The author’s main claim consists in the fact that less consumerism is good. Indeed, people are too obsessed with material values that prevent them from cognizing the essential aspects of happy and ethically right life. At this point, the author’s thesis is correct because most of the materialistic tendencies distort people’s perception of life purposes. At the same time, some evidence is too broad to build a cause-and-effect chain explaining the negative influence of technological advancement on the quality of human life. This is of particular concern to the items of material culture that signify symbolic importance. To enlarge on the argument and make more effective, the author provokes emotional appeal to the readers.
The author successfully appeals to personal experience to uncover the realities and underscore the validity and ethicality of his argument. Specific attention should be paid to a detailed description of his previous house and its comparison to his current apartment in which the minimum of items are presented to sustain a normal lifestyle. His personal experience is closely intertwined with facts and evidence he has found during observations and personal endeavors.
While describing situations form life, the author refers to an emotionally colored language to highlight people’s excess focus on stuffing their houses. At the very beginning of the article, the author provides a detailed description of what he had before he sold all the things from his previous apartment. In subsequence passages, the author explains what made him abandon his “consumerist” lifestyle. In such a way, the author underlines the detrimental effects of stuffing dwelling with unnecessary gadgets (Hill 1-2). Such a presentation does not contradict ethical beliefs.
By focusing on consumerist clichés to which people get accustomed, the author states, “the thing I consumed ended up consuming me”. Such a statement personifies material things and places them on the foreground. Consumerist terms are also used to describe the world in which contemporary society lives, including such phrases as “socioeconomic bracket”, “a world of surfeit stuff”, and “shopping opportunities”. By calling things as “inessential” “consuming”, leading to “antisocial” and “aberrant” behavior, the author once again appeals to the target audience overwhelmed with material welfare (Hill 1-2).
All these phrases serve to underline the seriousness of the problem and make the readers refer to their personal experience. What is more important is that the material world in which people live prevents them to pay more attention to spiritual and cultural values which are much more important for people. In fact, could computers, iPhones, and high-tech apartment replace the pleasure of communicating with friends? Certainly, they could not. Most of these items call for the revival of authentic ethical values.
To amplify the seriousness of the problem and uncover the validity of the claim, the author gives an example of the percentage of mothers and housewives suffering from depression because of the excessive concern with their belongings. Additionally, Hill provides a chronological account on the size of American homes within 50 years limit to prove that the average square of houses has been increased (2).
Proposing concrete sums of money also expands the readers’ understanding of the evident shifts in perceiving our space. Similar approaches are used while presenting the statistics of the food that was consumed and the one that has been wasted. In addition to numerical data, the author relies on credible organization and scientists, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, Congress, and representative of Northwestern University (Hill 2). Logical deductions from these facts have been presented effectively because the author manages to introduce a multi-dimensional analysis of the consequences of consumerist culture in the United States, as well as environmental, political, and social effects it has on human behavior.
Author’s authoritative voice also contributes to the development and elaboration of the argument. His expert knowledge on technology and innovation convince the readers more of the uselessness of the stuff they bring in to their home because it does not contribute to their moral welfare. By enumerating various gadgets he possessed, as well as defining their functional importance, the author explains how these gadgets could be used for estimating the value that people assign to them. In particular, the author states, “I bought a four-story, 3,600-square-foot, turn-of-the-century house…brand-new sectional couch …ton of gadgets, like an Audible.com Mobile Player…and an audiophile-worthy five-disc CD player” (Hill 1). All these descriptions and terms enhance the credibility of the article and make readers confine in the validity of the content and effectiveness of the claim.
In conclusion, the author has managed to prove that consumerism has a detrimental effect on human awareness of ethical and spiritual values in life and, therefore, this claim is effective. By introducing numerical data and enumerating credible organizations, the author has successfully managed to describe how his personal experience and observations allowed him to make the corresponding assumptions. The article also provides a great number of figures and statistics that support the claim in terms of the negative impact of consumerism on people’s lifestyle. Reliance on scientific resources and research studies also contributes to the reliability of the author’s hypotheses and conclusions. Successful use of personal experience and expert knowledge in different fields enhance the argument and creates new perspectives for analyzing the problem. Specifically, it is purposeful to reconsider the new tendencies in designing buildings and analysis of the functionality of the products that people buy.
Works Cited
Hill, Graham. “Living with Less. A Lot Less”. Sunday Review. 2013. Web.