Consumer Culture

One prominent feature of globalization is embodied within the pursuit of goods, a social phenomenon often referred to as the “consumer culture.” Broadly defined, consumer culture refers to an actual culture within a society that is actively invested in purchasing and/or venerating material possessions. As networks of transnational commerce have maintained and strengthened this culture of consumption, religious beliefs and practices within the global community have adjusted to accommodate for this type of commodity-centered activity. Although this vast web of commodity production and acquisition has certainly been seen as a threat to religious principles geared toward the attenuation of personal pleasures, individuation, and vice, the marketing of religious events and products has complemented consumer culture. Where Émile Durkheim's conceptual theory of religion advanced the notion ...