No, You Can’t Get an UpgradeBy David Segal
The New York Times
25 April 2009
(Excerpts)
We are not going anywhere.
That is what we learned from a report last week by the Census Bureau which found that fewer Americans are changing residences than at any time since 1962, back when there were 120 million fewer Americans than today.
For decades, Americans have been known as epic consumers, but it would be more accurate to call us epic upgraders.
During all those years of packing up and moving, we were headed to a bigger house, at a better address, perhaps for a higher-paying job. We were trading up, and that urge - to acquire something bigger or better, preferably something bigger and better - is a quintessentially American urge. It is so neatly woven into the double helix of our DNA that we hardly notice it.
But there has long been an on-again, off-again war in the American soul between the forces of consumerism and the countervailing force of austerity. The consumers have had the upper hand for decades, but we might have little choice now but to find comfort in the words of the philosopher and transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau, who wrote, “Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.”
That is what we learned from a report last week by the Census Bureau which found that fewer Americans are changing residences than at any time since 1962, back when there were 120 million fewer Americans than today.
For decades, Americans have been known as epic consumers, but it would be more accurate to call us epic upgraders.
During all those years of packing up and moving, we were headed to a bigger house, at a better address, perhaps for a higher-paying job. We were trading up, and that urge - to acquire something bigger or better, preferably something bigger and better - is a quintessentially American urge. It is so neatly woven into the double helix of our DNA that we hardly notice it.
But there has long been an on-again, off-again war in the American soul between the forces of consumerism and the countervailing force of austerity. The consumers have had the upper hand for decades, but we might have little choice now but to find comfort in the words of the philosopher and transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau, who wrote, “Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.”
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Photo location: My pineapple farm in Baan Salaklong, Uthaitani province. I once showed a pineapple field to a woman who seldom leaves Bangkok and she expressed genuine amazement that pineapple plants bore their fruit above the ground rather than underneath like potatoes. Pinetatoes, anyone?
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