It is Friday morning (9AM) and I thought I would weigh in on the responses you've submitted to the blog, even though one of your classmates has yet to respond. I was struck by a couple things. First, several of you commented on Wofford as a place which seems to intensify the social pressure to consume the popular and often expensive brands of clothes and other items. I guess we could say by coming to Wofford your reference group has been stretched. And note that this kind of social pressure appears to be more powerful than any advertisements for such products, a point Dr. Schor also made. Secondly, many of you also expressed a distaste for this competitive consumption game and an unwillingness to participate. However, at the same time, you also seemed to recognize that resisting these pressures was not easy.
LOOKING AHEAD: As I have been mentioning in class, we will wrap up "The Overspent American" on Tuesday (April 7th). The following week, we will get into "Consuming Kids". On Thursday (April 9th) we will see another video entitled, "Advertising and the End of the World," which is a nice overview of many of the criticisms of advertising that we've discussed so far. I most likely will have a family exercise in connection with that which I will probably post on this blog sometime over the break. Finally, you can expect another short essay assignment shortly after we come back.
Have a restful and revitalizing break.
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