Consuming Culture and Greed

Education for Citizenship Series

This installment in our Education for Citizenship series on virtues and vices examines greed, a selfish and excessive desire for more than is needed. How much is enough? What enables advertisers to convince citizens to consume more than is reasonable? Are seductive images of comfort, convenience, and sexual stimulation that bombard us in advertising edging out non-market values of care, community, love, and public service? Are market values changing college campuses? Join us for a conversation that casts a critical eye on the effects of greed on individual and collective life.

David Loy, Besl Professor of Ethics, Religion and Society, Xavier University

Buddhist philosopher David Loy recently moved from the faculty of International Studies at Bunkyo University in Japan to Xavier University in Ohio. His 1997 article, “The Religion of the Market,” sparked an ongoing discussion about the nature of consumer capitalism which, he claims, is “the first truly world religion, binding all corners of the globe more and more tightly into a worldview and set of values whose religious role we overlook only because we insist upon seeing them as ‘secular.’” His books include A Buddhist History of the West, Lack and Transcendence, The Great Awakening: A Buddhist Social Theory, and Money, Sex, War, Karma: Notes for a Buddhist Revolution.

Juliet B. Schor, Chair and Professor of Sociology, Boston College

Juliet Schor’s research over the last ten years has focused on issues pertaining to trends in work and leisure, consumerism, the relationship between work and family, and economic justice. Her most recent book is Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture. This book is an account of marketing to children from inside the advertising agencies and an assessment of how these activities are affecting children. She is also the author of the national bestsellers, The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure, The Overspent American: Why we Want What We Don’t Need, and Do Americans Shop Too Much? She was appointed a Guggenheim Fellow for her work on consumer society, and in 2006 she won the Leontief Prize for contributions to expanding the frontiers of economic thought.

Mark Gonnerman (moderator) is director of the Aurora Forum