Consumption embedded in culture and language: implications for finding sustainability

Abstract

In this article I ask how deeply consumer culture has become embedded in contemporary American society. I suggest that we need to begin with greater conceptual clarity, particularly on terms that are part of the very phenomenon we are trying to study—consumption and freedom, for example. Metaphor theory helps to distinguish between folk concepts and analytical categories as a basis for understanding why consumption is so central, so deeply embedded in fundamental concepts of family, gender, individualism, ethnicity, and nationality. It also helps reveal inconsistencies in environmentalists’ ideas about freedom, individual action, and the role of the state in regulating consumption. The article concludes with the deliberately provocative argument that “sustainable consumption” is not the best way to phrase or frame the goals of reducing the amount of energy and materials used and wasted in the United States.

Keywords

• resource consumption
• social behavior
• language
• ethnography
• world problems
• communication
• ecosystem sustainability