Hamrick Unkindness

As humans, we make decisions based on our comfort levels, choosing one thing over another. We prefer to not think about the way animals are killed or tortured, just to eat and enjoy them. We prefer to believe lobsters don't feel pain, and ignore how they cling to containers’ sides as they are being boiled alive. We prefer to choose our lobsters and watch them die, as opposed to choosing our cows and watch them be slaughtered. We choose which creatures to empathize with, and which to neglect. Wallace admits he cant justify these preferences we all have without sounding selfish towards the end of the essay. According to David Wallace, “the whole animal-cruelty-and-eating issue is not just complex, it is also uncomfortable.” This paper presents the moral complications of animal cruelty and the unclarity of it

In reading Anna Quindlen’s¬¬ 2008 op-ed, “Stuff Is Not Salvation”, she briefs the reader on the horrors of American consumerism. Her piece starts with a morbid detail of a Wal-Mart employee that was trampled to death during a Black Friday Sale. She goes on to summarize how the shoppers continued to grab items even after the management announced that the store was closed. Quindlen also sprinkles her work with several statistics. Though there are many valid points that these statistics bring, she doesn’t provide a reference nor citation to these points. Quindlen also has a small scope on those whom live frugal and fruitfully. Quindlen focuses only a handful of personal experiences, mentioning friends who falter, and small rural farmers in Pennsylvania.

Today, Americans live in a world where we are constantly encouraged “to keep up with the Joneses” whether it be from advertisment, longer shopping hours, or multiple other factors. A surprising statistic you can find in the book, Affluenza: How overconsumption is killing us--and how to fight back, where it states that “70 percent of us visit malls each week, more than attended houses of worship” (15). Shopping has become so convenient in recent years due to online stores, as well as the growing number of shopping centers, that it’s become a problem. Kalle Lasn, co-founder of the magazine Adbusters and starter of the Occupy Movement, believes that, “Overconsumption is the mother of all of our environment problems” (197). Consumers have come to see shopping as a fun activity while spending time with friends or family. When really over consumption of material goods ultimately leads us to unhappiness, the unsatisfied desire to want more, and possibly put you into debt.

In the article “ The Busy Trap” Kreider tries to convince readers to chose time over money. He makes numerous points including how boasting about busyness takes the form of a complaint. He insults those who voluntarily take on obligations by remarking that they are obsessed with always being occupied. However, the basis for such a conclusion is founded on only a few examples of individuals who were negatively affected by the burden of work. In Kreider’s opinion it is wasteful to be busy all the time because life is too short to work more than 5 hours per day and not spend enough time in one’s happy place. What is your happy place? Picture it and stay there for a while letting your thoughts flow. Notice that your thinking becomes more positive and somewhat out of reach. Next, imagine a life with minimal stress that includes little to no work and much enjoyment; now you 're floating back to reality because that type of life is not in the grasps of most. Similarly, Kreider writes his article as if most people have plenty of time to waste, and to enjoy themselves, as he has. Kreider’s overall point that people keep themselves busy to escape the feelings of emptiness is both ignorant and a reflection of his narrow perspective of the world. His opinion that people feel apprehensive when not working, along with the fact that most people wouldn’t be content living the lifestyle Kreider is promoting, plus his support towards the propositions of full unemployment and a

Malcolm Gladwell is currently a non-fiction writer for The New Yorker. After college, he took a journalism position in Indiana and later took a position in Washington. In 1996, he moved to New York, where he is today. He has written five books and each has been on the New York Times best seller list (Famous Authors). In his first year of working as a journalist for The New Yorker, he wrote, “The Science of Shopping.” In this piece, Gladwell objectively evaluates Paco Underhill’s research within the business industry. Underhill “would have from a hundred to five hundred pages and pages of carefully annotated tracking sheets and anywhere from a hundred to five hundred hours of films” for each experiment that he conducts (99). With Underhill’s determination and research, and Gladwell’s journalistic qualities, this report changes the way anyone views shopping.

What if we stopped celebrating being busy as a matter of importance? Would one make the relation that running errands has the result of the building of character? Would it be agreed upon that constant correspondence to our peers draws us nearer to our goals? Throughout our history humans have developed an undeniable connection between the fulness of one's schedule and the matter of importance they hold in a society. However, with the uniqueness and the complexity of the human mind, does one really need to be occupied in order to progress? In order to continue to effectively grow and progress, we must abandon the futile connection that being busy is directly related to the matter of a person's importance.

