One of Adam’s teachers has been in India for several years, and he has commented to the kids that his friends and family in the US just don’t “get it” when he talks about living in a developing country. They listen to his stories for a bit…and then change the topic to the latest features on their newly acquired smartphones.
I had this in mind while I was in the US, and exercising on a treadmill that had a built in television. I watched one of the ads for a Sleep Number Bed. They outlined the awful stresses we experience, sharing a bed with someone who likes a firm mattress, when you prefer a softer mattress. FINALLY a solution - - the Sleep Bed remote that allows independent control of mattress firmness and position so that you and your bed mate can find the perfect individualized solution in a shared mattress. It did seem to highlight the epitomes of western excess…
I thought of the guys near the taxi stand in Vasant Vihar; sleeping on the sidewalk with their shoes as pillow.
But IS it less materialistic, or is the west just at a much higher level of “material status”…and as such, when westerners are materialistic, it looks over-the-top? Maybe we are genetically programmed to aspire to the “next thing,” and maybe being aspirational is good for society overall. And when you have reached an objectively comfortable level of material wealth, your “aspirational genes” nonetheless continue to aspire to the next big thing. Indians and other developing world populations are also in constant pursuit of the next material thing. But when that material thing is (for example) your first air conditioner for the 110 degree heat or your first motorbike to get to work, it doesn’t look like western crass materialism. The underlying gene might be nonetheless identical.
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