David Klepper

In the subsequent viewpoint, David Klepper, a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign at the time this viewpoint was written, asserts that consumerism has become the driving force of American society. According to Klepper, Americans are fixated on the mindless and never- ending pursuit of material satisfaction.

As you read, consider the following questions:

1. Who is to blame for numbing Americans’ minds, in Klepper’s opinion?
2. According to the author, how has society been tainted by consumerism"

June 1999 was the 50th anniversary of the release of 1984, by George Orwell. He wrote it as a caution to various social and political trends he saw amassing strength in postwar Europe. He foresaw a large, fascist bureaucracy that controlled the lives of its citizens through mind-numbing social conditioning, paranoia and constant surveillance. This government, Big Brother, not...