Abundance is about what is most personal and characteristic to neighborhoods and families. An abundant community is also marked by an accountability that can only be created in relationship to other people as opposed to the consumer society that focuses on individualism and self-interest. This type of community holds the possibility of higher satisfaction and fulfilling functions that are most important. Some basic beliefs of the abundant community are; what we have personally and with material items is enough, that family and community are able to handle uncertainty and can endure anything thrown their direction, cooperation is more effective than competition, being responsible for one another, and the ability to understand what we can and cannot do and that good and bad events and emotions are natural and inescapable.
In his work, “Overselling capitalism,” Benjamin Barber speaks on capitalism’s shift from filling the needs of the consumer, to creating needs. He tells how it has become easier for people to borrow money, so that they no longer get as much satisfaction from affording necessities. He says capitalism can be good when both sides benefit, but it has overgrown and must continue creating needs, even though the only people who can afford these needs don’t have any. According to Barber, people are still working hard, but them and their children are becoming seduced by unneeded shopping. He states that people are becoming more needy, and losing discipline in their lifestyle. Additionally capitalism must encourage easy and addicting shopping to
In the book Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman there are many different characters, and even some of them cross paths. A community garden was started just by one person therefore everyone follows. They all learn how to get along with other people, how to not stereotype so much, and how to depend on each other in their community. All of them struggle with something, whether it's with family, friends, or feeling stereotyped. They learn the importance of a community, and realize how much they really depend on each other. Having a community is important for all people to incorporate diversity, culture,and unique stories into their lives. You don't realize how much people depend on their community until its gone. The importance
This change, she argues, was largely a function of the shift to mass consumerism, rather than merely an effect of the Cold War (Cohen 8). The theoretical basis for these ideas were found, by Cohen, in earlier writers such as Thorstein Veblen, who developed the concept of ‘conspicuous consumption’ at the end of the 19th century, and economist Simon Patten, who showed how consumerism helped Americans to move beyond ethnic and racial barriers (Cohen 10). Other thinkers who developed these ideas, such as David Potter, E. Franklin Frazier, John Kenneth Galbraith and David Riesman also contribute to Cohen’s background of research, and the development of her thesis (Cohen 13). She uses her title “Consumer’s Republic” as a catch-all phrase describing the economic/political/cultural post-war effort to unite the country with shared values, and expand its economic prosperity and political
This is seen through Zygmunt Bauman’s ‘seduced’ and ‘repressed’ argument. Bauman (1988) cited in Hetherington and Harvard (2014), stated that people in contemporary western societies can be divided into two groups of consumers, these groups are the ‘seduced’ and ‘repressed’ Bauman claims that we now live in a consumer society and no longer live in an industrial society – but that society is still not equal, just as it was not equal in the past, however, he believes the types of inequality and freedom in consumer society differ from what was before (Hetherington and Harvard, 2014, p.125). Bauman’s seduced is defined as being those who can participate in the current consumer society, this also included individuals who are seen as valued
In “Habits Of The Heart” Bellah et al write that “they attempt to follow Tocqueville and call it individualism”. This they say is the first language in which Americans tend to think about their lives, values independence and self-reliance above all else (Viii). Americans separate work, family and community, when in fact, these worlds must be combined. We are hiding in such "lifestyle enclaves," our isolated existence limits our ability to relate ourselves to a broader community. The virtue of community interaction lies in its ability to provide meaning to the frustrating mechanisms of politics and combat the "inevitable loneliness of the separate self" (Bellah et. al., 190).
Bauman, Z, (1988) cited in Hetherington K, and Harvard C.(eds) (2014, pg.126,142). He further claims, “This is the characteristic pattern of inequality in our contemporary consumer society one that contrasts with the lines of class and occupational status that characterised the major cleavages in Industrial society”. Bauman, Z, (1988) cited in Alan, J. (2014 pg. 275). Moreover, consumerism encourages people to consume creating their own identities, replacing Identities centred on production and work. Furthermore, Hayek in the ‘Ordering Lives Strand’ claims “The market should be free of political intervention allowing individuals to be free to pursue their own interests” Hayek, F.A. (1976). cited in Clarke, J. (2014 pg.380). However, Allen. claims “The ability to ‘buy into’ a particular lifestyle actively excludes others from it on the basis of lack of income and those unable to do so will be seen as unworthy or inadequate” (Allen, J. 2014 P. 278). Thus constraints can be seen placed on people through lack of income, turning differences into inequalities with evidence indicating that ‘People’s values, beliefs and status are now shaped by ‘Consuming’ rather than as in Industrial times by work, politics and religion’, (The Open University, 2016). Therefore, differences which turn into inequalities are as predominant in today’s consumer society as they were in our industrial
... funding and direction, including those of local government and philanthropy, are critical to tailoring programs to the specific needs of local communities, and should be leveraged through federal funding. The final ingredient is responsibility, both personal and collective. Individuals must be empowered to improve their own lives, and the community must support the effort rather than look the other way, or looking past the working poor, who can so easily blend into the background.
