Interesting perspective, and it definitely resonates after having been overseas. It's really hard to see the Cariocas smiling outside their 3-walled favela homes, or see near-aked kids playing and laughing in the storm drains in Shanghai, and not be embarrassed of how fortunate and ungrateful we are here in the US. Is it different now than it used to be? My latest catch-all scape goat is consumerism, or better, the culture of consumerism that feeds on discontent - people will only upgrade or buy the next gadget if they're dissatisfied on some level with their stuff, themselves, or their lives. Marketers (and the business owners/ investors that employ them) pursue strategies for creating dissatisfaction in order to motivate purchasing. Think about it - in the last 40+ years, an entire industry of professional has developed to try to make sure we are not happy so that we will buy things in hopes of making ourselves happy. The contrast with pre-consumer cultures is stark, but I suspect it is narrowing as 1st- & 2nd-world business practices are adopted in developing cultures.
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Interesting perspective, and it definitely resonates after having been overseas. It's really hard to see the Cariocas smiling outside their 3-walled favela homes, or see near-aked kids playing and laughing in the storm drains in Shanghai, and not be embarrassed of how fortunate and ungrateful we are here in the US. Is it different now than it used to be? My latest catch-all scape goat is consumerism, or better, the culture of consumerism that feeds on discontent - people will only upgrade or buy the next gadget if they're dissatisfied on some level with their stuff, themselves, or their lives. Marketers (and the business owners/ investors that employ them) pursue strategies for creating dissatisfaction in order to motivate purchasing. Think about it - in the last 40+ years, an entire industry of professional has developed to try to make sure we are not happy so that we will buy things in hopes of making ourselves happy. The contrast with pre-consumer cultures is stark, but I suspect it is narrowing as 1st- & 2nd-world business practices are adopted in developing cultures.
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