Living Justly in Todays World

It is/is not possible to live justly in a material world. In our Stage II Society and Culture assignment, we were given the guiding question ‘Is it possible to live justly in a material world?’ To live ‘justly’ means to be fair, generous, honest and accurate in the way you live your life and make decisions.   On the other hand, a material world is a world which consists of matter and the belief that matter is all there is to life.   Throughout this assignment, the truth that it is/is not possible to live justly in a material world will be made known. The information used was gathered through the use of DVD’s, interviews and internet resources.
Materialism has been defined as the theory that physical well being and worldly possessions constitute the greatest good and highlight the value of life.   Someone who has a high level of materialism in their life is described as ‘materialistic’, and they consider material possessions to be the central point of their life and identity, and a good deal of their energy is used on acquiring possessions.   Materialism has very much become a way of life in today’s society.   We look to possessions to bring us happiness, and then use these possessions to make things and people behave or respond in the way which we desire them to.   We identify ourselves and others by what we wear, what we have and where these possessions are from.   As the quantity and variety of products grow larger, so does the demand for these products, resulting is money making being the leading ruler not only of the marketing industry, but also the world.   Being humans, we want to fit in, so we wear and use certain brand names because of the status gained from them, therefore, it is our wild consumption of products which allows the world to be run in this unjust way of ‘money over everything else’.   Money has become the new religion.   Many people are now starting to choose to serve this ‘ruler’ instead of God.