Final Essay

Materialism, is an approach to understanding cultural systems, and is defined by three key principles, cultural materialism, cultural evolution, and cultural ecology.
Across the ocean, American culture is criticized for being too materialistic. With less than 6% of the planets population, the United States consumes nearly 30% of the planets resources. I personally believe the United States culture is overly materialistic. I can understand how people can consider Americans selfish, materialistic and insatiable, never being satisfied with all they have, and always wanting more. Culture determines what is necessity and what is luxury. Have we as Americans forgot how to distinguish the one from the other? Within our culture lurks the ideals of wealth and success. Our society admires and encourages people to reach prosperity and status. We praise the “self-made-men” and look up to the “rags to riches” stories.
In my opinion, advertisements are one of the main reasons Americans are excessively materialistic. Advertisers are fond of using what is called “puffery”, which is the making of implicit claims that cannot be tested for truth. For example, advertisers will claim that their product is the best in their class, without specifying what that class is. Advertisers puff up their products with exaggerations that are expressions of opinions rather than a quality or characteristic of the product. Puffery gives the Illusion to viewers that they are being given important information about the product, but in reality they are not. You most likely have seen ads where the following claims have been made, “The best of its kind” “The most beautiful” and “The smartest choice”. These slogans at first seem to be telling us something important, but upon closer examination, they are empty claims because they cannot be tested. Many advertisements are designed to generate increased consumption of those products and services through the creation and reinforcement of "brand image" and "brand loyalty". For these purposes, advertisements sometimes embed their persuasive message with factual information. Every major medium is used to deliver these messages, including television, radio, cinema, magazines, newspapers, video games, the Internet and billboards.