BOOK EXCERPT : SHOPTISM BY LEE EISENBERG

From SHOPTISM by Lee Eisenberg

regarding RUSSELL BELK

page 297


..."Belk makes a compelling case about the inter-dependence of having and being. In fact, he even proposes four stages of human development based on the connection between having and being;

1) as infants we seek to distinguish ourselves from our environment.

2) as children we seek to distinguish ourselves from others .

3) as adolescents and adults, we use our possessions to help "manage" our identities and

4) as old folks we rely on certain possessions to maintain a sense of continuity and prepare for the end. Nearing that end, we cherish not only letters and photographs but also things we purchased over the years, thoughtfully or impulsively: jewelry, china, mementos of various kinds, even, perhaps, an old dressing gown.

"Our accumulation of possessions," says Belk, thus "provides a sense of past and tells us who we are, where we have come from, and perhaps where we are going."

Something to think about the next time you lose a possession that had come to mean something important to you. A break-in, a house fire, your own carelessness, it doesn't matter how it occurred. The response is the same; a part of you has gone missing.

C author Lee Eisenberg published by Freepress

BOOK EXCERPT : SHOPTISM by LEE EISENBERG

SHOPTISM
Why The American Consumer Will Keep On Buying No Matter What
C 2009 by Lee Eisenberg
Free Press
pages 125-126

"... copy writing ... read any good selling paragraphs lately? The world's gone visual. The long copy block is dead. Studies point to an "endangered reading brain," the result of our overexposure to digital media. It's all about eye candy now. I open my wife's copy of Vogue. Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson is on the cover, aglow in a burgundy duchesse-satin dress by Carolina Herrera and Fred Leighton diamond earnings. Her face bears an assortment of hopes-in-a-bottle: Blushing Blush Powder Blush in Sunset Glow; Colour Surge Eye Shadow Soft Shimmer in Enchanted Sugar Sugar (sic); Cream Shaper for Eyes in Black Diamond; High Definition Lashes in Black/Brown; Brow Keeper in Almost Black: Full Potential Lips Plump and Shine in Blackberry Bloom - all from Clinique (BTW, a major Vogue advertiser)... Hundreds of photos, no words, spread after spread after spread of bronzed, long-legged, plump-lipped, sultry, unsmiling, icy hot, and scary-skinny models dressed in a sumptuous variety of shorts, day dresses, gowns, thongs, slinky tops...These women never smile, they scowl. This, too, is the result of methodical investigation. Scowls signal higher social standing, says a professor who runs experiments on the nature of smiles... Specifically lower status individuals appear to smile more than higher status individuals...