The cultural emphasis on endless consumption deflects attention from spiritual hunger. We are endlessly bombarded by messages telling us that our every need can be satisfied by material increase. Artist Barbara Kruger created a work proclaiming “I shop therefore I am” to show the way consumerism has taken over mass consciousness, making people

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I don’t know if people develop such a deep connection to the things they buy these days. Many people have a strong desire to possess the latest thing, and manufacturers and advertisers know this. It is not by accident that merchandise is not created to last. The objects of our desire are constantly changing. And our desires for the objects we

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In a recent newsletter, “The Shopping Cure,” Anne Helen Petersen explored the compulsion to buy and accumulate stuff that’s been fostered by technologies of frictionless consumption. Every conceivable activity or hobby one sets out to enjoy becomes an occasion to buy stuff: “They transform from sites of actual pleasure and diversion to means of

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