Please, DON'T TOUCH

Theo, Chadlinz,

I have lived in Germany, my home country & now the USA. Spent a -l-o-t- of time in Western Europe. If I add up the years spent in the Western world & in my home country, it works out to be a 50-50 split. With that experience in mind, I wrote my original comment. I did not pass my comments by merely reading "what we read on a website forum".
The suggestions made by people here are EXACTLY what I wrote in my original post. It mirrors the society at-large even tho the sample in this thread is really very small.
FWIW.

Bombay, I agree that we, in the west, are too wedded to our material posessions (and I can only speak of us westerners having only lived in Europe (27 years) and the US (10 years)).

However I am firmly of the belief that people the world over are fundamentally the same, and the only reason that westerners appear to be more materialistic, is because we have the opportunity to be materialistic. As the opportunity opens up in India and China so will those people become more materialistic and fall into the same trap as us westerners.

Westerners spend their entire lives surrounded by advertising, that, from a young age, is devoted to persuading you that you are defined by what you buy. Is it any wonder that we're a bit screwed up !?

Hi Seandtaylor99,
you seem to be the only one to openly acknowledge this. The others seem confrontational &/or in denial (to various degrees). Yes, this audio gear is expensive. Yes, this audio gear is expensive to fix if it breaks accidently or otherwise. Yes, this audio is our obsession. But, hell, don't put a piece of eye-candy metal above a human relationship! That's all I'm saying. Put the whole thing in perspective & realize what's of higher importance (it's not audio gear!).

It is true that advertising here is very, very strong & they get you when you are very young & condition you to give material wealth the highest pedestal. Somewhere along the line, I hope, that mature adults will be able to keep that advertising influence in check. Maybe this is occuring but at not a high enough rate?

"Somewhere along the line, I hope, that mature adults will be able to keep that advertising influence in check."

There's a whole ad. industry dedicated to making sure that doesn't ever happen. We are so immersed in advertising that, and the advertising industry is so manipulative that is very difficult for folks to step back from it all.

Recognize also that there's a difference between being wedded to ones posessions, and simply not wanting to be put in the difficult situation of having to pay a lot of money (which we all have to work for) to get something fixed. When we goof and break something we feel stupid, but if friends or family break something expensive it is quite an arkward situation.

Bombaywalla, in the words of an old rock star "there ain't no good guy, there ain't no bad guy, there's just you and me and we just disagree"