America is such a consumeristic nation, our everyday life depends on consumption. "The New Politics of Consumption," talks about the politics and social affects of mass consumption in America. The article quotes, "The good life, they suggest, could be achieved by attaining a comfortable, middle-class standard of living." (p.184) This quote suggests that white picket fence nuclear family, with a big SUV to fit the family. If people have a large SUV, even if you do not need it, is an example of wastefully excessive consumption.
In general, people seem to be buying larger and larger SUV's that waste more and more gas, and give off more emissions that hurt the environment. If you look at countries in Europe, there cars are a lot smaller than our in the United States. Gas in Europe is very expensive, so they are not as wasteful with it as we are in America. Besides for having SUV's, we also like buying two seater sport cars that get just as bad gas mileage. We do this just as a status symbol, because we as consumers feel we need to fit in with our surroundings, whether it hurts the environment or not.
Definitely...and that status symbol is a lot of what Bourdieu called "symbolic violence." A Hummer doesn't just say "I don't care about the environment," it also says "get the hell out of my way or I'll run over you." What's interesting is that that itself is a myth. Hummers are notoriously badly built and unsafe cars, as are most SUVs. A Smartcar (built by Mercedes) is a tiny little thing, but is actually SAFER than a big heavy V8 SUV or truck. Ironic, right?
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