CONSUMER SOCIETY

Lifestyle

What is a lifestyle? Is it a certain level of material enjoyment? Number of times a week you go out to dinner or the movies? Time spent at the gym? Number of hours in worship? Brand of cigarettes smoked or beer drank? Is it how you dress; is it brand-based or an avoidance of brands? Is it who you associate and socialize with? The TV shows you watch? Or the DVDs you own?

Whatever the lifestyle is, chances are it has a cost. And there is a point where the cost is more destructive than not; perhaps all of our lifestyles here in the U.S. are more destructive than not because of the reliance on fossil-fuels for energy and plastics, industrial farms for food, uneven terms of trade and international financial impositions forcing export-led economies for our imported goods. What havoc has the hamburger or the banana we ate wreaked?