The Global Hamburger Joint: Vegetarian Options Available

I support Gardner et al. that the “Consumer Culture” has a moral obligation to balance consumption in concern to impoverished peoples. The issue of overconsumption is similar to one person eating two hamburgers, when they only physically need one, in front of another person who has the same dietary need. The frivolity of the over-consumer is immoral because the spurned hamburger-lover could starve, and also because of the ethic of “sharing is caring”.

On a larger scale, the consumption power behind the purchases of grand automobiles, luxurious vacations, and video games can be seen as that “second hamburger”, eaten right in front of the people who need it most. The main factor that ties the two examples together is how we are interconnected in our consumption sources. Our lifestyle choices become more pronounced and influential as our industries spread out over the globe. In the context of a large industrial complex taking resources from many different origins, the rich and the poor can be accessing the same store of products, but with unequal distribution. The resources are assumed to be taken from each others’ environments, or lands, so that everyone deserves a piece. The moral bone-to-pick is that we are taking too much.

Addiction to consumption is the hurdle to jump. I would imagine it to be like untangling a bunch of wires in someone’s head, to try to show them how exactly to live without consuming for consumption’s sake. However, I am still skeptical because of my cold fear of change, utilitarianism and the concept of a “basic good”. I am interested to know how the facts and the education would come together for such a movement, and also how such a seemingly “pleasant” world would work.