“Proper society did not think about making money, only about spending it,” said Barbara W. Tuchman. This quote shows our real world, and the people that spend money, but they forget about the value of money. Nowadays people want more than they have. They forget how many things they have and how much money they spend. Most people when they see people having something better, they think that they need it also. Also, people forget how hard they get that money, but how easily and quickly they spend it. In the article “The Treadmill of Consumption” by Roberts, he says that people are willing to go into debt to buy certain products and brands. That is right that people can do crazy things to buy certain goods. Sometimes people
America’s current standard of living is going to cause our demise. Consumerism is a problem throughout Americans culture since mass production began in the late nineteenth century. The obsession with consumerism has led to mindless wastes of resources, a diseased society and economic instability. Rick Wolff, a professor of economics at University of Massachusetts, states “economics of capitalism spread consumerism—now uncontrolled, ecologically harmful, and fiscally disastrous—throughout the United States”. Wolff’s viewpoint on consumerism aligns with mine. Believing that an economy based on promoting endless consumption is volatile and unsustainable. Consumerism can be analyzed and seen to be embedded by corporations and politicians.
...helter, food, clothing, and fuel for survival. The Market Revolution in the 19th century changed the mindset of copious individuals about their essential needs. With new innovations that make goods cheaper and easily obtainable, people's greed for more possessions grew. However, the incessant growth of one's desires make the individual a "slave" of their desires because they devote their time in earning money to acquire more, thus losing their freedom. Henry David Thoreau agreed that people enslaved themselves to materialistic possessions and often they forget the genuine meaning of living. Faced with the choice of increasing one’s ability to acquire more goods and decreasing one’s needs, Thoreau believed that minimizing one’s desire will lead to favorable account as individuals gain the chance to enjoy the meaning of life and welcome what nature provide them with.
If we take time and observe our surroundings, we see people are more concerned about the amount of Louis Vuttons or Michael Kors bags does one purchase than being aware of the person well being because this world today is all about objects than people. The author of the case of consumer society has presented the modern society in such a way that if we stop and think and look around how are generation today has become, making our world a world of materialism. According to karl marx, our world today is a world of objects as mentioned in the case that we have started given priotity more to our purchases than to people around us for example in a gathering of teens, half of them you will notice will be on their gadgets rather than communicating with the people around. This materialism according to marx is due to the rise of capitalism, where people are easily manipulated into making choices which benefit the economy and most of the time we do not even realize it. The whole concept of Shopping malls we see nowdays is a tool of manipulation, have been made the place of goods, acitivies and leisure for the consumers that they become entangled in the shadows of the capitalists.People nowdays go to shopping malls , hangout and do some window shopping and come back stating that it was an outing rather than having any interaction with other people , we chose to interaction with objects to fulfil our desire. Even the way producrts are arranged are not coincidental but a technique of manipulation for example if the product is arranged in a attractive way, consumers automatically get attracted to it rather then the product which is arranged in a disorganize way.This proves what Marx says that consumers in the capitalist society donot have any so...
Frequently however, issues arise amongst a community that need attention. In this essay I will outline and discuss some of these issues and the interventions, projects or programmes designed and used to tackle and combat them. The three models of intervention or, ‘Community Development’, I will discuss in this essay, "Social Planning", "Community Development", and "Social/Community Action", all have the same aim regardless of how it is accomplished and this is to improve and maintain the conditions which affect the lives of the community.
Commitment to community is a requirement for contemporary Americans and vital to its survival. “Love thy neighbor as thyself” is the unselfish act of sharing: from a cup of sugar to a wealth of information to the guardianship of all children involved and the protection of every individual in that said community. Whether that community consists of the “Classic Neighborhood, those with a common set of goals, or those who share a common identity” the thread that holds this matrix together is always woven into the shared identity as well as responsibility of all involved. (Redmond, 2010). A community cannot continue to exist through the will of withdrawn individuals who arms only embrace themselves and have no involvement whatsoever with neighbors one door away.
Alice Elliott Dark’s fictional story “Rumm Road, ” discusses the influence that one citizen could potentially have on an entire community. Dark’s story talks about a group of girls who all happens to be involved in a conflict down on Rumm Road, which is “one in the richest streets in town.” (Dark 3). The narrator and her friends didn’t pay much mind to these girls due to the conflict didn’t directly affect their neighborhood, until it is discovered that one of these girls originated from their community. Dark’s story “Rumm Road” ultimately takes a position on the responsibility of being a citizen. The position that the story takes is that the responsibility of being a citizen is to be more involved and aware with their society. As for this story, it shows how the characters aren’t following their responsibilities until a critical event happens and awakens them to be more involved and aware. This awakening allows the characters to take forth the responsibilities a citizen should have. Dark uses of pronouns in her writing, awareness of the characters, assumption among the characters, and implanting feelings in the characters, she is able to state how citizens in general should be more aware and involved in their society and carry out that as their responsibilities.
According to Slater (1997), Consumer Culture is the culture of market societies and is defined though market relations. It predominantly is the product of capitalism. He believes that this new culture is a pecuniary culture based on money. The central claim is that the values from the realm of consumption will spill over into other domains of social action. He further argues that Consumer Culture is in principle, universal and impersonal. He simultaneously agues, that there is an ultior claim towards this definition, as although it seems universal and is depicted as a land of freedom, in which everyone can be a consumer, it is also felt to be universal because everybody must be a consumer. ...