Everyday we are bombarded with images of what our society views as the necessaries of life. We are barrage with advertisements of fancy cars, expensive houses, and exotic vacations these images teach our children a distorted priority system. The consequences of these priorities are played out in living color on the nightly news. I believe that materialism is the cause of the break down of the family and the caused of moral decay within our society. Each society establishes it's own set values based on what its perception is of right and wrong. In past generations the line of right and wrong were very clear. Unfortunately with each new generation that line of right and wrong has blurred to where it almost unrecognizable.
             According to a story in International Herald Tribune, the University of California has found that "74.9% of 1997 fall first-year students are motivated by monetary gain while only 40.8% of students wanted to develop a personal philosophy." Where as two decades age 82.5% in 1968 who chose creating a personal philosophy over material gain (Lee 1). The priorities of self development has been replace with selfless materialistic wants.
             Over the past three decades, we have seen a trend toward materialism. Society as a whole has moved away from the perfection of the inner person and has put a higher price on the ownership of possessions. Materialism has increased as fast as the moral conscience has declined. We have become a culture of consumers. Although a distinction of our society is that we use, material belongings to attain non-material goals. Children in the last two generations have been taught to equate self-worth with their belongings. The better the "toys" the better we are as person is. The problem is that children especially children of generation X have not been taught the basic values that our society holds. Parents of today are unable or simple unwilling to take the...