2. 职称英语
  3. Early in the age of affluence that followed World War Ⅱ, an American retaili

Early in the age of affluence that followed World War Ⅱ, an American retaili

游客2024-08-18  54
问题     Early in the age of affluence that followed World War Ⅱ, an American retailing analyst named Victor Lebow proclaimed, "Our enormously productive economy ... demands that we make consumptions our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption  We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever increasing rate."
    Americans have responded to Lebow’s call, and much of the world has followed.
    Consumption has become a central pillar of life in industrial lands and is even embedded in social values. Opinion surveys in the world’s two largest economies--Japan and the United States--show consumerist definitions of success becoming ever more prevalent.
    Over-consumption by the world’s fortunate is an environmental problem unmatched in severity by anything but perhaps population growth. Their surging exploitation of resources threatens to exhaust or unalterably spoil forests, soils, water, air and climate.
    Ironically, high consumption may be a mixed blessing in human terms, too. The time-honored values of integrity of character, good work, friendship, family and community have often been sacrificed in the rush to riches.
    Thus many in the industrial lands have a sense that their world of plenty is somehow hollow--that, misled by a consumerist culture, they have been fruitlessly attempting to satisfy what are essentially social, psychological and spiritual needs with material things.
    Of course, the opposite of over-consumption--poverty--is no solution to either environmental or human problems. It is infinitely worse for people and bad for the natural world too. Dispossessed (被剥夺得一无所有的) peasants slash-and-burn their way into the rain forests of Latin America, and hungry nomads (游牧民族) turn their herds out onto fragile African grassland, reducing it to desert.
    If environmental destruction results when people have either too little or too much, we are left to wonder how much is enough. What level of consumption can the earth support? When does having more cease to add noticeably to human satisfaction? [br] Apart from enormous productivity, another important impetus to high consumption is ______.
选项 A、the conversion of the sale of goods into rituals
B、the people’s desire for a rise in their living standards
C、the imbalance that has existed between production and consumption
D、the concept that one’s success is measured by how much they consume
答案 D
解析
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