Affluenenza – excuse or challenge?

Affluenza, used as a legal defense, has provoked strong reactions. But is affluenza something more than a legal excuse? Is it a societal challenge,  a global malaise and life-threatening disease of epidemic proportions?

A decade before its use as a legal defense, FamVin reported on this phenomenon in 2002 .

What Is Affluenza?

A 1997 documentary drew attention to affluenza—consumerism and materialism in modern society.

Affluenza is a dysfunctional relationship with money/wealth, or the pursuit of it.

Individual and cultural symptoms are: an inability to delay gratification and tolerate frustration; a false sense of entitlement; loss of future motivation; low self-esteem; loss of self-confidence; low self-worth; preoccupation with externals.Affluenza is not simply “a rich person’s disease.” Because affluenza separates us from one another — and from ourselves — both our personal and professional productivity decreases and all of society suffers. Read more at the Affluenza Project

Escape from Affluenza is a 1998 PBS 56-minute documentary film produced as a sequel to the 1997 documentary Affluenza. While the original concentrates on affluenza—consumerism and materialism in modern society, the sequel focuses on how to avoid this.^[1] It looks at stories of how to reduce debt, stress, time-pressure and possession-overload.^[2]

Even financial planners have taken note of this communicable disease.

And once again  ’tis the season for affluenza. Have you gotten your flu shot?