The Divine Wedgie
Five years ago, in an attempt to reduce smoking and its associated health costs, the Australian government mandated that all tobacco products be sold in uniformly plain green packaging, with the most prominent aspect of the packaging being a series of graphic health warnings.
In debates leading up to the introduction of plain packaging, one of the arguments for the measure was to remove the romanticisation of smoking attached to the images and logos on the packaging.
Those that used this line of argument drew our attention to an interesting motivator behind our consumption. We do not just use consumer products to satisfy crass material needs or wants.
Rather, those material products are vehicles to…
Read the full article at The Catholic Weekly
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