Reminders

A few reminders, especially for any of you who missed classes this past week:
(1) Remember, Essay II is due on April 8th, our first class back from the break. This essay is described in a March 21st post on this blog. Also, I will be happy to accept any essays which you may finish ahread of time. You can email them to me directly.
(2) Eight of you have cleared your paper topics with me. The rest of you need to do this as soon as you can. Use either the March 26th post on the blog, or you can also email me directly and I will give you the thumbs up, or down (in which case you may have to come up with another topic). I'll be checking the blog, as well as my email at least a couple times over the break.
(3) As I noted in class, we will be wrapping The Overspent American up pretty quickly after we come back.

Have a good spring break. See you in a week and a half.

Paper Topic Proposals & Reminders for Tomorrow (3/27)

PAPER TOPIC PROPOSALS: To date I have heard from only two of you as to what you propose to write on for the paper assignment. I would like to hear from the rest of the class before the break, and you can post your proposals here. I will also check these once or twice over the break and make comments. I may accept your proposed topic, reject it, or suggest a modification. In any case, check the blog to see my comments. Hopefully, by the time we come back from the break I will know what everyone is planning to write on.

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Reminders for tomorrow (Thurs. 3/27): We'll go over the last three pages of the midterm exam at the beginning of class, and then we'll get back to The Overspent American which I plan to cover fairly quickly. Continue reading it. We'll wrap it up after the break.

Don't forget Essay II which I posted on the blog last week (3/21). As I noted, I'll be happy to accept any essays that are finished before the break. The ultimate due date is TUESDAY, APRIL 8th, our first class after the break.

ATTENTION: Essay II Description

As I indicated on Thursday, if I got some inspiration I may post a new activity or a description of our next essay assignment. Well, as you see below, I came up with our next essay assignment. Since I am posting it on the blog, I will NOT hand out copies of it in class. Also, on Tuesday we'll see the video, "The Overspent American" and I'll hand back the midterm exams.

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Sociology 215
Essay II
3/21/08

A. A major aspect of what Dr. Schor (in The Overspent American) calls the "new consumerism" is what she refers to as the "stretching of reference groups." For this essay, I want you to first of all discuss what she means by this. Then, I want you to examine your own buying habits (or people close to you such as family members)and discuss whether this applies to you or people you know. Finally, I'd like you to address the question of whether we can and how we might go about exercising more control over or overcoming this aspect of the new consumerism.

B. The essay should be roughly 3 pages (single-spaced handwritten or double-spaced typewritten). Be sure to indicate the page #(s) of any passage(s) from The Overspent American which you may quote in your essay.

C. This essay is due on TUESDAY, APRIL 8TH. BUT I WIIL BE HAPPY TO ACCEPT ANY ESSAYS THAT ARE FINISHED BEFORE SPRING BREAK. This essay is worth 25 points.

Family Midterm Questions

I have gone over each of the family's submissions of three midterm exam questions. There was only one case of two families proposing the same question, and I decided to simply accept the one which I thought was worded best.I also did some editing of the questions I accepted. All participating family members will earn 5 points for this, and the two families from which I accepted an additional question will each earn a bonus point for this activity. I list the participating family members in parentheses.

BLACK FAMILY (Chris, Grant, Jenny, Kristin)

1. As mentioned in Chapter 6 of Affluenza, Family Convulsions, family counselors report that what is a "precipitating factor in 90% of the divorce cases?" (1pt)

ANSWER: arguments about money or finances.


GREEN FAMILY (Justina, Matt, Christie)

1. In Chapter 7, Dilated Pupils, what do the authors contend has been a negative effect of the "No Child Left Behind" policy? (1pt)

ANSWER: 20% (or many) American school districts have banned recess for elementary school children to supposedly "maximize instruction time to prepare children to compete in the global economy" -- that is, prepare them to take standardized tests.

2. Regarding the poor, how do the authors suggest our consumer society conributes to crime? (1pt)

ANSWER: By creating a sense of deprivation among them because they can't obtain the products advertisers tell us we all have to have to fit in or get ahead.

YELLOW FAMILY (Stev, Johnson, David, Megan)

1. In the xerox handout from Consuming Kids by Susan Linn, what fundamental conflict does she describe between parents and marketers? (1pt)

ANSWER: that marketers are intent on undermining parental authority when it comes to selling stuff to kids -- exploit their impulsivity.

BLUE FAMILY: (Jessica, Cody, Ann, Bryant, Sarah)

1. After traveling to America, what observation did Mother Teresa make about America? (1pt)

ANSWER: "This is the poorest place I've ever been in my life."

2. At the conclusion of class lectures on the nature of the individual and society, what definition of society did I argue for? (1pt)

ANSWER: society is an organized system of institutions (institutions being the main actors)


That's it. So, remember, all of the above questions will appear on the midterm exam (as well as those two questions from your first family activity).

