Vanity in our culture has seemingly never been stronger or more apparent. Acts of narcissism, materialism, consumerism, and the need to satisfy the ego are everywhere and seemingly apparent in almost everyone these days.

And while I went over this need for vanity and appearancs in my other article — today I want to go over this topic in a more negative light.

A great way to start this off is to watch this video below. It will get you in the proper mindset as it goes over how our culture is in an all time decline.

If you liked this video you can check out the full writeup here.

For example lets take a look at the recent boom that has been seen for cosmetic plastic surgeries over the past decade or so. In fact focusing in on rhinoplasty we can see that in 2012 there were 242,684 people that recieved rhinoplasty according to this michigan rhinoplasty specialist. Granted some of these nose job’s were for structural issues but majority were purely for aesthetic appearance only. And the numbers for plastic surgeries purely for cosmetic purposes in our western society is huge and growing.

Besides plastic surgeries of the face or areas of the body that can be seen; our need to feel better and more attractive everywhere is staggering. A good example of this is the amount of companies out there profiting off the insecurites of people by providing a solution for their shortcomings. The male enhancement industry for one is a good example of this. Due to the media and other sources out there, men are desperately ashamed of the size of their penis because it is seen as a representation of ones manhood. And due to this there are tons of expensive penis enlargement devices on the market capitilizing on this. Just check out this review of the phallosan forte I dug up. This penis extender system resembles something of a medieval torture device that claims to give men a bigger and harder penis.

And it doesnt just stop there. Women and men everywhere are becoming more and more insecure, wasting more money, becoming more stressed, and even developing personality disorders from the vanity and pressures in our current culture.

Marshall Mcluhan made once uttered a quote saying that “the last thing a fish would ever notice in its habitat is the water”. And this same type of message applies to us humans in our everyday lives and within our cutlure. Very infrequently do people take a break from their everyday lives to actually stop and look at whats going on around them. Typically from being too busy in the daily grind or from the fear of social alienation.

But when one actually does stop to think about our supposed normality — we start to unravel the dark truth thats really behind it.