The False Ideology of wealth and appearance

In accordance with the reading “Ideology” and also with the excerpt from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel’s The German Ideology, I immediately thought of the capitalist conception of consumerism and the large push by our media to denote a person’s value from the price of their lifestyle. I especially found the term “false ideology” present in the dealing with consumerism. In reality, the idea of a person’s worth has nothing to do with the price of their clothes or the extent of their vacation travels. However, the messages we receive from our media include people with nicer, more expensive clothing are more adapt and personally put together. This idea also coincides with the appearance conundrum. If at first glance a person is appealing, we have the idea they are a better, more personable person than someone who is not clean-cut, dressed to the nines with a large, kind smile.

It is also emanated to us that wealthier people are stronger, more apt people. The idea is a person has worked hard at getting or keeping their wealth. A lazy, idiotic, and unintelligent person would not be able to amount and retain wealth. On the apposition, there is the idea that poor people, people on welfare for example, actually prefer to be dependent. Those people want to milk the rich for all their worth and hard work, and want nothing to do with making themselves better people. However, this simply is not the case. Many people on welfare are born into poverty, and do not want to depend upon someone else for their well-being. It is a false ideology that wealthier people are “better” than poor people. Another interesting aspect of this is the fact that wealthier people are less likely to donate a larger portion of their wealth to charitable causes than people that are not as well off, a fact that turns the wealth ideology on its nose.