Lead Me Not into Temptation: The Specter of Conspicuous Consumption.
Americans love their junk. It's not the junk that bothers me, it's the love. - George Santayana As a teenager, I prided myself on not buying every fashionable knickknack that appeared on the shelf at a clothing store. I didn't blow away $60 for a pair of sneakers that would be threadbare in six months. I purchased a brand of jeans (Levis) passable enough to not be mocked by my fashion conscious classmates. Sure I was insulted and mocked for not being a proper materialistic drone, but I brushed it off. I was not a victim of that pernicious bug known as (dreadful pipe organ hit in minor key) CONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION. The closest I got to being a conspicuous consumer was as a collector of comic books-- oops, GRAPHIC NOVELS, sorry. I was a slave to titles such as Grendel; Concrete, the Living Monolith; Area 88... it was an eclectic mix of various genres. I was immersed in these beautiful pocket universes where I could get away from mundanity....