The habitus of today’s society is overwhelming. Habitus, as you may or may not know it from Pierre Bourdieu’s sociologist approaches, is the way we humans perceive the world. It defines our “class status”, our tastes, and the way we exist, basically. Now, there are different segments concerning the named topic. Social, economic and cultural values are all a part of it. Economic as in money, trade and value, social as in connectivity bonds with so called “friends”, “colleagues”, family, or simply partners.

The cultural part of the habitus basically refers to the culture we acquire during our life span. For example, museum visits, or going to the opera adds to our cultural stigma. Economic and cultural habitus are linked; meaning the acquirement of cultural goods is usually only possible with the use of money. One may also say, very simplified, that our social surroundings and family already define a person’s habitus. A farmer will most likely not enjoy having a tea party with the bourgeoisie, nor will the opposite ever occur.

Having shortly introduced you to the “habitus”, stated by Bourdieu, it is time for the main topic for this short essay. The economic and cultural habitus, as declared before, are linked in the utmost manner. In today’s society even more so. Simplified: our society is dominated by economic values. Materialism and capitalism rule our world like never before. Never before has the act of owning luxurious goods been as dominant.

A short example, which involves the small telephone we call “cell phone”.

This little gadget is a miniature, portable telephone, which ought to enable us, the consumers, to be able to communicate with everyone contained in our social network. I do not want to criticize this feat in any way whatsoever, for it can be a very useful tool. It can be life saving, as well as a documentary tool (audio/video/photographic), yet it is predominantly used for communicational purposes, as well as information seeking purposes. Nothing against that.

So, you may ask, what am I striving at? The thing is, as mentioned before, our society has been invoked with a materialistic mentality. Many people, in the “middle class society” and “high society” mostly, have the economic means to buy a new cell phone every day. Of course that is absurd. No one in his or her right mind would do that. It takes about a week to understand how these little things actually WORK. So, of course no one does that. Even if they could, they wouldn’t. A lot of people do buy a cell phone every year, or whenever they feel like their present possession may not be at the highest standard. “Highest standard”, what does that mean? Most widgets possible? Easiest way to be handled? Most secure against accidents?

Basically, it would mean that the latest technologies have been used in these little machines. So basically, the concept of these machineries is totally put in question. Communicational requirements are no longer top priority. Health, security, safety, and guarantee (of over one year) are no longer issues. The better the machines, the more fragile they seem to get, and of course, the more widgets it has, the longer it takes to understand them, the longer the person is exposed to it, which leads to, you guessed it, health issues. The University of Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania, United States of America) stated that cell phones, when under extreme exposure, may lead to certain health factors, meaning consequential diseases or illnesses. 

Disregarding the fact that the health factor is partly scary, the main critique is not the high technology invoked in these machines. It is the mass consumption and materialistic mentalities of the majority of the people in our society. Is it, in fact, a replacement to a certain emotion called “happiness”, or something else? Do people try to stack as many luxurious goods in their home to replace something? Goods that are not existentially necessary?

It is a fact that our society does not have to question existentiality, nor even think about it. Our society is a luxury society, where materialism replaces certain “holes”.

To cut things short, the shimmering light of “money”, concerning their work, the materialistic mentality, and of course the consumerism, blinds people. When someone would come up to me and tell me about a job offer they have received, the first thing said is the amount of money they’d get, not what the job is specifically about. And that depresses the hell out of me. Certain values do not have the correct priority anymore. That is the way our present society runs.