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Essay Competition
"Human Values in the Age of Consumerism"

Write a short essay (between 1000 and 1200 words) that addresses the
theme of 'human values in the age of consumption.'
The essay can take its start from Stuart Ewen's photograph of an old
woman waiting for a bus under a glossy image in a cosmetic advertisement.
The image expresses the tensions and ironies of our world where symbolic
consumption has become part of everyday life.
We invite you to write about the impact of culture, permeated by
commercial images and messages of desire, upon social and personal values,
and on the importance of community and human interaction in society at
large.
Don't' Very often, we all witness how things become valued expressions
of identity, markers of social success or failure, fetishes substituting
for human presence ("Show me what you have and I'll tell you what you
are").? Moreover, tThe aggressive expansion of consumerism has provokeds,
on the other hand, the growth of anti-consumerist counter-culture, which
insistsing on the need to be rather than to have. Even this response,
however, might be taken to be a result of a consumer culture. In any case,
the exploration of Exploring one's relation to things in our time has thus
becomes a way to explore the meaning of human life today.
Some of the questions you might address in your essay are suggested
below (feel free to put forward your own for discussion!).
. How much of a home has this new environment become for us? Do you feel
comfortable there?
. Do you share in the nostalgia for the past or apprehensions of the
future that are often expressed?
. How does a climate infused with consumerist values affect our sense of
what we are and our relationships with others in the "human family"
(among people of different generations, genders, cultural and social
backgrounds, "walks of life", nations)?
. Has the idea of "a good life" changed with the advent of consumerism?
What have we lost? What have we gained? Do you think our lives are
flattened and trivialized, or newly enriched?
. Have advertising's "truths" marginalized other forms of wisdom? Need
traditional forms of knowledge be questioned and educational goals
reviewed in its light?
. How has the idea of human needs changed?
. Is the moral life of the individual and society in jeopardy or is this
an opportunity for embracing new and progressive definitions of
morality?