In "Economy", Thoreau discusses the problem of luxuries and material desires. He encourages humans to steer away from lavish desires, and he leads by example by building his house in a simple manner rather than having multiple floors and halls and rooms. He won't be stressing about paying back loans, making mortgage payments or…
From Dumpster diving, Eighner says,” This has not quite converted me to a dualist but It has made me some headway in that direction. I do not suppose that ideas are immortal, but certainly mental things are longer-lived than other material things.” (Page 118). Eighner, in a way is saying that he believes that materialistic objects are not as important as the thoughts behind them, hoarding things that may have little to no value in reality is rather pointless when they can be easily tarnished…
Through paragraphs 7 and 8, Henry David Thoreau utilizes certain rhetorical strategies to convey his attitude toward life, generally being that he dislikes the impostor way of life in which everyone lives now. His message through this writing of his is that he plans to actually “live” the ideal way of life, which is the way of life that has always been meant to be for everyone.…
What someone does or does not do with their life does affect the world around them. Becoming a productive member of society is what is expected from most people today, especially the wealthy. Chris McCandless, from the novel Into the Wild, was the son of a well respected and very rich family, who gave up his whole well-to-do lifestyle. Jon Krakauer's argument, in his novel about McCandless, is if he truly was selfish in abandoning those who loved and cared for him by going off into the wild .McCandless’s quest for “ultimate freedom” was an egocentric choice causing agonizing ache to his beloved ones, although not a selfish act.…
The second chapter is an overview of societal methods of dealing with poverty and homelessness from the time of Martin Luther and after. As Gowen says “the charity activists, like Martin Luther 350 years earlier, were nostalgic for a radiant past when rich and poor had interacted more intimately, with less overt conflict” (Gowen/HHB, pg 35) To add to world history, there is also specific history about San Francisco, including the program called Matrix of the Frank Jordan era through “Care Not Cash”. Gowan discusses the dialog around the constructions of poverty, a moral viewpoint where sin is the cause, a disease viewpoint, and a systemic viewpoint. She points out that these discourses are taken up not only by authorities but also by homeless people themselves. Somebody who is considered a bad boy is somebody who is buying into the sin-talk viewpoint; the sick-talk viewpoint is common among people who have left the street through 12-step recovery; system talk is formulated in various ways, including identification with veterans who have been abandoned by the system. The theories of John Locke play a key role in the previous sentence. As Locke’s theories state that each person should be guaranteed “life, liberty, and estate.” The veterans who were left with nothing by the government and had to survive off of nothing did not fall under Locke’s theory, not given a type of life they needed, not given the same liberty as the rest of the people who are not considered homeless, and not given any estate to call their own like a rich man does.…
In today’s society, many people will value materialistic objects more wanting to have the newest technology or the best brand of electronics rather than helping out a person by just giving them a simple smile. Money is spent on things that are not worth spending that may be useful for another occasion. In the text, “The Singer Solution to World Poverty,” Peter Singer persuades the readers on how many will have the opportunity to help out a charity and donate money, but people will not take the chance or time to do it. In the other text “On Dumpster Diving” Lars Eighner informs the readers when he was a homeless person and he had to go looking for food in different dumpsters. Eighner explains the ways that a homeless person is able to distinguish…
Materialism and consumerism prevent people from understanding and appreciating what is truly important in life. This is a truth recognized by the narrator in “The Technology of Simplicity” by Mark A. Burch and by George Longarrow in “A Bedside Story” by Gilles Pinette. In both passages it is clear the characters disdain for the consumerist attitude associated with the todays world. Although they have a similar view on materialism it is for different reasons.…
“On Dumpster Diving” is an essay about a homeless man who shares his experiences on how he obtained his necessities while he was homeless and how to be most effective at dumpster diving. He goes over the different kinds of food commonly found in dumpsters and how to determine what is safe to eat, and what to stay away from. Location is also an important factor he considers. He learned that college student tend to be more wasteful than others, throwing out many good items, including food, particularly around the end of the semester when they have to move. Because of this, he describes the dumpsters in an area inhabited manly by college students and being “rich”. After explaining more dumpster diving techniques and identifying how wasteful the general population is, he ends the essay with two lessons learned. The first lesson is to only take what he needs, a found item he cannot use or make useful by trading holds no value. The second lesson learned is that material objects have a shelf life whereas mental things are longer lived. He states, “Once I was the sort of person who invests objects with sentimental value. Now I no longer have those objects, but I have the sentiments yet.”…