More Lecture Notes on Affluenza & Reminders

Given that I did not make as much progress as I'd hoped on Tuesday, 3/11, I am going to post some more lecture notes. Even so, I probably won't be able to finish commenting on Affluenza tomorrow, but we'll get close.

Chapter 18: An Emerging Epidemic

A. Opens with a very appropriate comment from Erich Fromm's The Sane Society (from which the concept of the "pathology of normalcy" comes) about the "vision" of our consumer society -- what I call "pig heaven."

B. In contrast to such a vision, the authors note how Americans willingly sacrificed and accepted rationing to defeat a common enemy during WW II. (curious how Bush never tried to do this with the "war on terror," or Iraq -- no sacrifice for most Americans; just go shopping.)

C. After the War, not to mention after the hardships of the Great Depression, there was tremendous pent-up demand which was initially given a boost by the GI Bill and low-interest government loans for housing (FHA). And a bit later, the interstate highway system was built.

1. All of this was a tremendous boon to suburbanization, the growth of the auto industry, and all sorts of consumer products to fill those increasingly bigger suburban homes.

D. In short, the good life became the goods life (pig heaven, again). "Waste not, want not," Ben Franklin once advised, became "Waste more, want more." (p. 147)

E. "Planned obsolescence" became the order of the day. Products were made to last only a short time, or there were continual upgrades, style changes. GM had already introduced the practice of annual model changes in the car industry, to encourage people to buy a new car every year.

F. Of course, most Americans did not have the money to keep pace with all this, so consumer credit expanded tremendously and more recently, the credit card business. Became a "buy now, pay later" world.

G. The mall was invented and quickly spread mainly in suburban areas where the car was king.

H. The authors summarize many of these developments, and throw in for good measure the rise of TV, which greatly expanded advertising and had the effect of "stretching reference groups" (as Juliet Schor will note in The Overspent American) -- that is, encouraging people to emulate lifestyles of the rich and famous.

I. Critics such as Vance Packard, John Kenneth Galbraith, and the counter-culture movement of the 60s, raised a red flag to this growing materialism, but really to no avail. I appreciate what Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy said in 1968 (see, p. 152) It is hard to imagine any politician saying something like that today. President Carter was the last President to question the spread of affluenza (also, to no avail). p. 152.


Chapter 19: The age of affluenza

A. This chapter is mainly about the title of the first section, "Adfluenza." "That advertising's prime purpose is to promote affluenza is hardly a secret,..." (p. 154) The authors then quote marketing director, Pierre Martineau, about another pretty open secret in the ad business: "Advertising's most important function is to integrate the individual into our present-day American high-speed consumption economy....our economy is geared to the faster and faster tempo of buying, BASED ON WANTS WHICH ARE CREATED BY ADVERTISING IN LARGE DEGREE." (p. 154)

B. The costs of ads these days are phenomenal -- a typical 30-second national TV commercial costs nearly $300,000 to produce, that's $10,000 a second!! Advertising is a $217 billion a year industry. And its everywhere.

1. We live in an era of hypercommercialism. Advertising encourages us to meet nonmaterial needs (love, friendship, etc.) through material means. Buy this product and we'll be loved and accepted. It's all about image.

C. The table on p. 158 exaggerates the upward "consumption spike," but it has been great.

D. The authors close with some critical thoughts from a conservative economist, Wilhelm Ropke (who will figure prominently in Barber's Consumed). See what he says on p. 159, the last page of the chapter.


That brings us up to Chapter 20, where we will pick up tomorrow.

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REMINDERS: Tomorrow the families will brainstorm midterm exam questions. I will give you some time to come to some consensus on 3 questions (and answers) which you will submit tomorrow. We will also have a general review for the midterm exam, next Tuesday, 3/18.

Family Activity: Midterm Exam Questions & Lecture Notes

FAMILY ACTIVITY: MIDTERM EXAM QUESTIONS: I want each of the families to brainstorm some short-answer questions for our upcoming midterm exam on Tuesday, 3/18. More specifically, I want each family to propose THREE such questions from anything that has been covered in class lecture since the beginning of the semester and xerox handouts I used to supplement those lectures. In making up questions, do NOT make up questions from the book, Affluenza, which I did not have a chance to also cover in class, nor do you need to make up questions about the video program -- we already have two of those. Also, steer clear of questions about specific statistics, unless it was a statistic I emphasized in class and perhaps wrote on the board. I will give the families some time on Tuesday (3/11) to come to some consensus about which three questions you will propose. A family spokesperson will then be called upon to present those questions (AND ANSWERS) on Thursday (3/13) when we'll review for the midterm. I will try to accept at least one question from each family. For each additional question I accept, that family will earn a bonus point, so if you make three good questions which I accept you can earn up to two bonus points for this activity. All participating family members will earn at least 5 points for this activity.

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Given the fact that I did not make as much progress in my commentary on Affluenza as I had hoped on Thursday, 3/6, I am going to post some lecture notes to try to catch up. You need to either write out or print out these notes and study them for the midterm. You can also make questions based on them. Even though I am doing this, I am not sure we will make it to the end of Affluenza by next Thursday. Nonetheless, in your reading you should finish the book by the end of next week, if you haven't already.

