[simon666]

While I agree somewhat with the descriptive aspect of your comment I think you assume a view of humans that is too atomic or individualistic as agenents. No doubt "these people" have "made" consuming a large part of their identity, but this is only half the story.

The reality in which many in the US and maybe the West generally (perhaps elsewhere too) is one in which one's life as an agent is constrained within the bounds of being a consumer. What I mean is people are habituated into expressing their agency as a consumer: Someone or thing offers you something, you "decide" to accept it or reject it. If you don't like what's being offered, you leverage your ability to consume as the means by which you exert power over the producer, i.e., "Make me an offer I like or I'll consumer elsewhere (if I can)".

So, of course people's identities are consumption centered. This is because is what reality is for peoples' everyday life, consumption choices. So people express who they are through the available consumption choices. Think about how people are marketed to, at least in the US. People are slammed with "Your choice" and "have it your way" and "be you" in advertising as if consuming a product is an expression of their respective identities.

Anyway, this is all just to say: The structure of society and the discourse that supports it plays a big role in constraining and guiding how people think and what choices people can even imagine are open to them when making decisions. So not all the responsibility or blame should be focused on individuals, but on large social structures, practices, and discourses.

[parl_match]

> So, of course people's identities are consumption centered

> The structure of society and the discourse that supports it plays a big role in constraining and guiding how people think and what choices people can even imagine are open to them when making decisions. So not all the responsibility or blame should be focused on individuals, but on large social structures, practices, and discourses.

Skill issue.

[array_key_first]

If you exist within a society you must play by the societies rules, to an extent. There's no free pass from consumption, everybody must consume.

Even the act of not consuming can become consumption. Minimalism, the almost anithesis of consumption, itself became a new avenue of consumption.

You can, of course, genuinely live modestly with minimal consumption. Keyword minimal. You just always consume to an extent.

[fuzzfactor]

>You can, of course, genuinely live modestly with minimal consumption. Keyword minimal. You just always consume to an extent.

This is ideal for some people, and/or at certain times, I've done it.

But it's still only half the equation.

I prefer to produce much much rather than consume.

I want to produce so much real tangible value added, that the amount I consume is negligible by comparison.

[array_key_first]

In my opinion, just by virtue of living in the developed world you're not going to be producing more than you consume. That's how the core works, it siphons from the periphery.