Laurie Schutza’s essay, “The Pack Rat Among Us” gives the readers a view of what a hoarder is like physically and mentally. A hoarder is a person who gets too attached to personal items that he/she cannot get rid of over the course of their lifetime. This causes the hoarders to have stacks of random things that must people would have disposed of. “Hoarders tend to keep what many may consider useless items such as empty food containers or cardboard boxes” (Schutza 306).…
This phrase means trying to fix things is useless, and it’s so much easier to just throw it away. This is a sarcastic comment on materialism, principally the wealthy; don’t waste energy to fixed things and just simply throw things away. The society wants continuous grow of consumers. So, people need to throw away materials to get new materials rather than fixing old ones. So this is the use of propaganda to boost citizens to do that. Every person repeatedly hears this through the process of sleep teaching starting at an early age. The phrase is continuously embedded so…
What I get from Eighner’s pierce is that even though he is living a life of poverty on the streets, he seemed to have a good attitude about the circumstances in which he lives in. As Eighner said, if most people most people, put in his situation, they would rather be dead or would trade anything to live a life of comfort. His confidence and knowledge shows his experience in dumpster diving, which most people look down upon. "At first the new scavenger is filled with disgust and self-loathing, (Eighner, 5)". Eighner finds it as an art, and something that not everyone is capable of doing. Through the good and bad Eighner finds the art of Dumpster diving as a lifelong learning experience and rewarding.…
The effect of Eighner’s attention to language in the first five paragraphs shows the audience how knowledgeable he is. Most people have the common idea that homeless people have a high illiteracy or a lack of education, but Eighner is different from most homeless people. Eighner states that he, “wrote the Merriam-Webster research service to discover what [he] could about the word “Dumpster.” [He] learned from then that “Dumpster is a proprietary word belonging to the Dempster Dumpster company” (Eighner 107). His familiarity with this information establishes ethos. Throughout these five paragraphs it is revealing Eighner’s character as someone who is drawn well to his intellect and it stabilizes his credibility as a character.…
After reading “On Dumpster Diving” by Lars Eigner, I found out a lot of new things including how people on this earth manage to live. In the beginning of the essay, there has been some information provided to us about the writer which states that he lived in Austin and was a student of University of Texas. He described how life was on streets and showed us his interest towards dumpsters. He used description in the beginning and explains about term ‘Dumpster’. His tone is basically descriptive in the opening. Slowly he becomes like an escort in explaining dumpster diving. The author discovers new things about dumpsters. I think he wants to show the readers, the life of dumpster divers. Usage of words like scavenging and scrounging makes us think…
There are two important decisions we have to make: what do I keep and what do I throw out? Schutza tells how the inability to throw out, due to the emotional attachment, is extremely hard for hoarders (Schutza 254). Dr. Randy O. Frost and his colleague RC Gross supports her as he defines hoarding as the acquisition of and failure to discard large numbers of possessions, which appear to be useless or of limited value (Frost & Gross 367-381). While hoarding is widely frowned upon, everyone, whether consciously or not, partakes of hoarding habits. Asking the question “Do we really need everything we buy and save?” she implies that we have enough, if not too much, when she explains how there was one time when only the wealthy used to be able to afford materialistic nonessentials but now that food and material are sufficient; we have just developed problems of greed (Schutza 256). Frost, Steketee, and Williams defined compulsive buying as chronic, repetitive purchasing behavior, in response to negative events and/or feelings, that is difficult to stop and…
Thoreau is very critical on human lifestyle and has a passionate distaste for all the faults of mankind. He discusses man 's love for idleness, and stresses that all of man 's work should be meaningful and sufficient. Robert Cosbey takes it a step farther when he states, "Meaningless labor corrupts. Anything which is done only to get money is corrupting" (Cosbey 15). Thoreau infers many times in his book that superfluous work, especially when done in order to take advantage of other people and their money, is shameful. He believes that people should only do the work that is required of them and "demands justice for all who, by their lives and works, are a blessing to mankind" (Thoreau 100). He also discusses traveling, and how this notion that transportation is more efficient than simply walking on foot distorts the mind. "I have learned that the swiftest traveler goes afoot," Thoreau asserts (Thoreau 77). Thoreau logically insures the reader that it would take less time to travel a week on foot as compared to taking the train, stopping constantly, and then having to pay money for it. He claims that it is probable for a thinking human being to take the former. He also says that, when traveling, do not linger. "The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till the other is ready and it may be a long time before they get off," proclaims Thoreau (Thoreau 96). It is useless…