With each American taking their own view on how our culture pursues materialistic self-interest wither positively or negatively we see this contrast in Morris Berman’s book Why America Failed: The Roots of Imperial Decline, Frank Capra’s movie It’s a Wonderful Life and in Chuck Palahniuk’s movie Fight Club. Each of them giving us a different perspective on how they portray American‘s view on how we feel a need of materialistic items in our lives. Each piece we have looked at wither its Capra’s conflict of David vs. Goliath as his story shows us the conflict between Baily and Potter, Berman’s conflict between corporate America and its people or Palahniuk’s in your face view on how Americans due to

The main points of the book are divided up,and go month by month.Each month is a new topic.Judith is challenged against her own word of not buying anything for a new year.The book witnesses Levine’s journey from enthusiastic experiment in January to a still game but weary participant by the fall.As favorite luxuries run out and clothes become shabbier,many of her points are intentionally provacative.For instance,not buying makes her feel vulnerable and having to ask for help.”I know I’m not alone in my ambivalence about consuming”After a few months Levine does not have to ask for help anymore.She is used to not buying anything,but it is still hard.At the beginning of her year without shopping,she is in a panic.This is not necessarily a personal panic.”Still I am moved by a sense of personal responsibility,not to say personal panic ,about this big,bad problem and the rapidity with which its is getting worse”’At the end of the book ,her mood changed from “panic”’to prosperity.Panic,Surplus,Consumer Psychology,New and Improved,In/Voulnatary Simplicity,Scarity,Redistribution of Wealth,Structual Adjustments,Memories of Underdevelpment,Security Fraud,Brand America,The Ownership Society and Prosperity.are the fifteen chapters in “Not Buying It”.Within each chapter, we discover,the different difficult trade-offs and tensions in not consuming.By focusing primarily on the personal choices and consequences of not shopping,Levine may be telling us more about the mind-set of American

The phenomenon of consumerism is quiet powerful due to the impact on individual’s lives. Society has come to the point, happiness is associated with consumption. However, the way consumerism works, is if the items being purchased gives temporary happiness. There individuals are always buying the latest products to remain happy. In the text, “The Cult you’re in” Kalle Lasn, discusses a cult-like nature of consumer culture on Americans. Lasn uses the work ‘cult’ as a metaphor; he does not mean an actual cult but American consumers seem to be in a cult-like nature. The ideal example of Lasns argument is the text, “The man behind Abercrombie and Fitch”, Benoit Denizet-Lewis, goes in great depth of the life of the CEO, Mike Jeffries, of

Norton, Anne. “The Signs of Shopping.” Signs of Life in the U.S.A.: Readings on Popular

Black Friday shopping is a controversial issue in the United States; while many believe the day after Thanksgiving is a part of holiday festivities, others view it as destructive. Throughout “Black Friday: Consumerism Minus Civilization,” Andrew Leonard argues that the chaos of Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving in which crowds of Americans shop all night for extremely low prices, lessens the sophistication of Americans and the true meaning of the holidays. People become so consumed in the idea of endless sale prices that they forget to embrace what they already have, such as family, food, and shelter. He believes that Black Friday shopping has become out of control and describes the negative effects of excessive consumerism. he explains how most consumers act completely insane while Black Friday shopping and how society encourages this behavior by creating commercials and advertisements. Furthermore, Leonard states that it hurts the economy and damages one’s mental health. While Leonard is probably wrong when he claims that Black Friday shopping is completely troublesome to America’s well-being, he is right that consumerism overpowers the true significance of Thanksgiving.

Evidence from the article Shop-Happy that further bolsters this claim is shown when the author states, “Wanting to acquire the things that we see and like is as natural as breathing. Babies want to touch things, taste them, bash them against the wall. We appease them with shining objects, distract them with new toys” (Smith). The quote above sheds light upon how counterfeit values, namely those interconnected to the fostering of avarice among Americans, exacerbate financial situations to a noteworthy degree, thus yielded a drastic escalation in the numbers of underprivileged individuals. Delving deeper into the specifics, the blatantly obvious sense of egocentrism exercised by affluent coteries of American citizens perpetuates the nation’s fixation in an economically rudimentary state, with poorer individuals striving to remain socially tantamount with the affluent. In addition to the inevitable vicissitudes of a stereotypical “wage slave” lifestyle, the widespread desire to cope with the capricious state of the American economy furthermore aggrandizes the burden placed upon the impoverished. Yet another driving force behind the nearly ubiquitous state of poverty that prevails in America today is exemplified when Schlosser, in her novel In The Strawberry Fields, states, “In Watsonville, three to four families will share a small house, seven or eight people to a room. Migrants routinely pay $100 to $200 a month to sleep in a garage with anywhere from four to ten other people. Despite the hardships that accompany the job, there is an oversupply of people hoping to pick strawberries. Another constant worry is finding a place to sleep” (Schlosser 433). The quote above epitomizes the over-appreciative attitudes commonly embraced by the working poor, to a point where the factor transforms into a mere anathema

The author also insinuates that modern-day society supports busyness and most Americans have inserted themselves into this pattern, “if only by our own acquiescence” (Kreider 983). The author argues that busyness “is something we collectively force one another to do” (Kreider

"Stress should be a powerful driving force, not an obstacle” says American author Stanley Johnson. I consider stress in that sense today, but just a little while back, it wasn’t so. A few months ago, I would mull over situations which weren’t even remotely demanding, unnecessarily stressing myself. Through my eBay business, DynamicDeals101, I learned to effectively deal with situations that would otherwise seem impossible to handle.

We are a nation obsessed with doing more in less time: we worship productivity and efficiency. The word "workaholic" suggests an addictive compulsion to constant productivity. Yet American society sees it not as a vice or an escape like any other addiction, but an ideal to strive for. We want workaholics on our team to ensure success, yet we are apathetic to the toll it takes on their personal lives. Dr. Manhattan takes this idea to the extreme, as he is a slave to his research, working round the clock and requiring no food or sleep.