“Do not attract attention to yourself in public. This is one of the fundamental rules of good breeding. Shun conspicuous manners, conspicuous clothes, a loud voice, staring at people, knocking into them, talking across anyone – in a word do not attract attention to yourself. Do not expose your private affairs, feelings or innermost thoughts in public. You are knocking down the walls of your house when you do.” - Emily Post
For the most part, I blame the media and it’s sidekicks – advertising and entertainment news – on influencing an insatiable love and lust of largesse, or mass consumerism driven by celebrity culture that we Americans have become infamous for. As Chris Hedges, reports in his book, Empire of Illusion, “Functional illiteracy in North America is epidemic … Nearly a third of the nation’s population is illiterate or barely literate – a figure that is growing by more than 2 million a year … Television, a medium built around the skillful manipulation of images, ones that can overpower reality, is our primary form of mass communication.”