Chapter 11: Resource Exhaustion

(I had gotten into this chapter a bit, so let me just pick up where I left off in my notes.)

C. In the context of the story about a backpack trip on Vancouver Island, an important point is made, that: "You don't need as much stuff when you genuinely appreciate the value of what's already here." (p. 92)

D. Out of Mind (this section should really be titled, Out of Sight, Out of Mind)

1. Most of us are oblivious to the environmental impacts of production processes and what happens when we throw stuff away (like computers, p. 93) Or, the real costs of cars, listed on p. 95.

E. The fact is, if everyone in the world tried to emulate the American lifestyle we'd need 5 more planets worth of land and resources.

F. Another serious aspect of resource exhaustion is the extraction of species due largely to pollution and habitat destruction. The graph on p. 98 captures the magnitude of this trend, which is not just a tragedy for these other species but will have adverse consequences for the human species. (on a critical note, I believe the way that graph is scaled does exaggerate the steepness of that upward curve.)

Chapter 12: Industrial diarrhea (literally)

A. Like the previous chapter, the title of this one is quite apt, especially when you consider the concluding point about the problem of pig waste, since we've converted hog raising into a mass production industry (p. 108)

B. I would also say there is a lot of similarity with the previous chapter's emphasis on "out of sight, out of mind" -- only here what is mainly out of sight, out of mind are all the chemicals we have created, most of which have never been tested and are all around us -- our homes being a fairly toxic environment in many cases.

C. Generally, we've allowed industry to bring forth new products and only when "dead bodies" begin to show up do we respond and impose restrictions. But by that time it may be too late as the chemicals involved may already be prevalent in the environment.

1. What were once considered wonder products like DDT and dioxin have been banned, but not before they did serious environmental and health damage which may be long-term. AND FOR WHAT? -- to have cheap food, among other things.

D. Creation of "dead zones" in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere is a testament to "out of sight, out of mind." All sorts of hazardous substances find their way into the Mississippi and are then dumped in the Gulf. This is exacerbated by luxury cruise ships which are allowed to dump a lot of the waste they generate. (p. 105, bottom)

Chapter 13: The addictive virus

A. The authors open by reminding us of all the various things Americans are addicted to, among which has to be included -- addiction to stuff, to shopping. In extreme cases, satisfying our shopping addiction brings people a certain degree of pleasure. But like any addiction, you can never get enough. Like drugs or alcohol, we "build tolerance," that is, we need more and more and it tends to bring less and less satisfaction. In this context, I would cite most of p. 111 where they put this addiction in the language of economists. And I believe it is quite appropriate to consider businessmen and advertisers as "pushers."

B. And in the last section, "What Are We Thinking?" (to which I would say, we're not), the authors note the obvious, that many, if not most, people packing the malls are "shoppers in therapy." (p. 113) (which underscores the relevance of Fromm's concept of the "pathology of normalcy")

Chapter 14: Dissatisfaction guaranteed

A. This chapter draws a clear distinction between happiness and stuff. It cites several studies which prove the obvious: that more stuff, wealth, does not necessarily make us happier. Yet, we have an economic system based on that very premise. We forget to ask a very basic question -- what is an economy for?

1. Indeed, "The American race-car lifestyle is fast approaching burnout because it requires long, stressful workweeks that eat up chunks of life, natural resources, and health. It programs us to substitute consumption for both citizenship and companionship. And it tries to meet nonmaterial needs with material goods, a losing strategy. " (p. 115)

2. Quote from Donella Meadows also gets to the crux of this issue -- see middle p. 116.

B. The authors then go on to present one of the more insightful efforts to define human happiness and satisfaction -- Abraham Maslow's "Hierarchy of Needs" (p. 118). Clearly, our vaunted economic system may contribute to climbing the first couple rungs of that ladder, but it also works against going much higher. As the authors note: "Since America became a nation of consumers spoon-fed by automated products, fewer of us are now able to use our hands, or a sense of craft, in our work. As a result, creative satisfaction gets lost in the shuffle, along with knowledge, meaning, beauty, and balance -- all higher rungs on Maslow's ladder." (p. 119) And read the next two paragraphs carefully as well.

1. Our abundant food industry, which promotes obesity and an unhealthy lifestyle, works against being able to climb to the top of Maslow's hierarchy.

2. They note how the American drive to produce and consume has undermined some other healthy cultural practices such as the Spanish midday siesta (p. 123)

C. They conclude by posing some interesting questions. See p. 124.


That brings us up to "Part Two: Causes" in Affluenza. I may post some additional lecture notes on Monday, but if not, I will pick up here on Tuesday. Also, be sure to give some thought to possible midterm questions because I will give you some time to confer with your family members about which three questions you will propose for next Thursday, 3/13.