Pleasure and Money

I've been on several missions trips to the heart of Appalachia and I live in a part of Ohio that, although it is by far not the poorest part of Appalachia, is still considered Appalachia and knows poverty and need.  Both on missions trips as well as in my own town I have noticed some interesting things about people and the things they value.

It's quite often that I've witnessed children go to bed hungry and go without adequate clothing for the weather, families lack running water or proper indoor plumbing, yet they have an Xbox, Wii, or other console, an iPhone, flat screen TVs, and other very expensive electronics.

Escobar writes,

The media portrays this hedonistic was of life and through, and propagates it across the globe.  Incitement to expensive pleasure fills the screens of TV sets in the poor societies, and young people especially crave for the symbols and instruments of a sophisticated, hedonistic West while lacking some of the basic necessities of life such as adequate housing and running water (75).

It seems that the influence of the media has turned Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs upside down and led many to believe that pleasure and expensive items go hand-in-hand.  I think we sometimes forget that this happens in our own backyards among our neighbors.