[T]he present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original[.]

~ Ludwig Feuerbach

Ludwig Feuerbach Agnosticism Atheism Christianity Consumer Culture Food Nothing Changes Simulacra Theism Twas Ever Thus

The heart is a muscle. You 'know' in your limbic system. The seat of instinct. The mammalian brain. Deeper, wider, beyond logic. That is where advertising works, not in the upstart cortex. What we think of as 'mind' is only a sort of jumped-up gland, piggybacking on the reptilian brainstem and the older, mammalian mind, but our culture tricks us into recognizing it as all of consciousness. The mammalian spreads continent-wide beneath it, mute and muscular, attending its ancient agenda. And makes it buy things.

~ William Gibson

William Gibson Advertising Brain Consumer Culture Heart

Don't get too lost in consumerism or materialism. As for ownership, the ultimate test of it is were you born with it and can you take it with you when you leave?

~ Rasheed Ogunlaru

Rasheed Ogunlaru Consciousness Consumer Culture Consumerism Inspirational Quotes Life Materialism Motivational Quotes Ownership Ownership Quotes Rasheed Ogunlaru Rasheed Ogunlaru Quotes You Can T Take It With You

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

~ Michael R. Solomon

Michael R. Solomon Anxiety Business Consumer Consumer Culture Psychology

We are not consumers. For most of humanity’s existence, we were makers, not consumers: we made our clothes, shelter, and education, we hunted and gathered our food.We are not addicts. “I propose that most addictions come from our surrendering our real powers, that is, our powers of creativity.” We are not passive couch potatoes either. “It is not the essence of humans to be passive. We are players. We are actors on many stages…. We are curious, we are yearning to wonder, we are longing to be amazed… to be excited, to be enthusiastic, to be expressive. In short to be alive.” We are also not cogs in a machine. To be so would be to give up our personal freedoms so as to not upset The Machine, whatever that machine is. Creativity keeps us creating the life we wish to live and advancing humanity’s purpose as well.

~ Matthew Fox

Matthew Fox Addiction Addictions Consumer Culture Consumerism Creation Creativity Humanity

We have created a manic world nauseous with the pursuit of material wealth. Many also bear their cross of imagined deprivation, while their fellow human beings remain paralyzed by real poverty. We drown in the thick sweetness of our sensual excess, and our shameless opulence, while our discontent souls suffocate in the arid wasteland of spiritual deprivation.

~ Anthon St. Maarten

Anthon St. Maarten Buying Consumer Culture Consumerism Consumption Deprivation Desert Despair Emptiness Excess Happiness Happiness Fulfillment Desire Material Possessions Material World Materialism Materialism Versus Spiritualism Materialistic Materialistic Society Meaning Of Life Meaning Of Things Meaninglessness Modern Life Modern Society Money Happiness Money Not Happiness Nausea Nihilism Nihilistic Opulence Poverty Pursuit Of Happiness Self Inflicted Pain Soul Searching Soulless Spending Spiritual Development Spiritual Growth Spiritual Life Spiritual Wisdom Spirituality Suffocate Wastefulness Wasteland Wealth Wealth And Virtues Wealth Of Soul

The more hideous the mental contortions, the greater the delight and bravos of the mass.

~ Emma Goldman

Emma Goldman Consumer Culture Culture Mass Culture Mass Media Masses Stupidity

If beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, value is in the mind of the consumer.

~ Michele Jennae

Michele Jennae Business Success Consumer Consumer Culture Success Principles Value

I wouldn't mind if the consumer culture went poof! overnight because then we'd all be in the same boat and life wouldn't be so bad, mucking about with the chickens and feudalism and the like. But you know what would be absolutely horrible. The worst? ... If, as we were all down on earth wearing rags and husbanding pigs inside abandoned Baskin-Robbins franchises, I were to look up in the sky and see a jet -- with just one person inside even -- I'd go berserk. I'd go crazy. Either everyone slides back into the Dark Ages or no one does.

~ Douglas Coupland

Douglas Coupland Apocalypse Consumer Culture End Of The Word Feudalism Technology

To possess possessions, a man will sell himself to have what another has, but it never dawns on him ~ that the more he gets, the less he keeps of himself.

~ Rius

Rius Capitalism Consumer Culture Consumerism Materialism Possessions