Over at the really wonderful, still new, blog Millennial Journal, writes about the effort to confront the consumer culture and let young women know that they do not need make-up to be beautiful, they are beautiful already. Consumerism is highly coercive, especially for the young who are promised that beauty, or self-esteem, or something, is only a few dollars away. It is disgusting. Christian's post brought to mind these words from the USCCB's statement on Hispanics and the New Evangelization, which may be my favorite from any church document in the past few decades:
In our country, the modern, technological, functional mentality creates a world of replaceable individuals incapable of authentic solidarity. In its place, society is grouped by artificial arrangements created by powerful interests. The common ground is an increasingly dull, sterile, consumer conformism – visible especially among so many of our young people – created by artificial needs promoted by the media to support powerful economic interests. Pope John Paul II has called this a ‘culture of death.’…The New Evangelization, therefore, requires the Church to provide refuge and sustenance for ongoing growth to those rescued from the loneliness of modern life. It requires the promotion of a culture of life based on the Gospel of life.”
